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St. Francis of Assisi - A
Detailed Biography
This information is taken from the online article on Saint Francis of
Assisi by Catholic
Encyclopedia online. It is an excellent rendition
of the life of the poor little one.
St Francis of Assisi, founder of the Franciscan Order, was born at Assisi
in Umbria, in 1181 or 1182— the exact year is uncertain; he died there on 3
October, 1226.
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The Early Years Francis received some elementary instruction
from the priests of St George's at Assisi, though he learned more perhaps in
the school of the Troubadours, who were just then making for refinement in
Italy. However this may be, he was not very studious, and his literary
education remained incomplete. Although associated with his father in trade,
he showed little liking for a merchant's career, and his parents seemed to have
indulged his every whim. Thomas of Celano, his first biographer, speaks
in very severe terms of Francis's youth. |
Certain it is that the saint's early life gave no presage of the golden
years that were to come. No one loved pleasure more than Francis; he had a
ready wit, sang merrily, delighted in fine clothes and showy display. Handsome,
gay, gallant, and courteous, he soon became the prime favourite among the young
nobles of Assisi, the foremost in every feat of arms, the leader of the civil
revels, the very king of frolic. But even at this time Francis showed an
instinctive sympathy with the poor, and though he spent money lavishly, it
still flowed in such channels as to attest a princely magnanimity of spirit.
Perugia and
Spoleto
When about twenty, Francis went out with the townsmen to fight the Perugians in
one of the petty skirmishes so frequent at that time between the rival cities.
The Assisians were defeated on this occasion, and Francis, being among those
taken prisoners, was held captive for more than a year in Perugia. A low fever
which he there contracted appears to have turned his thoughts to the things of
eternity; at least the emptiness of the life he had been leading came to him
during that long illness. With returning health, however, Francis's eagerness
after glory reawakened and his fancy wandered in search of victories; at length
he resolved to embrace a military career, and circumstances seemed to favour
his aspirations. A knight of Assisi was about to join 'the gentle count',
Walter of Brienne, who was then in arms in the Neapolitan States against the
emperor, and Francis arranged to accompany him.
His biographers tell us that the night before Francis set forth he had a
strange dream, in which he saw a vast hall hung with armour all marked with the
Cross. "These", said a voice, "are for you and your
soldiers." "I know I shall be a great prince", exclaimed Francis
exultingly, as he started for Apulia. But a second illness arrested his course
at Spoleto. There, we are told, Francis had another dream in which the same
voice bade him turn back to Assisi. He did so at once. This was in 1205.
Turning Point:
Conversion
Although Francis still joined at times in the noisy revels of his former
comrades, his changed demeanour plainly showed that his heart was no longer
with them; a yearning for the life of the spirit had already possessed it. His
companions twitted Francis on his absent-mindedness and asked if he were minded
to be married. "Yes", he replied, "I am about to take a wife of
surpassing fairness." She was no other than Lady Poverty whom Dante and
Giotto have wedded to his name, and whom even now he had begun to love. After a
short period of uncertainty he began to seek in prayer and solitude the answer
to his call; he had already given up his gay attire and wasteful ways. One day,
while crossing the Umbrian plain on horseback, Francis unexpectedly drew near a
poor leper. The sudden appearance of this repulsive object filled him with
disgust and he instinctively retreated, but presently controlling his natural
aversion he dismounted, embraced the unfortunate man, and gave him all the
money he had.
About the same time Francis made a pilgrimage to Rome. Pained at the
miserly offerings he saw at the tomb of St Peter, he emptied his purse thereon.
Then, as if to put his fastidious nature to the test, he exchanged clothes with
a tattered mendicant and stood for the rest of the day fasting among the horde
of beggars at the door of the basilica.
At San Damiano
Not long after his return to Assisi, whilst Francis was praying before an
ancient crucifix in the forsaken wayside chapel of San Damiano below the town,
he heard a voice saying: "Go, Francis, and repair my house, which as you
see is falling into ruin." Taking this behest literally, as referring to
the ruinous church wherein he knelt, Francis went to his father's shop,
impulsively bundled together a load of coloured drapery, and mounting his horse
hastened to Foligno, then a mart of some importance, and there sold both horse
and stuff to procure the money needful for the restoration of San
Damiano. When, however, the poor priest who officiated there refused to receive
the gold thus gotten, Francis flung it from him disdainfully.
