This article was written by Devon Abts
(Photos by Ricardo Andre Frantz )
Two years ago I found myself in the town of Assisi in Umbria, the birthplace of one of the most famous mystics and saints of the Middle Ages: Francis of Assisi. I had come to this town to learn more about the man, his legend, and his legacy; to study his memory as preserved by the artist Giotto in the Basilica di San Francesco's narration cycle, and to visit San Damiano, the church at which Francis received his calling from God. And indeed, walking through the windy cobblestone streets of Assisi it is easy to imagine Francis himself on those roads, walking the path from San Damiano to the town, or strolling among the ancient olive trees of this Umbrian hillside. His memory rests over Assisi like a fog, drawing all who come to this unassuming town into his presence.
Wandering around the outskirts of Assisi on that electric and grey afternoon, it was not hard to imagine Francis writing the words to his Canticle of Creation:
Praise be yours, my Lord, through Brothers Wind and Air,
And fair and stormy, and all the weather's moods,
By which you cherish all that you have made.
Francis was a lover of nature, as I later saw depicted in many scenes from the narrative fresco cycle by Giotto. Mystic, poet, compassionate giver, and a true lover of all creation, Francis' legacy of charisma continues to draw people to him--and his city--to this day.
Francis' youth and early stages of Conversion
Francis was born in 1181 to Pietro di Bernadone, a merchant from the town of Assisi, and his wife Pica. Though born in the absence of his father, Pietro gave the name Francis to his son in honor of France, where he conducted much of his business. In his youth, Francis indulged himself lavishly, as recorded by the early biographer Thomas of Celano, who wrote, "Indeed, he outdid all his contemporaries in vanities." It is hard to imagine that the man of God was once a fierce warrior and an idle teenager, but Celano and others have recorded well that Francis lived a different sort of "spirited" youth.
"In all things Francis was lavish," write the authors of Legend of the Three Companions, a biography of Francis written by three of Francis' closest friends after the saint had died. He was well liked by all who met him, such that his fame spread throughout the entire province according to Legend. In Celano's account, Francis, "was the admiration of all and strove to outdo the rest in the pomp of vainglory, in jokes, in strange doings, in idle and useless talk, in songs..." He aspired to be a great warrior, and the Italy of his age knew many battles. At the time, feudal wars divided village by village, and Assisi's greatest rival was Perugia. In 1202, Francis went into battle for his hometown against the city of Perugia, and during this fight, he was taken captive and held in the enemy prison.
While in prison, Francis became quite ill and suffered greatly. Indeed Celano vividly describes the changes that began to take place in Francis during his year-long captivity: "Thus worn down by a long illness...he began to think of things other than what he was used to thinking upon." It was the beginning of a long and slow conversion to mystic Christianity. Though Francis went on as a warrior into other battles and continued to live a life of indulgence, he left his imprisonment in Perugia with newfound humility " in order to prepare his soul to receive the Holy Spirit" according to St. Bonaventure.
Francis' conversion to Mystic Christianity
During the next several years, Francis' conversion came through various encounters with God and the poor. There are various accounts of Francis giving his clothes to a poor knight and how one day he sold all of his possessions and gave the money to a priest at the Church of San Damiano. His family and friends feared he had gone mad, and indeed Francis' behavior was remarkably different and strange. In the streets of Assisi, his old friends were "shouting out that he was mad and demented."
Perhaps the most famous stories of Francis' conversion comes from his encounter with God at the Church of San Damiano. Bonaventure recounts the story in his biography; Francis left town one day and was walking past the Church of San Damiano, where "he knelt in prayer before a painted image of the crucified...Then all of a sudden, he heard a voice coming from the cross and telling him three times, 'Francis, go and repair my house. You see it is falling down.'" And indeed, Francis took this message from God quite literally, and he set to work repairing the decrepit San Damiano, which was "threatening to collapse with age." Francis worked day after day to repair the church, going into the village to beg for stones and other construction materials in order to accomplish the task given to him by God.
In his Praises of the Virtues, a poem composed by Francis, the man from Assisi wrote:
In all the world there is not a man
who can posess any [virtues]
without first dying to himself
Francis was on the path to dying to himself. Having heard the command from God, he had set out to discover his new task, and in doing so he opened a door to mysticism, holiness, and monasticism. One must wonder whether Francis saw the whole picture, but his message from God to repair the Church was to become a life long crusade in which Francis fought for the restoration of peace within the entire Umbrian Catholic Church.
