Here are just a few who helped change the Church and the world for the better. They are of import since, like St. Anthony Maria Zaccaria , who founded the Clerks Regular of Saint Paul, they continued the reform of the clergy in post-Tridentine Italy—a reform that, had it not been given sinew and wings, may have died on the proverbial vine. And from there he took it to Spain where Adorno houses where established in Madrid, Alcala, and Valladolid.
Back in Rome, Francis was able to relinquish the position of Superior which he had inherited when his dear friend Adorno died , and led a life of incredible humility, impressing St. Philip Neri of Rome, who donated a novitiate house in the Abruzzi to Francis. In addition to vows of poverty, chastity and obedience, the Clerks Minor promised never to take any higher office outside or inside their order. Today reduced to just a few members, mainly in New Jersey and South Carolina, the Adorno Fathers have been trying to recruit more men from the Philippines.
But more importantly than just ridding shame from the house of Borgia, St. Francis showed that even a nobleman could become a Jesuit—and a saint—though he was the ripe age of forty when he was finally allowed to enter the Society. Despite the fact that he was certainly to the manor born and carried various titles such as Marquis of Lombardy, Viceroy of Catalonia and finally Duke, Francis who had the good sense to marry well and sire eight children entered the Jesuits after his wife died with all the fire of a teenaged convert.
He is important for several reasons. First, he cemented the Jesuits in Spain. It is easy to forget that, though Ignatius of Loyola and Francis Xavier are Spaniards, the former was in Rome and the latter was, basically, all over India and East Asia. Not content with solidifying his homeland, he brought Portugal into the Jesuit sphere of influence as well, thus putting a Jesuit-Catholic foothold on the entire Iberian Peninsula.
He was a legendary preacher and administrator who was appointed Commissary General in by St. Ignatius himself , and ten years later, Father General of the Order, stationed in Rome. Though St. Ignatius Loyola was definitely the founder of the Jesuits, and St. Francis Xavier was its missionary force, it was St. Francis Borgia—who even during his lifetime was being acclaimed a saint—who brought the whole enterprise together, and accounted for its better formation and expansion.
Francis of Paola showed early signs of great sanctity and, like the hermits of ancient Egypt, retired to a cave near Paola. He was barely fifteen. What makes this retreat so remarkable is that Francis had been to Rome and Assisi on pilgrimage—and still thought there was nothing unusual about living as an anchorite. Even stranger: that so many followed this young man into the hills to live as hermits.
Like the Jesuits who take a fourth vow of complete obedience to the pope and the Clerks Regular Minor above, who vow not to take a higher position in or outside their order , the Minimi , too, take a fourth vow: that of a perpetual Lent.
Joseph can help you sell your house. Sebastian stuck full of arrows, shaggy wild man John the Baptist, or a barely clothed Mary Magdalene might be the most visually interesting. But can anyone really match the array of settings in which we find the Poor Man of Assisi?
Name another saint whose likeness exists in media as varied as frescos, film, graphic novels, and urns for cremated pet remains. Every diocese has a parish named for him. Any museum with a medieval art collection has a St. Francis tucked away somewhere. Several saints may have hospitals named after them, but Francis is likely the only one to be the patron of hospitals for both humans and animals. In the United States San Francisco is named for him.
Further down the California coast the city of Nuestra Senora de los Angeles de la Porciuncula is named for the first Franciscan church and the place where Francis died in When I teach History to college freshmen, St. Francis of Assisi has a starring role in our lecture about medieval religious life. His costar is the lesser-known religious reformer, Peter Waldo. Both were born in the 12th century, about a generation apart. Waldo was French; Francis was Italian.
Each was a wealthy cloth merchant. As young professionals, both men had spiritual epiphanies that prompted them to renounce all their possessions.
Taking as their lodestar the poverty and simplicity of Christ, each preached a message that was sharply at odds with the opulence and arcana of medieval liturgy. Francis went on to found a successful religious order. Waldo was excommunicated, several of his followers were executed, and the exact circumstances of his death are a matter of historical speculation.
For two men with such similar origins and messages, what caused their paths to diverge so dramatically? After a moment of fidgety silence my students begin to tease out an answer: Francis actively sought official church sanction for his preaching, and he received it after the pope had a dream in which a superhuman Francis held up a collapsing church roof. Waldo, in contrast, was wary of allowing church hierarchy to interfere with his ministry. Francis of Assisi is kind of a sellout.
John Lateran. For the fascists, though, it hardly mattered. They swathed their rise to power in Franciscan imagery. Francis embraced poverty and self-sacrifice, just as all Italians living within the fascist state were expected to do. More importantly, Francis was Italian. His Italian preaching blazed a path for vernacular giants like Dante and Petrarch.
To drive the message home, the fascists spent a considerable amount of money restoring medieval Assisi as a fitting shrine for a national hero. As Patricia Appelbaum argues in her book St. In the United States, the popularization of this Catholic saint, in particular his peaceful, gentle version, owes a heavy debt to mainline American Protestantism. They accepted him as a true follower of Jesus and a proto-Protestant harbinger of freedom. He found a way to get under the door. Francis made leaflets and posters with simple explanations of Catholic doctrines, and had each one copied many times - by hand of course!