The elder Bernardone was incensed beyond measure at his son's
conduct, and Francis, to avert his father's wrath, hid himself in a cave near
San Damiano for a whole month. When he emerged from this place of concealment
and returned to the town, emaciated with hunger and squalid with dirt, Francis
was followed by a hooting rabble, pelted with mud and stones, and otherwise
mocked as a madman. Finally, he was dragged home by his father, beaten, bound,
and locked in a dark closet.
"Our Father
in heaven"
Freed by his mother during Bernardone's absence, Francis returned at once to
San Damiano, where he found a shelter with the officiating priest, but he was
soon cited before the city consuls by his father. The latter, not content with
having recovered the scattered gold from San Damiano, sought also to force his
son to forego his inheritance. This Francis was only too eager to do; he
declared, however, that since he had entered the service of God he was no
longer under civil jurisdiction. Having therefore been taken before the bishop,
Francis stripped himself of the very clothes he wore, and gave them to his
father, saying: "Hitherto I have called you my father on earth; henceforth
I desire to say only 'Our Father who art in Heaven.'" Then and there, as
Dante sings, were solemnised Francis's nuptials with his beloved spouse, the
Lady Poverty, under which name, in the mystical language afterwards so familiar
to him, he comprehended the total surrender of all worldly goods, honours, and
privileges.
The Life of the Gospel
and Early Companions
And now Francis wandered forth into the hills behind Assisi, improvising hymns
of praise as he went. "I am the herald of the great King", he
declared in answer to some robbers, who thereupon despoiled him of all he had
and threw him scornfully in a snow drift. Naked and half frozen, Francis
crawled to a neighbouring monastery and there worked for a time as a scullion.
At Gubbio, whither he went next, Francis obtained from a friend the cloak,
girdle, and staff of a pilgrim as an alms. Returning to Assisi, he traversed
the city begging stones for the restoration of San Damiano. These he carried to
the old chapel, set in place himself, and so at length rebuilt it. In the same
way Francis afterwards restored two other deserted chapels, St Peter's, some
distance from the city, and St Mary of the Angels, in the plain below it, at a
spot called the Portiuncula.
Meantime he redoubled his zeal in works of charity, more especially in
nursing the lepers. On a certain morning in 1208, probably 24 February, Francis
was hearing Mass in the chapel of St Mary of the Angels, near which he had then
built himself a hut; the Gospel of the day told how the disciples of Christ
were to possess neither gold nor silver, nor scrip for their journey, nor two coats,
nor shoes, nor a staff, and that they were to exhort sinners to repentance and
announce the Kingdom of God. Francis took these words as if spoken directly to
himself, and so soon as Mass was over threw away the poor fragment left him of
the world's goods,his shoes, cloak, pilgrim staff, and empty wallet. At last he
had found his vocation. Having obtained a coarse woolen tunic of "beast
colour", the dress then worn by the poorest Umbrian peasants, and tied it
round him with a knotted rope, Francis went forth at once exhorting the people
of the country-side to penance, brotherly love, and peace.
The Assisians had already ceased to scoff at Francis; they now paused in
wonderment; his example even drew others to him. Bernard of Quintavalle, a
magnate of the town, was the first to join Francis and he was soon followed by
Peter of Cattaneo, a well-known canon of the cathedral. In true spirit of
religious enthusiasm, Francis repaired to the church of St Nicholas and sought
to learn God's will in their regard by thrice opening at random the book of the
Gospels on the altar. Each time it opened at passages where Christ told His
disciples to leave all things and follow Him. "This shall be our rule of
life", exclaimed Francis, and led his companions to the public square,
where they forthwith gave away all their belongings to the poor.
After this they procured rough habits like that of Francis, and built
themselves small huts near his at the Porziuncola. A few days later Giles,
afterwards the great ecstatic and sayer of "good words", became the
third follower of Francis. The little band divided and went about, two and two,
making such an impression by their words and behaviour that before long several
other disciples grouped themselves round Francis eager to share his poverty,
among them being Sabatinus, vir bonus et justus, Moricus, who had belonged to
the Crucigeri, John of Capella, who afterwards fell away, Philip "the
Long", and four others of whom we know only the names.
