St. Francis of Assisi
Italian Catholic friar, mystic, and founder of the Order of Friars Minor (Franciscans), the women's Order of St. Clare, and the Third Order of Penitents — the medieval saint whose radical embrace of poverty, kinship with all created beings, and visible identification with the suffering Christ made him one of the most influential and most beloved figures of the second millennium. Born around 1181/1182 in Assisi to a wealthy cloth merchant, Francis as a young man pursued knighthood and worldly success before, through a series of conversion experiences in his early twenties, renouncing his inheritance, embracing voluntary poverty, and devoting himself to rebuilding ruined chapels and serving lepers. The order he founded in 1209 grew rapidly into one of the largest religious movements in the medieval Church. He composed the Canticle of the Sun (Cantico delle Creature), one of the earliest poems in vernacular Italian; received the stigmata at La Verna in 1224; and died at the Porziuncola in October 1226. (Note: the famous 'Peace Prayer' beginning 'Make me an instrument of your peace' is an anonymous twentieth-century French prayer first published in 1912, traditionally attributed to Francis but not authored by him.)
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Quotes by St. Francis of Assisi
107 quotes“Cultivate the presence of God, and these will leave you.”
“It is no use walking anywhere to preach unless our walking is our preaching.”
“Lord, what would you have me do?”
“This is the prayer of every disciple.”
“Whoever does not know how to ask this is not yet a disciple.”
“Brother Leo, write down what perfect joy is.”
“If when we arrive at the brothers' house, soaked with rain and shivering with cold, mud-stained and hungry, the brother who answers the door rebukes us, calls us liars and impostors, and refuses us shelter — write down that this is perfect joy.”
“If we bear this with patience for the love of Christ, write down that this is perfect joy.”
“This is perfect joy: to overcome ourselves and bear willingly all suffering for the love of Christ.”
“This is the highest gift the Holy Spirit gives.”
“All other gifts are loaned to us. This one alone is ours.”
“He who labors with his hands is friend of poverty.”
“He who refuses to labor cuts himself off from the brotherhood of the poor.”
“Holy poverty is the true treasure of our order.”
“Without holy poverty, all our preaching is hollow.”
“Lady Poverty is the gospel's truest companion.”
“To follow Christ is to embrace her.”
“Without poverty, no resurrection. Without resurrection, no hope.”
“Brother Sun. Sister Moon. Brother Wind. Sister Water.”
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