{"id":785,"date":"2014-10-06T20:56:38","date_gmt":"2014-10-07T03:56:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jamiestanthony.com\/blog\/?p=785"},"modified":"2014-10-06T20:56:38","modified_gmt":"2014-10-07T03:56:38","slug":"great-saint-francis-of-assisi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jamiestanthony.com\/blog\/2014\/10\/06\/great-saint-francis-of-assisi\/","title":{"rendered":"Great Saint Francis of Assisi"},"content":{"rendered":"

Great Saint Francis of Assisi was not wanted by his earthly father, Pietro Bernardone. \u00a0He was angry at his wife for having his son baptized with the name Giovanni after St. John the Baptist. \u00a0He didn’t want a son who was a man of God, he wanted a merchant like himself. \u00a0He also wanted a son to reflect his own love of France, so he had him renamed Francesco.<\/p>\n

Francis enjoyed an easy and rich life, with his time and talents being squandered in revelry, parties and casual relationships. \u00a0He was gregarious and had an appealing personality that was loved by everyone. \u00a0Thomas of Celano, his biographer, said of him: “In other respects he was an exquisite youth and attracted to himself a whole retinue of young people addicted to evil and accustomed to vice.” \u00a0St. Francis himself said, “I lived in sin” during that time.<\/p>\n

Francis lived his life for himself, but something happened to him when he was a soldier and was captured and held prisoner for ransom. \u00a0He was in a dungeon, dark and subjected to despair. \u00a0He continued a life of sin until he answered the call to go to the crusades as a knight from Assisi. \u00a0He only made it one day out from his town. \u00a0That night God visited him in a dream and like a lightening streak across a barren sky announces the coming storm, Francis experienced a storm of grace and he was never the same. \u00a0He prayed and prayed. \u00a0One day soon after he was riding in the countryside and saw a leper. \u00a0Instead of riding away in horror, Francis leapt from his horse and kissed the leper on the hand. \u00a0Riding away he turned to wave at the leper and found he has disappeared. \u00a0This was a test that Francis passed. \u00a0Soon after the events so well known in his life his break from his earthly father was permanent and his acceptance by His Heavenly Father was complete. \u00a0He founded the order that bears his name, with his dear and great friend Saint Clare.<\/p>\n

I urge you to read about the magnificent life of dear Saint Francis. \u00a0Read his writings. \u00a0Pray to him. \u00a0It is important to remember that he went to the Holy Land in order to give his life for Christ. \u00a0He preached Jesus Crucified and Resurrected to the Muslim. \u00a0In fact, so impressed was the sultan, that he gave to the Franciscan order the province of the Christian shrines in Palestine. \u00a0The sultan said, “I would convert to your religion which is a beautiful one, but both of us would be murdered.” \u00a0He wanted to save his earthly life, when he could have had the crown of martyrdom. \u00a0Pray for the Muslim and Islamists that today persecute Holy Mother Church and Catholics everywhere! \u00a0Many theologians in Church history believe that the humble Saint Francis was given the vacant throne of Lucifer in Heaven. \u00a0How wonderful is God in His Angels and in His Saints.<\/p>\n

Great Saint Francis, pray for us!<\/p>\n

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Great Saint Francis of Assisi was not wanted by his earthly father, Pietro Bernardone. \u00a0He was angry at his wife for having his son baptized with the name Giovanni after St. John the Baptist. \u00a0He didn’t want a son who was a man of God, he wanted a merchant like himself. \u00a0He also wanted a son to reflect his own… (more…)<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[500,24,54,499,501],"class_list":["post-785","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-thoughts","tag-his-heavenly-father","tag-holy-land","tag-holy-mother-church","tag-pietro-bernardone","tag-saint-clare"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jamiestanthony.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/785","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jamiestanthony.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jamiestanthony.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jamiestanthony.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jamiestanthony.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=785"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jamiestanthony.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/785\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":787,"href":"https:\/\/jamiestanthony.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/785\/revisions\/787"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jamiestanthony.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=785"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jamiestanthony.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=785"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jamiestanthony.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=785"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}