From the desk of the pastor for Sept. 14, 2025

The Lord be with you! Given that the last two articles touched upon the Holy Land, it is fitting for us to go over the life of the man most responsible for Catholics having churches there: St. Francis of Assisi. Before we can get to that, however, we must learn how this man became a saint.

Baptized Giovanni de Pietro de Bernardone in 1181, he was called Francesco by his father, Pietro. Francesco literally means, “Frenchman” and Pietro loved everything about France since he made quite a bit of money from trading there. Francis lived a comfortable life in Assisi and was not known for his intellect, piety, nor his bravery in his early life. He was known to have a fun time and was everyone’s friend. If Francis had a gift from God, it was making people around him happy.

Around 1202 Francis went on a military expedition against Perugia, another Italian town, and ended up a prisoner for over a year. Although Francis discerned that he needed to change his life then, he went back to having fun after his release. Two years later he did change his life after receiving a vision on route to another war. He stopped going to parties, sporting events, and told his friends that he thought about giving up all worldly goods. Then he received another vision at the Church of San Damiano, in which Jesus told him, “Go and repair My church, which you can see, is falling into ruin.” Francis interpreted this to mean the literal repairs of the chapel, but God had other things in mind.

Francis then took cloth from his father’s stores and sold it to finance the repairs. His father was outraged, and Francis went into hiding in a local cave. Eventually Francis returned home hungry and dirty; his father beat him, bound him, and threw him into a storeroom. After being released by his mother, Francis was dragged in front of the Bishop of Assisi by town officials so that his father could disinherit him. To everyone’s shock Francis renounced his father’s money and asked for protection from the Church. Whether he stripped naked or not, he had forever ended his old life and taken up another.

Over the next two years (1208-1210), Francis lived the life of a penitent and rebuilt the chapel of San Damiano. Begging each day for food and stones, he repaired the chapel by hand by himself. Eventually, Francis expanded his work from merely restoring this chapel to ministering to lepers and exhorting the faithful to works of mercy.

Next time we will learn how Francis started a religious order without meaning to and innovated the liturgy, again, without meaning to. Francis never had a grand plan. He only wanted to please God and Our Lady. We will see that he led many others to the same.

In His Sacred Heart,
Fr. John