Yet many in the town still considered Francis a lunatic. Pietro di Bernadone was saddened by the way his son had chosen to conduct himself and the rumors of the townspeople. Eventually, Francis was locked in his family's home by his own father, who intended to "destroy him" according to Celano. He was kept there several days and beaten and starved by his father in an attempt to restore his sanity. But his mother released him while his father was away on business, and Francis went to stay in San Damiano. When his father returned, he went to where Francis was staying, and brought him by force before the Bishop of Terni.
"When he was brought before the bishop," writes Celano, "he would suffer no delay or hesitation in anything; instead, he did not wait for any words nor did he speak any, but immediately pulling off his clothes and casting them aside, he returned them to his father." Francis stripped himself completely before the bishop, and the bishop warmly received the fervent young Francis into his own cloak. From that day forward, Francis clothed himself as a hermit and went to live with lepers, the" lowest of the low" in his society.
More and more, Francis embraced utter poverty in his life. Eventually, a few people living in Assisi began to be drawn to the strange man who had renounced all worldly goods and chosen to live in poverty and submission to God. It was not long before the first six converts to Francis' lifestyle turned to eleven brothers, and soon Francis began to write a rule, planning to create a community of brothers loyal to Christ and devoted to poverty, chastity and obedience.
The most famous of all of Francis' poetry is called The Simple Prayer, and it is a reflection of Francis' desire to bring peace to the world by his message of love. It begins:
Lord, make me an instrument of your peace,
Where there is . . .
This poem expresses the spirit of Francis--a spirit of selfless giving and compassion for the impoverished of spirit and body. He and his brothers took the simple brown tunic and cord belt as their uniform, and went barefoot into the world to sew love and peace in the name of God. He founded a sister order, the Poor Claires, who took up residence at San Damiano.
Francis' fame spread throughout the country. He and his order were officially recognized by the Pope in 1209, and by this time he had become a barefoot preacher, calling all he could to his cause for love and reconciliation. Many joined the order, and he sent them to various places of the known world to spread the Christian message of love. In a time when the Crusades claimed many lives through forced conversion and senseless slaughter, Francis sent the brothers out with one tunic and no shoes to share with others how to love God and creation and to teach compassion for the poor. Francis himself made a miraculous visit to Morocco to preach to the Sultan and his subjects, though, as Bonaventure points out, he was by this time growing ill. "Though physically weak, he was enraptured in anxiety to achieve his purpose," writes Bonaventure, explaining the start to Francis' slow decline into poor health during the later years of his life. In his visit to the Sultan, Francis managed to charm the African leader, and he not only earned the attention of the sultan, but Bonaventure describes the king as "lost in admiration for such disregard for worldly wealth."
By now, Francis was a recognized leader of people and had earned fame for his miracles of healing and his charisma as a preacher. He was a hero of his town once more, though Francis considered himself unworthy of such recognition. As his Simple Prayer continues:
Oh Divine Master, grant that I may
Not so much seek to be consoled as to console,
To be understood as to understand,
To be loved as to love. . .
Francis was dying further to himself, and he considered himself nothing, an unworthy yet mysteriously justified servant of God. God was to reward Francis in a very unique way, which itself is a mysterious and strange reward: the honor of stigmata. To the modern man, this transposition of the wounds of Christ on a human being is somewhat confusing and even grotesque; yet to the medieval mystic, there was no higher honor. And Francis was among the first recorded holy men to receive the wounds of Christ. Already nearly blind from an eye disease he had contracted, Francis went on a pilgrimage in 1224 to Mount La Verna, where he received the stigmata and thus considered himself able to participate in the sufferings of Christ.
Soon after the stigmata, Francis was brought to San Damiano, where he was given treatment for his worsening health. The sickness he had contracted in prison at Perugia had never properly healed, and he was blind from the eye disease. During the next year, Francis was brought from town to town to see different doctors, but his health continued to worsen. In September of 1226 Francis asked to be moved to the Portinicula of the convent of San Damiano, where he died a month later. Celano wrote of Francis' final hour that "indeed, that he might show himself to be a true imitator of Christ his God in all things, he loved to the end his brothers and sons whom he had loved from the beginning."
Almost immediately the blessed Francis was canonized by the Pope, and very soon after his death construction began on the Basilico di San Francesco of Assisi, in which his relics are still today found along with the beautiful narrative cycle. But the physical house of Francis' body could not be contained by anyone; for as the saint himself concludes in his Simple Prayer:
For it is in giving that we receive,
and it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
and it is in dying that we are born into eternal life.
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