He was born at Asisi, Umbria. He came from wealthy family background. His father was Pietro. He wanted his son to be a businessman, cloth merchant like he was so he named him Francesco or Frenchman.
He enjoyed very rich easy life growing up because his father's wealth and the permissiveness at that times. He was constantly happy, charming and a born leader. As he grew up, he became the leader of a crowd of young people who spent their nights in wild parties.
He was good at business, but he wanted more, more than wealth. It's glory and prestige he longed for.
H wanted to be a noble knight. He got his first chance when Asisi declared war. Most of the troops were butchered and he lived in dungeon for about a year.
However, this experience didn't change him. He still loved party like before. The experience also didn't give him what he wanted : Glory
There's another chance for another war, he had a suit of armor decorated with gold and magnificent cloak and horse.
But Francis never got farther than one day's ride from Asisi. There he had a dream in which God told him he had it all wrong and told him to return home. And return home he did. What must it have been like to return without ever making it to battle, he was humiliated, laughed at called a coward and raged by his father
His conversion didn't happen over night, God waited him for 25 years and now his turn to wait.
He started to spend more times in prayer, went off to a cave and wept for his sins. Sometimes God's grace overwhelmed him with joy. But life couldn't just stop for God. There was a business to run.
His search for conversion lead him to the old church when he heard the voice " Repair my church ". He thought it was a building, so he took the fabric from his father's factory to get money and his father saw this as an act of theft and demanded him to return it back.
He not only return back the money but also stripping off his clothes.
Soon, he started to preach even though he's not a priest yet neither the reformer. He preached about returning to God and obedience to the church.
Slowly companions came to Francis, people who wanted to follow his life, sleeping in the open, begging for garbage to eat and loving God. He knew he now had to have some kind of direction to this life so he opened the bible in three places and make rules. The command to the rich young man to sell all his good and give to the poor, the order to the apostles to take nothing on their journey and the demand to take up the cross daily. He was living by the Gospel.
He never wanted to found religious order. He thought of what he was doing as expressing God's brotherhood. His companions came from all walks of life and he practiced true equality by showing honor, respect and love to every person.
His brotherhood included all God's creation.
One of famous stories, he preached to hundred of birds about being thankful to God for their wonderful clothes, their independence and for God's care. The birds stood still as he walked among him, only flying off when he said they could leave.
He didn't try to abolish poverty but make it holy. They worked for all necessities and only begged if they had to. But he could not let them accept any money. He said " If we had any possessions, we should need weapons and laws to defend them. what could you do to a man who owns nothing ? You can't steal from someone who has no money, you can't ruin someone who hates prestiges. They were truly free."
Years of poverty and wandering made him ill and he never recovered from his illness. He is considered the founder of all Franciscan orders and the patron saint of ecologists and merchants.
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