St. Francis of Assisi the

St. Francis of Assisi The man known to the ages as St. Francis was born Giovanni Francesco di Bernardone in the year 1181 in the Italian hill town of Assisi. Born to a rich cloth merchant Pietro di Bernardone and his wife Pica, Francis was one of the lucky few to be born into a life of luxury in medieval Europe. Many of his early biographers, or hagiographers as they are also known, took great pains to describe his ostentatious lifestyle.

His first biographer, Thomas of Celano, wrote that, "in pomp and vainglory he strove to surpass the rest in frolics, freaks, sallies of wit and idle talk." (qtd. In Cataldo 530) He dreamt of becoming a glorious knight and went off to fight in the local wars, but his constant illness made this type of life impossibility. Back in Assisi in 1206 at the age of 25, Francis had his first conversion experience.

He claimed to have a mystical vision of Jesus Christ in the Church of San Damiano just outside of town, in which the Crucifix said to him, "Francis, Francis, go and repair My house which, as you can see, is falling into ruins." He sold his expensive clothes to make a donation to the church, angering his father in the process, and ultimately renouncing his wealth and the inheritance of his family.

(Frank 243) Three years later, he went to Rome to ask the Pope for permission to start a new religious order, the Order of the Friars Minor, more commonly known as the Franciscans. This new order was greatly successful in recruiting members to its ranks, as well as donations from the people of Europe.

In this essay, we will look at the three main audiences for Francis' message -- the church leadership, the upper class from which he came, and the working poor -- and see specifically how his message struck a chord with the sensibilities of these vastly different segments of society.

The mythic story of Francis giving up his riches and status held great power in his time and through to today, and it forms the heart of the Franciscan Order: "holy poverty." This meant giving up earthly possessions and material riches for spiritual enlightenment and following in the footsteps of Jesus whose mission was to work and live among the outcasts of society. Francis, according to his biographer Thomas, was searching for a different and more fulfilling type of wealth.

Francis sought to emulate the lesson of Proverbs 16:16, for "he wanted to possess that wisdom that is better than gold and to acquire that prudence which is more precious than silver." (Wolf 19) the author Kenneth Wolf in his work, the Poverty of Riches: St. Francis of Assisi Reconsidered, points out the irony that you had to be rich in the first place in order to truly choose to give away your worldly possessions.

(20) in that sense, Francis' poverty was a "spiritually therapeutic exercise for men of means;" poor people were incapable of participating in this aspect fully because they could never really understand the "spiritual hardship" of giving up comfort. (Wolf 21) For the children of wealthy families in thirteenth century Italy, Francis offered a path to meaning and purpose for lives filled with luxury. The conscious decision to give up the trappings of earthly pleasure was a very ostentatious and overt form of piety.

In Rule VI of the final Rule of the Franciscan Order, it states: This is that peak of the highest poverty which has made you, my dearest brothers, heirs and kings of the kingdom of heaven, poor in things but rich in virtues. Let this be your portion. It leads into the land of the living and, adhering totally to it, for the sake of our Lord Jesus Christ wish never to have anything else in this world, beloved brothers. (St.

Francis) By calling voluntary poverty the "highest" form, this message certainly would have moved people of Francis' station to a higher calling. Wolf argues that this kind of sanctity would certainly have struck a chord with his fellow.