St. Francis of Assisi window - St. Joseph’s Monastery in Aptos, CA – Artist: Susan Wagner

October 4 is the feast of St. Francis of Assisi. Francis was born in Assisi, Italy in about 1182 and died at the Porziuncola, a chapel outside Assisi’s walls, in 1226. He is one of the best known saints, founder of the Order of Friars Minor or Franciscans, the Poor Ladies or Order of St. Clare  (Poor Clares – founded with St. Clare of Assisi) and the Third Order Franciscans, including lay men and women who also wanted to live in accordance with the Gospels in a Franciscan manner. There are many sub-groups of Franciscans.

Brother Bill Short, OFM  of the Franciscan School of Theology, Berkeley, CA has developed an excellent series of lectures on the life and times of St. Francis. I listened to it recently and was fascinated with the richness of detail he included about the culture and history of the times, as well as the people who each played a part in the story of St. Francis.

I asked Brother Bill and a few others for reflections on St. Francis for his feast – one thing they would like people to know about him. I received these responses.

From Brother Bill:

Something (one thing) I would like people to know about St. Francis – hmmmm, there’s an embarrassment of riches.  Let me try this:
 
Francis was rather alarmed by the notion that people might think he was some kind of saint.  In a fairly reliable account from companions who travelled with him, recounted some fifteen years after his death, they remember that on travelling through a town in Tuscany, a man pleaded with Francis to pray that his wife would be freed from an evil spirit that was making her cry out, disturbing the neighbors.  Francis seemed pretty skeptical, but finally agreed to go to the house, along with three companions.  He stationed them in three corners of the room where the woman was ranting, while he took one corner for himself.  They all prayed, and the woman stopped shrieking, apparently healed.  The husband thanked Francis profusely, but Francis seemed in a hurry to move along.  Some time later he passed through the same town with Brother Elias (his vicar) and the woman came rushing out to thank him.  He still seemed reluctant to accept her story, but finally agreed that she had been freed from her problem – but he was very clear that four brothers had prayed for her (including him) and who knew which prayer God had answered?  That’s good, practical humility, I think.
 
I like the story because it shows Francis as someone with a pretty shrewd sense of “phonies,” and a cautious approach to anyone (including himself!) being considered a saint during their own lifetime.

From Sr. Krista Aitkin of St. Joseph’s Monastery in Aptos, CA

St. Francis of Assisi is a spirit and a way of life.  His spirit and his way of living are reality lived,  not an idea or ideal, or even a formula.  Everything about St. Francis is an invitation to practice.  He is not locked into “a system.”  He lives reality through devotion toward others,  respect for the poor and for all of God’s creation.  In short,  St. Francis lives in and through the Word of God.  His charism is not linked to a particular apostolate,  but is focused on “becoming” rather than “producing,”  on one spirituality – putting on Christ,  who called himself the way,  the truth,  and our life.

Thank you to Brother Bill and Sr. Krista for your responses to my question and for sharing your love of St. Francis with me. May the Lord continue to bless you richly.

October 4 is the feast of St. Francis of Assisi (1182-1226). I once heard a priest ( a non-Franciscan) say that St. Francis was one of the great religious figures of all time. Francis left a life of privilege and comfort to adopt a radical Christian lifestyle of poverty and service to the poor. Francis became the reluctant head of a major religious movement of men and women. Today he is revered by Christians and non-Christians around the world as a model of peace, humility, and compassion.

Francis was one of seven children and he was baptized Giovanni di Bernadone. His parents were Pietro di Bernardone and Pica Bourlemont. His father called him Francesco – an apparent reference to his mother’s French heritage. Francis’ father was a successful cloth merchant and Francis had the benefit of a good education. He ran with a group of young well-to-do friends who spent their time drinking, partying, and chasing women. From time to time his charity got the better of him, and his friends – as well as his father – mocked him for his foolishness in giving to the needy.

The story of his conversion is a gradual one involving a year in Perugia as a prisoner of war, illness, and a constant sense of calling. Franco Zefirelli’s film biography of St. Francis, “Brother Son, Sister Moon” (1973), presents a young idealistic, impractical man. To many, Zefirelli’s St. Francis was a hippie. As “mature” (read “jaded”) sophisticates, it is easy to be condescending to St. Francis as portrayed by his biographers and the facts of his actual life. However, if we dismiss St. Francis as a gentle fool, we do so to his model – Christ.

The early impact of St. Francis on the Church was to renew personal devotion to Christ as the Incarnate Word dwelling with us. He invented the “creche,” or nativity scene, as an opportunity and aid to contemplation of the human birth of God in poverty to the powerless of the world. Service to the outcast – lepers, the homeless, the mentally ill, the destitute – became service to Christ in our midst. The presence of God in His creation and all life forms, is a hallmark of his spirituality. St. Francis’ tangible sense of God would continue to ripple down the centuries, not only through members of the Franciscan family – St. Bonaventure and John Duns Scotus – but also St. Dominic, St, Thomas Aquinas, St. Ignatius Loyola, and St. Vincent de Paul. The work of Franciscan Fr. Richard Rohr is a good example of the spirituality of St. Francis today. The life and example of St. Francis permeates western Christianity – both Catholic and Protestant – in such a way that it is difficult to conceive of Christianity without him.

Today, St. Francis is important to people around the world facing issues of hunger, nuclear war, and environmental collapse. Every year in September in Assisi, the United Nations holds a peace conference and Pope John Paul II led inter-faith peace services on more than one occasion. St. Francis continues to challenge those who are religious and mystical to encounter the living God in the messiness of everyday life and problems which seem completely beyond our control.