St. Francis of Assisi

Francis Bernardone was born in Assisi in 1181 or 1182 and died on the evening of October 3, 1226. The Church keeps his memorial on October 4. He was a cloth merchant’s son who set out for war, was ill and imprisoned, and then began to pray in the half-ruined chapel of San Damiano, where the crucifix said, according to his own later account, “Francis, go rebuild my house.” He took the words first as a command about stones. He came to hear them as a command about the Church. He renounced his father’s wealth in the bishop’s court, kissed a leper, and started to live by the Gospel text in which the disciples take nothing for the journey.

The order that grew around him, the Friars Minor, was approved by Innocent III. Clare followed him into poverty at San Damiano. Francis crossed toward the crusade and spoke with Sultan al-Malik al-Kamil in 1219, an encounter the sources treat as a preaching of Christ, not as a modern interfaith conference. In 1223 he built the crib at Greccio so that people could see Bethlehem with their eyes. In 1224, on La Verna, he received the stigmata, the wounds of Christ in his own flesh, the first such case the Church recognized. He wrote the Canticle of the Creatures, praising God through Brother Sun and Sister Moon and, at the end, through Sister Death. He did not worship the sun. He called creatures brother and sister because one Father made them.

The blessing of animals on or near October 4 is a later popular custom. It fits the Canticle. It is not the Mass, and it is not what Francis chiefly did. He preached penance, rebuilt churches, and died on the ground because he wanted to meet Sister Death poor. A parish that offers a pet blessing and never reads the Gospel of taking up the cross has domesticated him. A parish that scolds people for loving animals has also missed him. The memorial can hold both the leper and the lark, in that order.

October 4 is a memorial, in white. When it falls on a Sunday, the Sunday usually prevails, unless the local calendar raises the rank, because a memorial does not outrank the Lord’s Day. Francis is not a holy day of obligation. He is the patron of Italy, of the Franciscan families, and, by later title, of those who work for ecology. The title patron of ecology, given in substance by John Paul II and recalled by Francis the pope who took his name, means care for creation as praise of the Creator. It does not make Francis a critic of the Creed.

The readings set before the Church for his memorial are the sending of the disciples with no money in their belts, and the invitation to take up the cross. Galatians, “the world is crucified to me,” is equally his. The famous Peace Prayer (“Lord, make me an instrument of your peace”) was not written by Francis. It appeared in France in the early twentieth century. It may be prayed. It should not be quoted as his autograph. The Canticle of the Creatures is his.