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St. Francis of Assisi
Deus Meus et Omnia
(My God and My All)
 St. Francis of Assisi (1182-1226) was born at
Assisi in Umbria, Italy in a makeshift manger, in
deliberate imitation of the birth of Christ. He was
baptized Giovanni (John) in honor of John the Baptist,
but his father, who was not home at the time of his
birth, returned from his trip to France, and renamed him
Francesco to mark his own love for the country (France).
His father, Peter Bernardone was a wealthy cloth
merchant and St. Francis’ early life was marked by high
living and a concern for social status. He devoted his
youth to ideas of romantic chivalry that was propagated
by the troubadours (a wandering band of musical poets
whose songs dealt mainly with chivalry and courtly
love). He had plenty of money and spent it lavishly. He
was uninterested in his father’s business and in formal
learning.
In 1198, when St. Francis was sixteen, civil war broke out
pitting Assisi’s nobility against the newly powerful
members of the rising merchant class. Ironically, the
two sides represented not only St. Francis, son of the
ambitious merchant, Peter Bernardone, but also Clare di
Favarone (St. Clare of Assisi), the young daughter of an
aristocratic family. While there is no direct evidence
that St. Francis participated in this civil war, the war
touched every family in Assisi. Then in 1202, a battle
broke out between two ancient rivals: the members of the
cities of Perugia and Assisi. St. Francis was known to
be a part of this battle. Unfortunately, the Perugians
overpowered Assisi’s army and Assisi’s army was
literally beaten into the ground or dragged off to
prison. St. Francis was taken prisoner in 1202 and
remained there for a year. He was released and became
seriously ill. During his recovery, he experienced a
profound change in his values. He first thought about
serving in the papal army in Southern Italy, but he is
said to have had a dream that urged him to
“follow the
Master rather than the man.” He returned to Assisi,
where he was drawn increasingly to the life of prayer,
penance, pilgrimages and almsgiving. One day, as he was
riding on the plain of Assisi, he met a leper, whose
sores were so gruesome that, at the sight of them, St.
Francis was struck with horror. But he dismounted, and
as the leper stretched out his hand to receive the alms,
St. Francis kissed the leper’s hand. This had a profound
impact on St. Francis’s life, and he began to spend time
working among social outcasts and the poor.
 Peter Bernardone was unhappy with the new
direction his son’s life had taken, and there were
increasingly tense conflicts between the two. Everything
came to a climax in 1206. One day, as St. Francis was
praying in the ruined chapel of San Damiano (outside the
walls of Assisi), he seemed to hear a voice coming from
the crucifix, which said to him three times,
“Francis,
go and repair my house, which you see is falling down.”
St. Francis, seeing the church was old and ready to
fall, thought the Lord commanded him to physically
repair that church. He returned home, and in the
simplicity of his heart took a horse-load of cloth out
of his father’s warehouse and sold it (along with the
horse). St. Francis then brought the money to the poor
priest of San Damiano, asking to be allowed to stay with
him. The priest consented, but refused to take the
money. St. Francis left it on the window-sill. When his
father discovered what St. Francis had done, he searched
for St. Francis at San Damiano but St. Francis was
hidden from view. A few days later, after spending a few
days in prayer and fasting, St. Francis appeared on the
streets of Assisi disfigured and ill-clad. People
accused him of being “mad.” St. Francis’ father, more
annoyed than ever, carried St. Francis home, beat him
unmercifully and locked him up. His mother released him
while his father was out and St. Francis returned to San
Damiano. His father, sought him out again, hit him over
the head and insisted that he should either return home
or renounce his share in his inheritance and return the
purchase-price of the goods he had taken. St. Francis
had no objection to being disinherited, but said that
the other money now belonged to God and the poor. Peter
took St. Francis to the Bishop of Assisi (to the
ecclesiastical court), who ordered St. Francis to return
the money and trust in God. St. Francis did what he was
told, and with his usual literalness added
“The clothes
I wear are also his. I’ll give them back.” St. Francis
stripped himself of his clothes and gave them to his
father. Quickly a dress of a church worker was found and
St. Francis received his first alms with many thanks,
made a cross on the garment with chalk and put it on.
St. Francis spent the next several years living as a
penitent hermit. He dressed in a long rough tunic
provided by some friends, and he begged in the streets
for food and for alms to rebuild San Damiano. He also
spent time caring for lepers and helping repair three
ruined churches in the town.
In 1208, his religious life received
direction. St. Francis heard Mass at the little church
of St. Mary of the Angels (now known as the
Portiuncula). The Gospel reading of the day (Matthew
10:7-19) instructed the disciples of Christ to own
neither gold nor silver, nor a wallet for their journey,
nor two coats, nor shoes, nor a staff and they were to
exhort sinners to repentance and announce the Kingdom of
God. On this day, this message pierced his heart and the
Franciscan movement began. He gave away his shoes, tunic
and staff and donned a simple tunic and hood of a
shepherd, with a cord tied around the waist. He began to
preach publically and to attract followers. By the next
year, there were twelve in his company and they became
known as the Penitentiaries of Assisi, although St.
