Who is Francis of Assisi?
The young man from Assisi
Youth
Son of a rich merchant, a party animal from the youth of Assisi, prisoner during a neighborhood war between Assisi and Perugia [1202] ambition to fight in a crusade and become a knight but solitude, illness and an inner voice lead him into a radical change of life (The people say: "He has gone mad!)
Conversion/A new life
Francis sells his horse, gives his armor to a poor knight and returns to Assisi. He discovers the beauty of nature and seeks to give meaning to his life. He goes beyond all social barriers, embracing a leper, an outcast of his time. Christ speaks to him through the crucifix of Saint Damian and calls him to repair his Church. Francis listens to Jesus and his word in the Gospel and organizes his life in accordance with it. He cuts all the ties that united him to his family and lives poor, with nothing of his own. He scandalizes some, but attracts others who want to share his life. With his companions, he travels throughout Italy and even goes beyond, proclaiming God the Savior, peace and reconciliation.
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« François, va répare ma maison qui, comme tu vois, tombe en ruine. »
(Voix du Crucifix de Saint Damien)
« Nous sommes simples et soumis à tous. »
(Testament de Saint-François d’Assise ,19)
« Le Seigneur vous donne sa Paix »
(Testament de Saint-François, 23 Salut franciscain universel)
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Beginning of the Franciscan Movement
Men, women and families ask to follow Francis: some brothers gather around him (First Order); he asks Clare of Assisi to form a community around her (Second Order); he supports the lay movement (Third Order or Secular Order).
He wrote a very brief Rule and the Pope approved it. Serious health problems caused him great suffering: …Francis received the stigmata and composed the Canticle of the Creatures.
He died among his brothers, naked on the bare earth, in front of his hut. He was buried in Assisi.
The Order grew and spread very quickly, …but in the absence of their very dear founder, dissensions soon arose.
His encounter with Christ
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“Francis, who is better to serve? The Master or the servant?”
En 1204, François a 22 ans. Il s’est remis de l’année d’emprisonnement à Pérouse. Sur le chemin d’une nouvelle campagne guerrière avec le chevalier Gauthier de Brienne, il entend la voix du Christ qui lui parle en songe. Son univers d’ambitions et de rêves chavire. De retour à Assise, il hésite entre une vie de prière et sa vie d’autrefois comme ‘Roi de la jeunesse’. Puis, sa vie prend un tournant radical lors d’une rencontre inattendue : « Le Seigneur lui-même me conduisit parmi les lépreux et je leur fis miséricorde. »
C’est ainsi qu’à la fin de sa vie François nous raconte la première étape de sa conversion ; la rencontre des lépreux est rencontre du Christ. Dans les lépreux il reconnaît le visage du Christ, Celui dont le désir le tourmente au coeur depuis des années. Dans les lépreux il rencontre le visage d’un Dieu pauvre, humble et crucifié par amour de l’être humain.
Au service des lépreux, « en leur faisant miséricorde »,en les lavant de ses mains, en les soignant et en les servant, François apprend de l’intérieur qui est ce Dieu qui l’appelle à le suivre, ce Dieu qui s’est fait serviteur de tous en Jésus pour nous montrer la grandeur de chaque personne.
Shortly after, in a dilapidated chapel in St. Damien, Francis prayed for God to come and enlighten the darkness of his heart and make him feel and know his will. The Byzantine-style crucifix that stared at him with its wide-open eyes spoke to him: "Go, Francis, repair my house which, you see, is falling into ruins!" He immediately set about repairing the little church, begging for stones as well as for his meals. Scandalized, his father brought him before the bishop's tribunal. Francis then made the decisive gesture of his life: in front of everyone he handed over everything he owned and, naked before the crowd, proclaimed that God alone was his father.
Now Francis is free; free to welcome the Word of God and the brothers who will come to join him.
Two years of solitude and various trials will bring him closer to the Jesus of the Gospel. One morning in 1208, at Mass, he hears the Gospel according to Saint Matthew: "Take neither gold nor silver nor coins in your pockets, nor a bag for your journey... As you enter every house, say: Peace be with you!" (Mt 10:9-12) Francis leaps for joy as if Jesus had just called him personally like the apostles. He then begins to travel around the surrounding area announcing the Gospel. He thus understands that God is not calling him to rebuild stone churches as a hermit but to travel the world to rebuild the community of those who believe in Christ.
Attracted by Francis, young people from Assisi came forward to live with him and like him. Thus began the Franciscan movement that would forever mark the Church and society.
Francis meets the Sultan
Meeting with Sultan Al-Kamil in Damietta
in 1219
At the time of Francis of Assisi, the world was divided into two brutally clashing civilizations: Christianity and Islam. Christianity defined itself as the true religion that had to be defended by the miles christi; the ideal of the Christian was no longer the monk but the soldier. During his youth, Francis would pursue this ideal. Christ was the great lord who led his troops and defended his territory; those who fought for him had the duty to wash away the tarnished honor of their lord. Thus, Christianity conceived of war as a means of converting others.
In 1215, Pope Innocent III opened the Fourth Lateran Council in Rome; he inaugurated a new reform of the Church and launched the Fifth Crusade to the Holy Land to liberate the holy places. Faced with this call to settle conflicts through violence and death, Francis decided to announce peace. On June 24, 1219, Brother Francis embarked for Egypt, where he arrived a few months later.
