This is the city of Assisi in Umbria, where our religious family was born, through the inspiration of Francis and Clare.
They lived at a time when money, trade and possessions were becoming increasingly important. These things gave people prestige and the power to control and manipulate others.
Francis was the son of a successful cloth merchant, Pietro Bernadone, who wanted his son to follow him in his money-making business, but Francis was more interested in spending money than earning it. He liked a good time, and good clothes and a good horse.
After two unsuccessful attempts at soldiering, a spell in prison and a long illness, he began to spend more time alone and in prayer. His former friends thought he had gone mad. But he had decided he wanted to follow Jesus, who 'became poor so that we might be made rich out of his poverty'. |
One day, while he was praying in a little ruined church outside the town, he heard the figure of Jesus on the cross speak to him. The words he heard were 'Francis, go and repair my house which, as you see, is falling into ruins'. Francis thought this meant the church building and so he set to work heaving stones - he even sold some of his father's cloth and his horse to make money to buy more stone. His father was furious; they mutually disowned each other before the bishop and, as far as we know, were never reconciled.
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