Unlikely Saints

He doesn't look particularly wacky, does he? But St. Francis of Assisi, whose memorial was celebrated on Friday, is a pretty good example of the unlikely material the Lord loves to work with. His family was well off; his father was a wealthy silk merchant. Francis was a slacker in school who loved fine clothes and merry making with his friends, although even then he was generous to the poor. So quick was he to perform deeds of daring that he actually was a favorite among the noblemen of his age. He did not want to become a merchant like his father but did have a penchant for fighting, so at 20 he went off to fight with the young men of Assisi in one of the endless little battles that took place between Italian cities-- in this case Perugia. Assisi lost and Francis was held prisoner in Perugia for a year. During that time he became ill which briefly turned his thoughts toward God but, upon getting home and getting well, his thoughts turned again. This time they turned to a military career.

However, he was praying one day in a dilapidated church when he heard God tell him, "Go, Francis, and repair my house, which as you see is falling into ruin." Francis took his own and sold some of his father's property to raise the money. The priest refused it and, worse, his father came after Francis breathing fire. The Catholic Encyclopedia tells us what happened next:

The elder Bernardone, a most niggardly man, was incensed beyond measure at his son's conduct, and Francis, to avert his father's wrath, hid himself in a cave near St. Damian's for a whole month. When he emerged from this place of concealment and returned to the town, emaciated with hunger and squalid with dirt, Francis was followed by a hooting rabble, pelted with mud and stones, and otherwise mocked as a madman. Finally, he was dragged home by his father, beaten, bound, and locked in a dark closet.

Freed by his mother during Bernardone's [the father of Francis] absence, Francis returned at once to St. Damian's, where he found a shelter with the officiating priest, but he was soon cited before the city consuls by his father. The latter, not content with having recovered the scattered gold from St. Damian's, sought also to force his son to forego his inheritance. This Francis was only too eager to do; he declared, however, that since he had entered the service of God he was no longer under civil jurisdiction. Having therefore been taken before the bishop, Francis stripped himself of the very clothes he wore, and gave them to his father, saying: "Hitherto I have called you my father on earth; henceforth I desire to say only 'Our Father who art in Heaven'." Then and there, as Dante sings, were solemnized Francis's nuptials with his beloved spouse, the Lady Poverty, under which name, in the mystical language afterwards so familiar to him, he comprehended the total surrender of all worldly goods, honours, and privileges.

When saints convert, they convert thoroughly. Francis lived in the most abject and deliberately chosen poverty, preached and practiced charity and peace. There is so much more that happened during his relatively short life (he died around the age of 45) and I recommend the Catholic Encyclopedia (or the famous biography by Thomas Celano, his follower and contemporary) for detail. His life is extremely well documented. Not only did Thomas Celano write about him but there are writings by other followers, discussions of him in various papal documents and, of course, the writings of Francis himself.

But I must not fail to mention that in 1224 he received the stigmata in his body-- the five wounds of Christ.
So famous was he by the time he died two years later that his body had to be taken under heavy guard to Assisi in order not to be stolen
by the Perugians who would then be able to traffic his relics. 
Thus the boy who liked soft living became the living embodiment of Holy Poverty. Is there anyone God cannot use?