Francis of Assisi (c.1181–1226,) born Giovanni di Bernardone, was an Italian monk. He is best known as the founder of the Franciscan order within the Catholic Church.
Born the son of a rich cloth-merchant in Assisi, Umbria, Francis experienced a spiritual crisis in his early twenties. He renounced his worldly life for one of poverty and prayer in 1205. In 1209, with permission from Pope Innocent III, Francis founded the Franciscans, a monastic order dedicated to the virtues of humility, poverty, and devotion to the task of helping people. In 1212, with St. Clare of Assisi, he established a parallel order for women, the Poor Clares. Over the centuries, the Franciscan Order and the Poor Clares grew into large international organizations and were particularly important in the spread of Catholicism around the world.
Francis’s charity, devotion, humility, and his love for animals and nature have made him one of the most popular Christian saints. His close rapport with the animals has often inspired artists; he is often depicted preaching to the birds.
Saint Francis’s Feast day is October 4. September 17 is commemorated in honor of his 1224 mystical receiving of the stigmata wounds of the Crucifixion when prayed at Monte della Verna, near Florence. His best recognized literary work, the “Canticle to the Sun,” is also the first known Italian poem/hymn.
More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Francis of Assisi
Where there is injury let me sow pardon.
—Francis of Assisi
Topics: Injury
It is not fitting, when one is in God’s service, to have a gloomy face or a chilling look.
—Francis of Assisi
Topics: Cheerfulness
If you have men who will exclude any of God’s creatures from the shelter of compassion and pity, you will have men who will deal likewise with their fellow man.
—Francis of Assisi
Topics: Compassion, Kindness
Lord, make us instruments of Thy peace. Where there is hatred, let us sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is discord, union; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; where there is sadness, joy.
—Francis of Assisi
Topics: Peace
All the darkness in the world can’t extinguish the light from a single candle.
—Francis of Assisi
The deeds you do may be the only sermon some persons will hear today.
—Francis of Assisi
Preach the gospel everywhere you go, and, if necessary, use words.
—Francis of Assisi
Topics: Evangelism
If a superior give any order to one who is under him which is against that man’s conscience, although he do not obey it yet he shall not be dismissed.
—Francis of Assisi
Topics: Conscience
No one is to be called an enemy, all are your benefactors, and no one does you harm. You have no enemy except yourselves.
—Francis of Assisi
Topics: Being True to Yourself
Start by doing what’s necessary, then what’s possible, and suddenly you are doing the impossible.
—Francis of Assisi
We are the mother of Christ when we carry him in our heart and body by love and a pure and sincere conscience. And we give birth to him through our holy works which ought to shine to others by our example.
—Francis of Assisi
It is no use walking anywhere to preach unless our walking is our preaching.
—Francis of Assisi
Topics: Advice
O Lord, make me an instrument of Thy Peace!
Where there is hatred, let me sow love.
Where there is injury, pardon.
Where there is discord, harmony.
Where there is doubt, faith.
Where there is despair, hope.
Where there is darkness, light.
Where there is sorrow, joy.
Oh Divine Master, grant that I may not
so much seek to be consoled as to console;
to be understood as to understand;
to be loved as to love;
for it is in giving that we receive;
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
and it is in dying that we are born to Eternal Life.
—Francis of Assisi
Topics: Prayer, Peace, Giving, Forgiveness
A single sunbeam is enough to drive away many shadows.
—Francis of Assisi
Topics: Happiness
Blessed is the servant who loves his brother as much when he is sick and useless as when he is well and can 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.
—Francis of Assisi
Topics: Integrity
Above all the grace and the gifts that Christ gives to his beloved is that of overcoming self.
—Francis of Assisi
Topics: Christianity
Lord, grant that I might not so much seek to be loved as to love.
—Francis of Assisi
Topics: Love
Where there is charity and wisdom, there is neither fear nor ignorance. Where there is patience and humility, there is neither anger nor vexation. Where there is poverty and joy, there is neither greed nor avarice. Where there is peace and meditation, there is neither anxiety nor doubt.
—Francis of Assisi
Topics: Wisdom
When we pray to God we must be seeking nothing – nothing.
—Francis of Assisi
Topics: Prayer
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.
—Francis of Assisi
Topics: The Poor, Poverty
Wondering Whom to Read Next?
Thomas Aquinas Italian Catholic Priest
Bonaventure Italian Christian Scholar
Jerome Greek Priest
John Chrysostom Archbishop of Constantinople
Francis de Sales French Catholic Saint
Vincent de Paul French Catholic Saint
Catherine of Siena Italian Mystic
John Wesley British Methodist Religious Leader
Pope John XXIII Italian Catholic Religious Leader
Bernard of Clairvaux French Catholic Religious Leader