Saint Francis of Assisi is the patron saint of animals and the environment. He and Catherine of Siena are the two patrons of Italy. His feast day is October 4.
Born around 1181, Francis was one of several children of Pietro Bernardone, a wealthy merchant, and his wife Pica, who may have come from a noble French family.
Handsome and witty, Francis spent his youth pursuing extravagant pleasures. When he was about twenty, Francis joined his fellow townsmen to fight the Perugians in one of the petty skirmishes common at the time. On this occasion, the Assisians were defeated, and Francis was held captive for more than a year in Perugia. While it is likely he began his conversion here, upon his return to Assisi, Francis resumed his carefree ways.
In 1204, a serious illness led to his spiritual crisis. After recovering, Francis attempted to join the papal forces against Frederick II in late 1205. On his journey, he had a dream that convinced him to return to Assisi and await the call to a new kind of knighthood. After this, he dedicated himself to solitude and prayer so that he might learn God’s will for him.
Several other episodes also contributed to his devotion, among them an incident in which he not only gave alms to a leper, whom he considered repugnant, but also kissed his hand.
However, according to his first biographer, Thomas of Celano, the most important event occurred at the ruined chapel of San Damiano outside the gate of Assisi when Francis heard the crucifix above the altar command him: “Go, Francis, and repair my house which, as you see, is falling down.” Taking this literally, Francis hurried home, gathered fine cloth from his father’s shop, and rode off to a nearby town, where he sold both the cloth and the horse. He then tried to give the money to the priest at San Damiano, who refused it. This prompted Francis to throw the money out the window. When his father heard about this, he was angered and summoned him before the civil authorities. When Francis didn’t respond, his father called him before the bishop of Assisi. Before the bishop, Francis “without a word peeled off his garments even removing his breeches and restored them to his father.” Completely naked, he said, “Until now I have called you my father on earth. But henceforth I can truly say: Our Father who art in heaven.” The astonished bishop gave him a cloak, and Francis went off to the woods of Mount Subasio above the city.
Thereafter, Francis renounced worldly goods and family to embrace a life of poverty. Preaching to townspeople—even though he was still a layperson and was not authorized to do so—he soon attracted followers. In 1209, he composed for his mendicant brothers a simple rule drawn from passages in the Bible: “To follow the teachings of our Lord Jesus Christ and to walk in his footsteps.” He then led his friars to Rome to seek the approval of Pope Innocent III. This was an important step that demonstrated Francis’s recognition of papal authority. The pope approved the Franciscan rule of life, according to tradition, on April 16, 1209. The Friars Minor, or Lesser Brothers, as they came to be known, were street preachers without possessions. They preached and worked first in Umbria and then, as their numbers grew, throughout Italy.
During Lent of 1212, a wealthy young noblewoman, upon hearing Francis preaching, became deeply touched by his message. Realizing her calling, Clare begged Francis to allow her to embrace the new manner of life he had founded. On Palm Sunday, Francis received Clare at the Porziuncola, thereby establishing the Order of Poor Ladies, later called Poor Clares.
Determined to bring the Gospel to all, Francis, on several occasions, sought to spread the Word beyond Italy, but circumstances prevented him.
Finally, in 1219, Francis, along with a few of his followers, embarked on a peaceful journey to Egypt, where he preached to the Sultan al-Kamil. While not convinced to convert, the Sultan, it is said, was impressed and allowed him to visit the sacred sites in the Holy Land.
At Christmastime, 1223, Francis displayed the first known crèche in the town of Greccio, near Assisi. Wishing to reveal the authenticity of Christ’s birth, the story goes, he brought in a manger, hay, an ox, and an ass. When all was ready, people from around the valley were “filled with joy” at what they saw, and Greccio was made, as it were, “a new Bethlehem.”
In the summer of 1224, Francis went to the mountain retreat of Alvernia, not far from Assisi. During this time of reflection and fasting, he prayed that he might know how best to please God. Opening the Gospels for the answer, he came upon references to the Passion of Christ three times. As he prayed during the morning of the feast of the Exaltation of the Cross on September 14, he beheld a figure coming toward him from the heavens. It was here that Francis became the first recorded stigmatic in Christian history. As St. Bonaventure, minister general of the Franciscans from 1257 to 1274 and a leading theologian of the 13th century, described:
As it stood above him, he saw that it was a man and yet a Seraph with six wings . . . Pondering what this vision might mean, he finally understood that by God’s providence he would be made like to the crucified Christ not by a bodily martyrdom but by conformity in mind and heart. Then as the vision disappeared, it left not only a greater ardour of love in the inner man but no less marvelously marked him outwardly with the stigmata of the Crucified.
In constant pain and almost totally blind from an eye disease contracted while in the Middle East, Francis lived for two more years. Medical treatment was unsuccessful, and after a stay at Siena, he was brought back to Assisi, where he died on October 3, 1226. On July 15, 1228, after a process of unprecedented speed, Francis was canonized by Pope Gregory IX.
It is important to note that many of the stories surrounding the life of St. Francis deal with his love for animals and the natural world. The most famous of these, illustrating his humility towards nature, are recounted in the “Fioretti” (“Little Flowers”), a collection that appeared around the end of the 14th century. His “Canticle of the Sun,” a poem written perhaps in 1224 expresses a love and appreciation of Brother Sun, Sister Moon, Mother Earth, Brother Fire . . . and all of God’s creations.
