Assisi - Italy
Assisi has become one of the main tourist centres of the whole of Italy.
It was here that St Francis was born and founded his new religious order; it was here too that St Clare lived and worked.
The whole town is permeated with Franciscan memories and its most significant monuments are those built to commemorate its saints. Famous artists, first and foremost Giotto, have embellished its churches.
Originally an Umbrian town, it was conquered by the Romans and rose to considerable importance during Roman times, as testified by remains still visible in the town.
Devastated during the barbarian invasions, Assisi later became a free city-state and fought to defend its independence, especially against the neighbouring town of Perugia (the young St. Francis took part in these struggles).
After the death of the Saint in 1226, the town was embellished with magnificent churches and great pictorial masterpieces like those of Giotto.
During the Renaissance Assisi was ruled by various lords before becoming part of the Papal States.
St Francis of Assisi
In 1181, Francis Bernadone was born at Assisi in Italy. He grew up a cheerful, witty, generous and popular young man, ambitious to become a knight.
Perhaps for this reason, he took part in an attack on a neighbouring town, but was taken prisoner and languished as a hostage there for 12 months.
This, and a serious illness, seems to have started his conversion. However, a while later, he was again off on a military expedition, but was halted by a dream, in which he was asked, "Who do you think can best reward you, the master or the servant?" "The master", Francis replied. "Then why do you leave the master for the servant?" came the response.
Thus Francis was brought to realise he was called to something better than the exercise of arms and access to the nobility. So he returned to Assisi, and through prayer tried to learn how God wanted him to serve. One day, while riding, he came across a leprous beggar, which up to that time would have been to him a repulsive spectacle to be avoided at any cost, but realising this was a critical moment, he jumped off his horse, and slowly and deliberately kissed the leper's hand and put a coin in it.
Soon after, while praying in the dilapidated church of St Damiano, he heard a voice telling him - three times - "Francis, go and repair my house, for you can see it is falling down." Here was a clear instruction, and the impetuous young man immediately set about collecting building materials.
The sale of some valuable cloth raised a lot of money, but as it belonged to his father, a wealthy merchant, the action didn't exactly endear son to parent.
The incident eventually led Francis to separate himself from all dependence on his family or on any worldly power, even to strip himself entirely - in public - and to return his clothes to his father, and to renounce all filial ties except to his father in heaven.
It was his dedication to the life which Jesus demanded from his disciples that really marks him. "...take nothing for the journey except a staff, no bread, no haversack, no coppers ...not even a spare tunic."
Francis espoused Lady Poverty, as he put it, and insisted that his followers do the same. The Church authorities of the time were scandalised, but a Cardinal pointed out that if they were to dismiss this as impossible, they would be condemning Our Lord's own words, and it became clear even to the Pope that Jesus's command to Francis to repair his church meant far more than doing up the structure of St Damiano.
His popularity spread like wild fire, and by his death at 45 years old, his followers numbered many thousands.
He is known for spreading the word of God's love by missions; and for his dedicated loyalty to the Popes and the Church; he is known for setting up the first Christmas crib, for the Stations of the Cross, for the Angelus, and especially is he known for the manifestation of the stigmata - the wounds of Christ's crucifixion. But most of all is he remembered for his humility and humane compassion. Among his followers are six Popes and 98 saints.
St Clare of Assisi
St Clare was born of aristocratic parents at Assisi toward the end of the 12th century.
After hearing a sermon by St Francis and talking to him, she was determined to resist her parent's plans for marriage and to leave home, which she did secretly with a companion through a door reserved for the passage of corpses.
She met him at the Porziuncola, the little Church which was to become the cradle of the Franciscan Order, and there the 30-year old and penniless Francis accepted the spiritual and material responsibility for the 18-year old Clare.
At her request he cut off her hair, and lodged her in a Benedictine nunnery nearby. Later they moved to San Damiano where she was joined by her sister Agnes, and others, and later by her mother and another sister. The group was as independent as the early Franciscans had been, and so that there might be some regulation, Francis gave them a short rule of life and strict rules of diet, which St Clare apparently observed more severely than required.
She was only 24 when Francis appointed her Abbess, but under her guidance, the informality and fervour of the sisterhood attracted many into the community.
In Francis's last illness, Clare sheltered him for a time in the garden of San Damiano where he composed the famous Canticle of Brother Sun before returning to die at Porziuncola.
True to the spirit and ideals of Francis, Clare obtained from Pope Innocent III a privilege guaranteeing absolute poverty to the community, but a later Pope, Gregory IX, insisted on endowing the nuns with land and buildings, and offered to absolve her from the vows of poverty.
Clare answered, "Holy Father, absolve me from my sins, but not from the obligation of following Our Lord". Later, yet another Pope sanctioned the holding of property, which Clare simply ignored, and instead composed a rule based on that of Francis imposing the same poverty, which the Pope hastily approved two days before her death.
When she died in 1253 the pope celebrated Mass in her honour the very next day, and she was canonised only two years later. She was rightly accounted the founder of the Second Order of St Francis, or the Poor Clares.
Basilica of St Francis
Basilica build by Brother Elias to hold the body of St Francis. Work was started on the church on July 17, 1228 when the first stone was blessed by Pope Gregory IX the day after the canonisation of St. Francis. His body was moved here from the Chapel of St. George (now part of the Basilica of Santa Chiara) on May 25, 1230.
Chapel of St George
Where Francis was schooled in his youth, and where he was originally buried while the Basilica of San Francesco was being built to receive his remains.
St Clare was buried here in the middle of the rock under the main altar - where her body was discovered in 1850.
The Church of San Damiano
The church was restored by St. Francis of Assisi and later served as home for St Clare.
It was here that Francis heard the voice of Christ from the cross telling him to rebuild His Church.
The Porziuncola
The Porziuncola - the Little Portion - was Francis's favorite place, and home for many years. It was in the little chapel of St. Mary of the Angels that Clare received her habit.