The Approval of
the Church
When the number of his companions had increased to eleven, Francis found it
expedient to draw up a written rule for them. This first rule,as it is called,
of the Friars Minor has not come down to us in its original form, but it
appears to have been very short and simple, a mere adaptation of the Gospel
precepts already selected by Francis for the guidance of his first companions,
and which he desired to practice in all their perfection.
When this rule was ready the Penitents of Assisi, as Francis and his
followers styled themselves, set out for Rome to seek the approval of the Holy
See, although as yet no such approbation was obligatory. There are differing
accounts of Francis's reception by Innocent III. It seems, however, that Guido,
Bishop of Assisi, who was then in Rome, commended Francis to Cardinal John of
St Paul, and that at the instance of the latter, the pope recalled the saint
whose first overtures he had, as it appears, somewhat rudely rejected.
Moreover, in site of the sinister predictions of others in the Sacred College,
who regarded the mode of life proposed by Francis as unsafe and impracticable,
Innocent, moved it is said by a dream in which he beheld the Poor Man of Assisi
upholding the tottering Lateran, gave a verbal sanction to the rule submitted by
Francis and granted the saint and his companions leave to preach repentance
everywhere. Before leaving Rome they all received the ecclesiastical tonsure,
Francis himself being ordained deacon later on.
After their return to Assisi, the Friars Minor, for thus Francis had names
his brethren — either after the minores, or lower classes, as some think, or as
others believe, with reference to the Gospel (Matthew 25:40-45), and as a
perpetual reminder of their humility — found shelter in a deserted hut at Rivo Torto
in the plain below the city, but were forced to abandon this poor abode by a
rough peasant who drove in his ass upon them. About 1211 they obtained a
permanent foothold near Assisi, through the generosity of the Benedictines of
Monte Subasio, who gave them the little chapel of St Mary of the Angels or the
Portiuncula. Adjoining this humble sanctuary, already dear to Francis, the
first Franciscan convent was formed by the erection of a few small huts or
cells of wattle, straw, and mud, and enclosed by a hedge. From this settlement,
which became the cradle of the Franciscan Order (Caput et Mater Ordinis) and
the central spot in the life of St Francis, the Friars Minor went forth two by
two exhorting the people of the surrounding country. Like children "careless
of the day", they wandered from place to place singing in their joy, and
calling themselves the Lord's minstrels.
The wide world was their cloister; sleeping in haylofts, grottos, or church
porches, they toiled with the labourers in the fields, and when none gave them
work they would beg. In a short while Francis and his companions gained an
immense influence, and men of different grades of life and way of thought
flocked to the order. Among the new recruits made about this time By Francis
were the famous Three Companions, who afterwards wrote his life, namely:
Angelus Tancredi, a noble cavalier; Leo, the saint's secretary and confessor;
and Rufinus, a cousin of St Clare; besides Juniper, "the renowned jester
of the Lord".
St Clare of Assisi
and the Poor Clares
During the Lent of 1212, a new joy, great as it was unexpected, came to
Francis. Clare, a young heiress of Assisi, moved by the saint's preaching at
the church of St George, sought him out, and begged to be allowed to embrace
the new manner of life he had founded. By his advice, Clare, who was then but
eighteen, secretly left her father's house on the night following Palm Sunday,
and with two companions went to the Porziuncola, where the friars met her in
procession, carrying lighted torches.
Then Francis, having cut off her hair, clothed her in the habit and
thus received her to a life of poverty, penance, and seclusion. Clare stayed
provisionally with some Benedictine nuns near Assisi, until Francis could
provide a suitable retreat for her, and for St Agnes, her sister, and the other
pious maidens who had joined her. He eventually established them at San
Damiano, in a dwelling adjoining the chapel he had rebuilt with his own
hands, which was now given to the saint by the Benedictines as domicile for his
spiritual daughters, and which thus became the first monastery of the Second
Franciscan Order of Poor Ladies, now known as Poor Clares.
