Francis of Assisi (c.1181–1226,) born Giovanni di Bernardone, was an Italian monk. He is best known as the founder of the Franciscan order within the Catholic Church.
Born the son of a rich cloth-merchant in Assisi, Umbria, Francis experienced a spiritual crisis in his early twenties. He renounced his worldly life for one of poverty and prayer in 1205. In 1209, with permission from Pope Innocent III, Francis founded the Franciscans, a monastic order dedicated to the virtues of humility, poverty, and devotion to the task of helping people. In 1212, with St. Clare of Assisi, he established a parallel order for women, the Poor Clares. Over the centuries, the Franciscan Order and the Poor Clares grew into large international organizations and were particularly important in the spread of Catholicism around the world.
Francis’s charity, devotion, humility, and his love for animals and nature have made him one of the most popular Christian saints. His close rapport with the animals has often inspired artists; he is often depicted preaching to the birds.
Saint Francis’s Feast day is October 4. September 17 is commemorated in honor of his 1224 mystical receiving of the stigmata wounds of the Crucifixion when prayed at Monte della Verna, near Florence. His best recognized literary work, the “Canticle to the Sun,” is also the first known Italian poem/hymn.
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All the darkness in the world can’t extinguish the light from a single candle.
—Saint Francis of Assisi
It is no use walking anywhere to preach unless our walking is our preaching.
—Saint Francis of Assisi
Topics: Advice
No one is to be called an enemy, all are your benefactors, and no one does you harm. You have no enemy except yourselves.
—Saint Francis of Assisi
Lord, grant that I might not so much seek to be loved as to love.
—Saint Francis of Assisi
Topics: Love
It is not fitting, when one is in God’s service, to have a gloomy face or a chilling look.
—Saint Francis of Assisi
The deeds you do may be the only sermon some persons will hear today.
—Saint Francis of Assisi
Where there is charity and wisdom, there is neither fear nor ignorance. Where there is patience and humility, there is neither anger nor vexation. Where there is poverty and joy, there is neither greed nor avarice. Where there is peace and meditation, there is neither anxiety nor doubt.
—Saint Francis of Assisi
Topics: Wisdom
A single sunbeam is enough to drive away many shadows.
—Saint Francis of Assisi
Topics: Happiness
Blessed is the servant who loves his brother as much when he is sick and useless as when he is well and can be of service to him. And blessed is he who loves his brother as well when he is afar off as when he is by his side, and who would say nothing behind his back he might not, in love, say before his face.
—Saint Francis of Assisi
Topics: Integrity
We are the mother of Christ when we carry him in our heart and body by love and a pure and sincere conscience. And we give birth to him through our holy works which ought to shine to others by our example.
—Saint Francis of Assisi
Start by doing what’s necessary, then what’s possible, and suddenly you are doing the impossible.
—Saint Francis of Assisi
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