They have been working for eight centuries, in cities, towns and villages around the world.
Their normal garb is a brown habit with a white-knotted cord - but in tropical areas, they may
also wear a white habit, or whatever is suitable. You can find them in Parishes, Mission Stations,
Colleges, Schools, Hospitals, Slums, Prisons… wherever there are people who need to be told that
great Good News that God is alive and cares.
St. Francis of Assisi
These men are the followers of St. Francis of Assisi. In 1205, Francis was 23 years old,
the son of a rich cloth merchant. He had everything a young man might want in life - Money,
Friends, Opportunities. He was the Leader of youth in his town, and aspired to one day become a
knight. But God had other plans for him.
One day, while on a military expedition to Apulia, he heard a Voice speaking to him and
telling him to return to Assisi, where he would be told what to do. Francis returned.
He waited and prayed for a whole year. Then he heard the Voice again. It spoke to him
from the Crucifix in the Crumbling Little Church of San Damiano: "Francis, go and repair
my house which is falling in to ruin."
Francis undertook the repairs of this little church, begging for stones and mortar and
working with his own hands. This brought him into conflict with his father who finally
disowned him. Francis was left penniless and homeless, but in God he found a new Father.
Slowly God began to show Francis that he wanted him to live the Gospel of Jesus literally,
in Poverty and in Service of the Poor.
Francis' example and way of life soon attracted other young men. When they were a group
of twelve, Francis wrote for them a simple rule, which the Pope approved on 16th April 1209.
The Franciscan Order was born. The Brothers live together in small fraternal groups, did hand
labor for their livelihood, preached to people of the love of God, served lepers and other poor
Francis called his men the Order of Friars Minor (O.F.M.), the group of lesser brothers.
Littleness and Brotherliness were to be the dominant features of his movement; his men were
to be simple, approachable and always available to those in need; in their Apostolate if they have
a preference, it should be for the poor, the lonely, the abandoned.
He was a great respecter of the individual. For Francis no two of his brothers were the
same. Each one's talents, character and personality were important. He encouraged everyone
to develop his God-given potentialities for better serving God and His people.
A Man of irrepressible joy, Francis wanted his men to be the same. "Sadness is for the
devil," he used to say. "It belongs to you, my brothers, to be always joyful in the Lord".
In moments of exuberant spiritual joy he would sing and dance, and taking two sticks of
wood playfully draw one over the other as if accompanying himself on the violin.
His last act on his death-bed was to start a song, which his brothers took up, while he
joyfully entered paradise.
The Joy of Francis was not a kind of superficial cheerfulness, it was a deeper and inner
joy purchased at the high price of self-renunciation and sacrifice. He took upon himself
the pain and anguish of all the world and united them with those of Christ, thus
participating in the compassion of Christ for all those in pain. Bought with suffering,
his was the kind of joy and peace that only Christ can give, and the world can neither
give nor take away.
Towards the end of his life this union with God became so intense that the five wounds of
Christ were marked on his hands, feet and side. He spent his last days in close contact
with God. This and the approach of death so filled him with happiness that he often broke
out into music. Just after sunset on 3rd October 1226 Francis died, singing.
Repair My House
But neither his song nor his work ended there. Just as his brothers continued his song
after his death, so too did they continue his work. When the crucifix of San Damiano said
to him, "Francis, go and repair my house" he had taken it literally and repaired that
church. It was towards the end of his life that he realized the command had a deeper
significance: his life's task was not merely to repair the church of San Damiano with his
hands, but to repair the universal Church of God with his life. This he did so magnificently
that today, eight centuries after his death, the movement he started stands out in the Church
as the largest single charism in its history, eighth over three million followers in three
Orders; and still every year more books are written about him than about any other saint.
Renan, the agnostic scholar, called him 'the most Christ-like man since Christ', and Lenin
on his death-bed said, "I realize my mistake; what I should have given to the world was
twelve Francices of Assisi !"