Snippets
In the autumn of the same year (1212) Francis's burning desire for the
conversion of the Saracens led him to embark for Syria, but having been
shipwrecked on the coast of Slavonia, he had to return to Ancona. The following
spring he devoted himself to evangelizing Central Italy. About this time (1213)
Francis received from Count Orlando of Chiusi the mountain of La Verna, an
isolated peak among the Tuscan Apennines, rising some 4000 feet above the
valley of the Casentino, as a retreat, "especially favourable for
contemplation", to which he might retire from time to time for prayer and
rest. For Francis never altogether separated the contemplative from the active
life, as the several hermitages associated with his memory, and the quaint
regulations he wrote for those living in them bear witness. At one time,
indeed, a strong desire to give himself wholly to a life of contemplation seems
to have possessed the saint. During the next year (1214) Francis set out for
Morocco, in another attempt to reach the infidels and, if needs be, to shed his
blood for the Gospel, but while yet in Spain was overtaken by so severe an
illness that he was compelled to turn back to Italy once more.
Authentic details are unfortunately lacking of Francis's journey to Spain and
sojourn there. It probably took place in the winter of 1214-1215. After his
return to Umbria he received several noble and learned men into his order,
including his future biographer Thomas of Celano. The next eighteen months
comprise, perhaps, the most obscure period of the saint's life.
That he took part in the Lateran Council of 1215 may well be, but it is not
certain; we know from Eccleston, however, that Francis was present at the death
of Innocent II, which took place at Perugia, in July 1216. Shortly afterwards,
i.e. very early in the pontificate of Honorius III, is placed the concession of
the famous Portiuncula Indulgence. It is related that once, while Francis was
praying at the Portiuncula, Christ appeared to him and offered him whatever
favour he might desire.The salvation of souls was ever the burden of Francis's
prayers,and wishing moreover, to make his beloved Portiuncula a sanctuary where
many might be saved, he begged a plenary Indulgence for all who, having
confessed their sins, should visit the little chapel. Our Lord acceded to this
request on condition that the pope should ratify the Indulgence.
Francis thereupon set out for Perugia, with Brother Masseo, to find
Honorius III. The latter, notwithstanding some opposition from the Curia at
such an unheard-of favour, granted the Indulgence, restricting it, however, to
one day yearly. He subsequently fixed 2 August in perpetuity, as the day for
gaining this Portiuncula Indulgence, commonly known in Italy as il perdono
d'Assisi. Such is the traditional account. The fact that there is no record of
this Indulgence in either the papal or diocesan archives and no allusion to it
in the earliest biographies of Francis or other contemporary documents has led
some writers to reject the whole story.
The First
International Meeting
The first general chapter of the Friars Minor was held in May, 1217, at
Portiuncula, the order being divided into provinces, and an apportionment made
of the Christian world into so many Franciscan missions. Tuscany, Lombardy,
Provence, Spain, and Germany were assigned to five of Francis's principal
followers; for himself the saint reserved France, and he actually set out for
that kingdom, but on arriving at Florence, was dissuaded from going further by
Cardinal Ugolino, who had been made protector of the order in 1216.
He therefore sent in his stead Brother Pacificus, who in the world had been
renowned as a poet, together with Brother Agnellus, who later on established
the Friars Minor in England. Although success came indeed to Francis and his
friars, with it came also opposition, and it was with a view to allaying any prejudices
the Curia might have imbibed against their methods that Francis, at the
instance of Cardinal Ugolino, went to Rome and preached before the pope and
cardinals in the Lateran. This visit to the Eternal City, which took place
1217-18, was apparently the occasion of Francis's memorable meeting with St
Dominic. The year 1218 Francis devoted to missionary tours in Italy, which were
a continual triumph for him. He usually preached out of doors, in the
market-places, from church steps, from the walls of castle court- yards.
Allured by the magic spell of his presence, admiring crowds, unused for the
rest to anything like popular preaching in the vernacular, followed Francis
from place to place hanging on his lips; church bells rang at his approach;
processions of clergy and people advanced to meet him with music and singing;
they brought the sick to him to bless and heal, and kissed the very ground on
which he trod, and even sought to cut away pieces of his tunic. The
extraordinary enthusiasm with which the saint was everywhere welcomed was
equalled only by the immediate and visible result of his preaching. His
exhortations of the people, for sermons they can hardly be called, short,
homely, affectionate, and pathetic, touched even the hardest and most frivolous,
and Francis became in sooth a very conqueror of souls.
