Francis of Assisi

Philosopher, Organization founder

– 1226

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Who was Francis of Assisi?

Saint Francis of Assisi was an Italian Catholic friar and preacher. He founded the men's Order of Friars Minor, the women’s Order of St. Clare, and the Third Order of Saint Francis for men and women not able to live the lives of itinerant preachers followed by the early members of the Order of Friars Minor or the monastic lives of the Poor Clares. Though he was never ordained to the Catholic priesthood, Francis is one of the most venerated religious figures in history.

Francis' father was Pietro di Bernardone, a prosperous silk merchant. Francis lived the high-spirited life typical of a wealthy young man, even fighting as a soldier for Assisi. While going off to war in 1204, Francis had a vision that directed him back to Assisi, where he lost his taste for his worldly life. On a pilgrimage to Rome, he joined the poor in begging at St. Peter's Basilica. The experience moved him to live in poverty. Francis returned home, began preaching on the streets, and soon amassed a following. His Order was authorized by Pope Innocent III in 1210. He then founded the Order of Poor Clares, which became an enclosed religious order for women, as well as the Order of Brothers and Sisters of Penance.

Famous Quotes:

  • Where there is injury let me sow pardon.
  • Above all the grace and the gifts that Christ gives to his beloved is that of overcoming self.
  • It is not fitting, when one is in God's service, to have a gloomy face or a chilling look.
  • Lord, make me an instrument of thy peace. Where these is hatred, let me sow love.
  • It is in pardoning that we are pardoned.
  • For it is in giving that we receive.
  • Blessed is the servant who loves his brother as much when he is sick and useless as when he is well and an 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.
  • Start by doing what's necessary, then what's possible and suddenly you are doing the impossible.
  • Grant me the treasure of sublime poverty: permit the distinctive sign of our order to be that it does not possess anything of its own beneath the sun, for the glory of your name, and that it have no other patrimony than begging.
  • Lord, grant that I might not so much seek to be loved as to love.

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Also known as
  • St. Francis of Assisi
  • Saint Francis of Assisi
  • Giovanni Francesco di Bernardone
  • Giovanni di Bernardone
Parents
Religion
  • Catholicism
Ethnicity
  • Italian people
Nationality
  • Italy
Profession
Lived in
  • Assisi
Died
Oct 3, 1226
Assisi

Submitted
on July 23, 2013

Citation

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