Saint Francis of Assisi

He was born in Assisi, Italy, in 1182. His father, the wealthy cloth merchant Pierre Bernardone, who had just returned from France, named him Francis. At the age of 16, the teenager became involved in his father's business. He preferred a career in arms, but illness soon forced him to leave the camp. He was trying to find out what God expected of him when, praying one day in front of the dilapidated chapel of Saint-Damien, he thought he heard himself calling for the material restoration of the ruined churches. He immediately set about it, spending so much that his father disinherited him for fear of bankruptcy. François then became a beggar for his work. When he heard the words of the Gospel sung at Mass: "Take neither gold nor silver, neither staff nor tunic," he immediately put on the clothes of a commoner of the time, and set about preaching penance and peace to his fellow citizens. Disciples joined him, and he wrote a rule for those whom, out of humility, he wanted to call the Friars Minor, i.e. the least of the religious. He also created an Order of women, then a Third Order, adapting his principles to the people of the world. The Order of Friars Minor spread extremely rapidly. In 1221, Francis resigned as Minister General. In 1224, he left with Brother Leo for the solitude of Monte Verna, twenty leagues from Florence. It was there that he was miraculously marked with the stigmata of the Passion, as we remember on the feast of 17 September. For two years he was tortured by these multiple wounds, to which were added other physical and moral trials. Finally, on 3 October 1226, he fell asleep peacefully and joyfully in the arms of the one he called "our sister Death".