Thus it happened, on one occasion, while the saint was preaching at Camara,
a small village near Assisi, that the whole congregation were so moved by his
"words of spirit and life" that they presented themselves to him in a
body and begged to be admitted into his order. It was to accede, so far as
might be, to like requests that Francis devised his Third Order, as it is now
called, of the Brothers and Sisters of Penance, which he intended as a sort of
middle state between the world and the cloister for those who could not leave
their home or desert their wonted avocations in order to enter either the First
Order of Friars Minor or the Second Order of Poor Ladies.
That Francis prescribed particular duties for these tertiaries is beyond
question. They were not to carry arms, or take oaths, or engage in lawsuits,
etc. It is also said that he drew up a formal rule for them, but it is clear
that the rule, confirmed by Nicholas IV in 1289, does not, at least in the form
in which it has come down to us, represent the original rule of the Brothers
and Sisters of Penance. In any event, it is customary to assign 1221 as the
year of the foundation of this third order, but the date is not certain.
Page 3 of the life of St Francis of Assisi. This information is taken from the
online article on the saint by Catholic Encyclopedia online. It is an excellent
rendition of the life of the poor little one.
Of the Missions
and Other Important Matters
At the second general chapter (May, 1219) Francis, bent on realizing his
project of evangelising the infidels, assigned a separate mission to each of
his foremost disciples, himself selecting the seat of war between the crusaders
and the Saracens. With eleven companions, including Brother Illuminato and
Peter of Cattaneo, Francis set sail from Ancona on 21 June, for Saint-Jean
d'Acre, and he was present at the siege and taking of Damietta.
After preaching there to the assembled Christian forces, Francis fearlessly
passed over to the infidel camp, where he was taken prisoner and led before the
sultan. According to the testimony of Jacques de Vitry, who was with the
crusaders at Damietta, the sultan received Francis with courtesy, but beyond
obtaining a promise from this ruler of more indulgent treatment for the
Christian captives, the saint's preaching seems to have effected little. Before
returning to Europe, the saint is believed to have visited Palestine and there
obtained for the friars the foothold they still retain as guardians of the holy
places. What is certain is that Francis was compelled to hasten back to Italy
because of various troubles that had arisen there during his absence. News had
reached him in the East that Matthew of Narni and Gregory of Naples, the two vicars-general
whom he had left in charge of the order, had summoned a chapter which, among
other innovations, sought to impose new fasts upon the friars, more severe than
the rule required.
Moreover, Cardinal Ugolino had conferred on the Poor Ladies a written rule
which was practically that of the Benedictine nuns, and Brother Philip, whom
Francis had charged with their interests, had accepted it.
To make matters worse, John of Capella, one of the saint's first
companions, had assembled a large number of lepers, both men and women, with a
view to forming them into a new religious order, and had set out for Rome to
seek approval for the rule he had drawn up for these unfortunates. Finally a
rumour had been spread abroad that Francis was dead, so that when the saint
returned to Italy with brother Elias — he appeared to have arrived at Venice in
July, 1220 — a general feeling of unrest prevailed among the friars. Apart from
these difficulties, the order was then passing through a period of transition.
It had become evident that the simple, familiar, and unceremonious ways which
had marked the Franciscan movement at its beginning were gradually
disappearing, and that the heroic poverty practiced by Francis and his
companions at the outset became less easy as the friars with amazing rapidity
increased in number. And this Francis could not help seeing on his return.
Cardinal Ugolino had already undertaken the task "of reconciling
inspirations so unstudied and so free with an order of things they had
outgrown." This remarkable man, who afterwards ascended the papal throne
as Gregory IX, was deeply attached to Francis, whom he venerated as a saint and
also, some writers tell us, managed as an enthusiast. That Cardinal Ugolino had
no small share in bringing Francis's lofty ideals "within range and
compass" seems beyond dispute, and it is not difficult to recognize his
hand in the important changes made in the organization of the order in the
so-called Chapter of Mats. At this famous assembly, held at Porziuncola at
Whitsuntide, 1220 or 1221 (there is seemingly much room for doubt as to the
exact date and number of the early chapters), about 5000 friars are said to
have been present, besides some 500 applicants for admission to the order. Huts
of wattle and mud afforded shelter for this multitude. Francis had purposely
made no provision for them, but the charity of the neighbouring towns supplied
them with food, while knights and nobles waited upon them gladly.