Francis preferred the name frati minors (from the Latin
to mean “lesser brothers”), which eventually became
their official ecclesiastical name (Friars Minor). St.
Francis wrote a brief statement on their way of life,
based on the Gospels, and took this primitive Rule to
Rome to secure the approval of Pope Innocent III in
1210. (St. Bonaventure heard from the nephew of Pope
Innocent III that in a dream the pope saw a palm tree
growing up at his feet and in another he saw St. Francis
propping up the Lateran church, which seemed ready to
fall. He therefore sent for St. Francis and approved his
rule, but only by word of mouth, tonsuring him and his
companions and giving them a general commission to
preach repentance.) St. Francis also became a deacon
around this time, but out of humility and high regard
for the priesthood, did not proceed to the next step of
ordination.
When St. Francis returned to Assisi, his
friars took up residence together at the rural chapel of
the Portiuncula. This became the base from which they
would spread out in small groups throughout central
Italy, doing manual labor and preaching. Wherever the
Franciscans settled, they lived in simple wood huts
without tables or chairs, their churches were modest and
small, they slept on the ground and they had few books.
(Only later did the order encourage its members to purse
studies at the university level.)
In 1212, St. Clare di Favarone, a young
aristocratic woman in Assisi, joined the movement and
founded her own community, known as the “Poor Ladies of
San Damiano” (today known as the Poor Clares). At the
same time, St. Francis began to form groups of devout
lay people that became the basis of the third order of
St. Francis.
 At the first general chapter of the order in
1217, St. Francis sent his friars beyond the Alps and
even to the Near East with the hopes to convert the
Muslims. In 1219, St. Francis went to Egypt with a dozen
friars, where the Crusaders were mounting an attack on
the local Sultan. Appalled by the behavior of the
Crusaders themselves, he somehow managed to pass through
the lines and met with the Sultan and tried to convert
him. The Sultan was deeply impressed with St. Francis as
a person, but remained unconverted. St. Francis left
with his mission considering it a failure. After a brief
visit to the Holy Land, St. Francis returned to Italy
upon receiving word of growing tensions among his
friars, who now numbered three thousand, as well as, a
growing number of criticisms from some bishops. Some of
those he had left in charge, Matthew of Narni and
Gregory of Naples, were trying to bring some innovations
into the order so they might be in line with other
religious orders and bring a framework of monastic
observance and prescribed asceticism (imposing the Rules
of St. Augustine, St. Bernard and St. Benedict on the
order). Concluding that he was not up to the task of
dealing with these pressing crises, he resigned as
minister general of the order and obtained a
cardinal-protector, Hugolino da Segni (later Pope
Gregory IX) for the movement. Still considered the
spiritual driving factor of the order, St. Francis
revised the Rule and secured papal approval for it in
1223. This revision reflected the spirit and manner of
life for which St. Francis stood for at the moment he
cast off his fine clothes at the Bishop’s court at
Assisi.
St. Francis spent the Christmas of 1223 at
Grecchio, Italy, in the valley of Rieti. He has been
known to have said
“I would make a memorial of that
Child who was born in Bethlehem and in some sort behold
with bodily eyes the hardships of His infant state,
lying on hay in a manger with the ox and the ass
standing by.” Accordingly the crèche was set up at the
hermitage and the peasants crowded into the midnight
Mass, at which St. Francis served as a deacon and
preached on the Christmas mystery. The custom of making
the Nativity crèche was probably not unknown before this
time, but this use of it by St. Francis is said to have
begun its popularity.
By 1224, his health began to fail and he
withdrew from normal activities for long periods of rest
and prayer. While on retreat at Mount La Verna in the
fall of 1224, he is said to have had a profound mystical
experience that left the wounds of Christ’s Passion on
his hands, feet, and side – the first recorded case of
the stigmata. He became ill and blind. He paid a final
visit to St. Clare at San Damiano and while there
composed his famous “Canticle of the Sun.”
St. Francis died at the age of forty-five at
the Portiuncula on October 3, 1226 and was canonized two
years later by his friend Pope Gregory IX. (Later, Pope
Gregory would canonize St. Dominic, the founder of the
Dominicans). Unlike the older orders of monks whose
primary concern was the spiritual advancement of the
members through liturgy, prayer and monastic observance,
these new orders, the Franciscans and the Dominicans
were directly involved in the life of the world and the
church and dedicated their work to renewal and reform.
St. Francis is buried in a crypt of St. Francis in the
lower church of the Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi
(although he asked to be buried in the criminals’
cemetery). He is the patron saint of Italy, of Catholic
Action and also of the environment. In 1926, Pope Pius
XI described him as the
alter Christus (Latin for “another
Christ”). St. Francis’ motto is
noted as “Deus Meus et Omnia.”
In English it means:
“My God and My All.
Resources on St. Francis
of Assisi
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