He immediately went to Damietta to the camp of the crusaders who were besieging the city and tried to convince them to give up the fight. He announced peace to the crusaders themselves because he was upset by the perpetual conflicts between princes, lords and masters of the orders of chivalry; shocked also by the presence of adventurers and opportunists of all kinds. Peace also with the enemy. His intention was clear: to break with the spirit of crusade which, for more than a century, had permeated the mentalities of the Christian world.
Then, recounts Brother Thomas of Celano, Francis decides to join the opposing camp under the cover of a truce. His intention then is to meet Sultan Malik Al-Kamil in person to announce this peace of God and in the hope of converting him. During this meeting Francis discovers the courtesy of the Sultan towards him because Francis has neither the arrogance of the envoys of the papal legate nor the weapons of the emissaries of the princes. Several nobles and religious figures of the court attend the exchanges between the Muslim king and Brother Francis. Living with them, Francis is able to discover that this "abominable race of infidels" are prayerful, submitted to the one God.
Francis also wanted to be a man "subject to all creatures for the sake of God" (1 Rule 16.6). As the truce drew to a close, Francis wanted to leave the palace. To show his deference, the Sultan offered him many gifts, which he refused. At the moment of farewell, the Muslim recommended himself to the Christian's prayer: "ask God to show me the way to follow" as the Koran invites him to do.
Francis invents the nativity scene
When night falls, the people of the surrounding area and the brothers gather in large numbers, carrying torches and lamps. Near a donkey and an ox, a manger with straw has been placed. During the celebration, those present are invited to approach the scene. The night lights up, Celano tells us, "as delicious for animals as for men" and resounds with harmony "the woods resounded with songs and the mountains echoed joyfully" (1 Cel 85). During the celebration, Francis sings the Gospel and preaches to the people "to speak of the birth of the poor King" making his whole voice and love pass through his mouth. Then, "the Mass was celebrated on the manger as an altar, and the priest who celebrated felt a piety never experienced before" (1 Cel. 85).
Legend has it that a brother saw a little child sleeping in the manger. Francis approached and took him tenderly in his arms. The little child woke up, smiled and grabbed his beard. This brother understood that, by his example and his word, Francis had awakened the presence of Christ who seemed asleep in the hearts of people. This is the meaning of the Christmas crib: awakening us to the marvelous mystery of the incarnation!
The Universal Brother
Francis inserted himself into the plan of God who wants to make all his creatures a family of sisters and brothers as he sings in the Canticle of the Creatures. He was never called simply "Francis" but always "Brother Francis". His desire to be a brother to all shows his awareness of being called by God to enter into a relationship with all creatures and of having received the mission of restoring all relationships by means of docile humility.
When Francis meets people or when he preaches, he begins with this greeting: "May the Lord give you peace!" Peace among human beings is universal brotherhood. Every human being, whoever he may be, is his brother.
He preaches peace between human beings but also with the whole universe: the wolf, fire, water and the sun become brother wolf, brother fire, sister water, brother sun,… In his Canticle of the Creatures, Francis celebrates the great cosmic fraternity, a fraternity always to come, always to be built, which is offered to us both as a gift to receive and a task to be accomplished.
The Capuchins strive to live peace and fraternity in their daily lives, in their relationships with each other, with all the people they meet and in their way of using property. They are also involved in the Justice, Peace, Creation commissions, with the other members of the Franciscan family. They are associated with Franciscan International, the representative organization of the Franciscan family at the UN.
They will be called Friars Minor
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“No brother will be given the title of prior, but all will be given the title of minor brothers. They will wash one another’s feet.” – First Rule Chapter 6
The full name of our Fraternity is the Order of Friars Minor Capuchin. Brother Thomas of Celano, one of the first biographers of St. Francis, tells the origin of this name:
One day, while reading the Rule, upon hearing the phrase "that they may be the least, the smallest," Francis interrupted: "I want our fraternity to be called the Order of Friars Minor." The title "Friars Minor" illuminates and clarifies Francis' idea of the life of the brothers and their evangelical vocation in society and in the Church. "If my brothers have received the name of minors, it is so that they never aspire to become great, to rise above others. Their vocation is to remain below and to follow in the footsteps of Christ's humility..." (1 Cel, 28 and 2 Cel 148)
Francis wanted his brothers to be called Friars Minor so that they could model their lives on the minores (little ones) of the time and share their destiny. In the 13th century, this term referred to a social class, that of those who in a society in full turmoil did not have the first place and sometimes no place at all: the workers in the workshops, the peasants, the sick, the homeless and marginalized of all kinds, etc. The Capuchins have always sought to live in solidarity with the miners of their time.
Being a minor is also the spiritual attitude that characterizes our fraternity: "In Francis, the minority expresses astonishment in the face of a love of God so great that he did not hesitate to deliver his Son who became man and became obedient to the point of death on the cross, thus making himself a minor and subject to all in order to free us from evil and introduce us into divine life" (VII Plenary Council of the Order no. 2)
This is the overwhelming discovery of Francis: the humility of God revealed in Christ! In contemplating Christ crucified in the little chapel of Saint-Damien, Francis discovers the love of God who became man and obedient to the point of death; God himself became a minor! It is this same humility of God that he finds in the sacrament of the Church and the Eucharist.
In this choice of Francis to be a minor and subject to all, there is neither fear, nor psychological submission nor refusal to assume his personal responsibility. What seduced him was the beauty and glory of God manifested in Jesus of Nazareth, a free man. Minority is therefore for us a choice of life for freedom and lived out of love.