It was on this occasion that Francis, harassed no doubt and disheartened at
the tendency betrayed by a large number of the friars to relax the rigours of
the rule, according to the promptings of human prudence, and feeling, perhaps
unfitted for a place which now called largely for organizing abilities,
relinquished his position as general of the order in favour of Peter of
Cattaneo. But the latter died in less than a year, being succeeded as
vicar-general by the unhappy Brother Elias who continued in that office
until the death of Francis.
The saint, meanwhile, during the few years that remained in him, sought to
impress on the friars by the silent teaching of personal example of what sort
he would fain have them to be. Already, while passing through Bologna on his
return from the East, Francis had refused to enter the convent there because he
had heard it called the "House of the Friars" and because a studium
had been instituted there. He moreover bade all the friars, even those who were
ill, quit it at once, and it was only some time after, when Cardinal Ugolino
had publicly declared the house to be his own property, that Francis suffered
his brethren to re-enter it. Yet strong and definite as the saint's convictions
were, and determinedly as his line was taken, he was never a slave to a theory
in regard to the observances of poverty or anything else; about him indeed,
there was nothing narrow or fanatical.
As for his attitude towards study, Francis desiderated for his friars only
such theological knowledge as was conformable to the mission of the order,
which was before all else a mission of example. Hence he regarded the
accumulation of books as being at variance with the poverty his friars
professed, and he resisted the eager desire for mere book-learning, so
prevalent in his time, in so far as it struck at the roots of that simplicity
which entered so largely into the essence of his life and ideal and threatened
to stifle the spirit of prayer, which he accounted preferable to all the rest.
Rule of 1221 and
1223
In 1221, so some writers tell us, Francis drew up a new rule for the Friars
Minor. Others regard this so-called Rule of 1221 not as a new rule, but as the
first one which Innocent had orally approved; not, indeed, its original form,
which we do not possess, but with such additions and modifications as it has
suffered during the course of twelve years. However this may be, the
composition called by some the Rule of 1221 is very unlike any conventional
rule ever made.
It was too lengthy and unprecise to become a formal rule, and two years later
Francis retired to Fonte Colombo, a hermitage near Rieti, and rewrote the rule
in more compendious form. This revised draft he entrusted to Brother Elias, who
not long after declared he had lost it through negligence.
Francis thereupon returned to the solitude of Fonte Colombo, and recast the
rule on the same lines as before, its twenty-three chapters being reduced to
twelve and some of its precepts being modified in certain details at the
instance of Cardinal Ugolino. In this form the rule was solemnly approved by
Honorius III, 29 November, 1223 (Litt. "Solet annuere"). This Second
Rule, as it is usually called or Regula Bullata of the Friars Minor, is the one
ever since professed throughout the First Order of St Francis. It is based on
the three vows of obedience, poverty, and chastity, special stress however
being laid on poverty, which Francis sought to make the special characteristic
of his order, and which became the sign to be contradicted. This vow of
absolute poverty in the first and second orders and the reconciliation of the
religious with the secular state in the Third Order of Penance are the chief
novelties introduced by Francis in monastic regulation.
The First
Christmas Crib
It was during Christmastide of this year (1223) that the saint conceived the
idea of celebrating the Nativity "in a new manner", by reproducing in
a church at Greccio the praesepio of Bethlehem, and he has thus come to be
regarded as having inaugurated the population devotion of the Crib. Christmas
appears indeed to have been the favourite feast of Francis, and he wished to
persuade the emperor to make a special law that men should then provide well
for the birds and the beasts, as well as for the poor, so that all might have
occasion to rejoice in the Lord.
St Francis
receives the Stigmata
Early in August, 1224, Francis retired with three companions to "that
rugged rock 'twixt Tiber and Arno", as Dante called La Verna, there to
keep a forty days fast in preparation for Michaelmas.
During this retreat the sufferings of Christ became more than ever the
burden of his meditations; into few souls, perhaps, had the full meaning
of the Passion so deeply entered. It was on or about the feast of the
Exaltation of the Cross (14 September) while praying on the mountainside, that
he beheld the marvellous vision of the seraph, as a sequel of which there
appeared on his body the visible marks of the five wounds of the Crucified
which, says an early writer, had long since been impressed upon his heart.