Writing down his sermons, he would slip them under the doors of the hostile villagers, trusting God to work on their hearts one sheet at a time. These teachings were then posted and distributed all around Thonon, so that those who might be afraid to listen to Fr.
Francis always made sure to be an instrument for God in converting people back to Catholicism. In an attempt to befriend the men in the Chablais, Francis used his gift of having a photographic memory to win card games. Unsuspectingly, Francis would bankrupt the men at the end of their game and told them he would give back all their money if they came to hear him speak at Mass on Sunday.
Francis so they could get their money back! Parents also initially wouldn't come to Fr. Francis out of fear. So Francis went to the children. When the parents saw how kind he was as he played with the children, they began to talk to him.
One day, two men swirling their swords sprang up from behind a bush and advanced towards Francis. Francis went towards them, stared at them and talked to them calmly. They were stupefied.
They confessed that they had nothing against him. They had been hired to kill him and they begged his pardon. The courageous and eloquent Fr. Francis even managed to convert the hired hitmen to the Catholic faith! Through the success of Fr. By Lent of , 17 months after arriving in Chablais, it was finally safe enough in the city of Thonon for Francis to move closer to those he was serving. He was then able to begin celebrating daily mass in the Chapel of St. Francis continued in Thonon for a few more years, while his father constantly begged him to return home, and his mother secretly sent him financial support.
Through Fr. Healing was truly taking place for these previously persecuted Catholics, and their hearts were filled with hope. As things in Thonon began to calm down, Francis did return to his family for a visit.
While there, he was struck with a mysterious illness, from which he almost died. Could it have had anything to do with the writing he was doing on demons and exorcisms? Whatever the cause, he recovered under the loving and constant care of his mother. By the time Francis left the Chablais to go home, he is said to have converted 40, people back to Catholicism. This is why Francis de Sales is known as the patron of writers and journalists. Francis as his coadjutor assistant bishop and eventual successor because the bishop appreciated the excellent qualities and holiness of Francis.
There were several times Bishop de Granier hinted at the idea to Francis that he wanted to make Francis a bishop, but with great humility Francis always turned the other way. Finally in , the bishop sent Fr. Pierre Critain to persuade Fr. Francis to accept the coadjutorship. When Fr. Pierre went to talk with Fr. Francis, Francis refused point blank. He would do everything that the bishop might want except accepting the episcopacy.
He sought the opinion of the best of his clergy and the nobility. Everyone wants to see you elected bishop. It is the Holy Spirit who wants you as the Bishop. In January , Francis de Boisy began to feel very ill. Francis visited his father when it was possible to spare some time amidst his activities.
He told them to regard their brother Francis as their father and protector. Monsieur de Boisy died on April 6, He refused to be called bishop and to wear any vestment or take any rank other than that of the Provost.
In , while preaching a Lenten series, he met Jane Frances de Chantal, a recently widowed mother of four children.
At their first sight of each other, there was instant recognition from the visions they had each had of the other. This was the beginning of one of the great spiritual friendships in Christian history.
Luckily for us, most of St. From these letters of council to Madame de Chantal, to his mother, and to other women who came to Bishop de Sales for spiritual direction, was born his most well-known and well-loved book, Introduction to the Devout Life. It is evident in his writing that Bishop de Sales was highly influenced by the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius - no doubt one of his favorite saints! Bishop de Sales had one more dream - to found a religious community for women which would combine contemplative prayer with active service.
This was a new idea in his time, since most nuns lived in cloister and did not leave to visit the sick or poor - or for any other reason. Madam de Chantal suggested the name of the order of the Visitation of Holy Mary, an idea which the bishop liked better than his own idea of Daughters of Saint Martha. In , Jane de Chantal joined a few other women for a year in novitiate, with the new order under the direction of Bishop Francis de Sales. Jane was to be named the Mother Foundress of this new order, which soon found opposition to its goal of visiting the sick.
People of the time were used to cloistered nuns, and even though Bishop de Sales and Madam de Chantal had the support of Cardinal Robert Bellarmine, the Archbishop of Lyons would not allow a relaxed, uncloistered congregation in his archdiocese. Mother de Chantal struggled with the decision a bit more than the bishop did, but, with the reorganization, the order spread quickly throughout France and into Italy.
Through a series of carefully written chapters, Francis offers practical suggestions for navigating through the temptations presented by the world and for making true progress on one's spiritual journey. His insights on the nature of prayer, the value of the sacraments, the role of friendship, the character of virtue, and the importance of devotion are timeless in their relevance.
The Treatise on the Love of God was written for individuals more advanced in the spiritual life. Francis remained as the spiritual advisor for the sisters of the Visitation and guided many of them to lofty peaks of holiness. He often recounted how grateful he was to God for the wisdom he gained from his correspondence with these holy women.
The Treatise speaks not only of the nature of God's love for humanity but of the possibilities within humanity for a return of this love. He sees all reality flowing from the loving heart of a providential God. Creation and, to an even greater degree, salvation, is witness to this incomparable love of humanity. The human's appropriate response is a joyful and total union of the human will with the loving will of God.
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