Brother Leo, who was with St. Francis when he received the stigmata, has left
us in his note to the saint's autograph blessing, preserved at Assisi, a clear
and simple account of the miracle, which for the rest is better attested than
many another historical fact.
The saint's right side is described as bearing on open wound which looked
as if made by a lance, while through his hands and feet were black nails of
flesh, the points of which were bent backward. After the reception of the
stigmata, Francis suffered increasing pains throughout his frail body, already
broken by continual mortification. For, condescending as the saint always was
to the weaknesses of others, he was ever so unsparing towards himself that at
the last he felt constrained to ask pardon of "Brother Ass", as he
called his body, for having treated it so harshly. Worn out, moreover, as
Francis now was by eighteen years of unremitting toil, his strength gave way
completely, and at times his eyesight so far failed him that he was almost
wholly blind. During an access of anguish, Francis paid a last visit to St
Clare at St. Damian's, and it was in a little hut of reeds, made for him in the
garden there, that the saint composed that 'Canticle of the Sun', in which his
poetic genius expands itself so gloriously.
This was in September, 1225. Not long afterwards Francis, at the urgent
instance of Brother Elias, underwent an unsuccessful operation for the eyes, at
Rieti. He seems to have passed the winter 1225-26 at Siena, whither he had been
taken for further medical treatment.
The Testament of
St Francis
In April, 1226, during an interval of improvement, Francis was moved to
Cortona, and it is believed to have been while resting at the hermitage of the
Celle there, that the saint dictated his testament, which he describes as a
"reminder, a warning, and an exhortation". In this touching document
Francis, writing from the fullness of his heart, urges anew with the simple
eloquence, the few, but clearly defined, principles that were to guide his
followers, implicit obedience to superiors as holding the place of God, literal
observance of the rule "without gloss", especially as regards
poverty, and the duty of manual labor, being solemnly enjoined on all the
friars.
"Welcome,
Sister Death"
Meanwhile alarming dropsical symptoms had developed, and it was in a dying
condition that Francis set out for Assisi. A roundabout route was taken by the
little caravan that escorted him, for it was feared to follow the direct road
lest the saucy Perugians should attempt to carry Francis off by force so that
he might die in their city, which would thus enter into possession of his
coveted relics. It was therefore under a strong guard that Francis, in July,
1226, was finally borne in safety to the bishop's palace in his native city amid
the enthusiastic rejoicings of the entire populace.
In the early autumn Francis, feeling the hand of death upon him, was
carried to his beloved Porziuncola, that he might breathe his last sigh where
his vocation had been revealed to him and whence his order had struggled into
sight. On the way thither he asked to be set down, and with painful effort he
invoked a beautiful blessing on Assisi, which, however, his eyes could no
longer discern. The saint's last days were passed at the Portiuncula in a tiny
hut, near the chapel, that served as an infirmary. The arrival there about this
time of the Lady Jacoba of Settesoli, who had come with her two sons and a
great retinue to bid Francis farewell, caused some consternation, since women
were forbidden to enter the friary. But Francis in his tender gratitude to this
Roman noblewoman, made an exception in her favour, and 'Brother Jacoba', as
Francis had named her on account of her fortitude, remained to the last. On the
eve of his death, the saint, in imitation of his Divine Master, had bread
brought to him and broken. This he distributed among those present, blessing
Bernard of Quintaville, his first companion, Elias, his vicar, and all the
others in order. "I have done my part," he said next, "may
Christ teach you to do yours." Then wishing to give a last token of
detachment and to show he no longer had anything in common with the world,
Francis removed his poor habit and lay down on the bare ground, covered with a
borrowed cloth, rejoicing that he was able to keep faith with his Lady Poverty
to the end.
After a while he asked to have read to him the Passion according to St
John, and then in faltering tones he himself intoned Psalm 142. At the
concluding verse, "Bring my soul out of prison", Francis was led away
from earth by 'Sister Death', in whose praise he had shortly before added a new
strophe to his 'Canticle of the Sun'. It was Saturday evening, 3 October, 1226,
Francis being then in the forty-fifth year of his age, and the twentieth from
his perfect conversion to Christ.
END
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