04/10/2026
HAPPY FIESTA ST. FRANCIS DE ASSISSI 🎉🎊🎉🎈
St. Francis of Assisi
October 4
The most loved saint in the world.
7 Facts About St. Francis You Might Not Know
1. He was a rich party boy, not a poor monk at first.
Born 1181 in Assisi, Italy. Son of a rich cloth merchant. He loved parties, songs, expensive clothes. He dreamed of being a knight, not a saint. He went to war and was captured, imprisoned for a year, got very sick. That's where God started to break him.
2. He stripped naked in front of everyone.
After his conversion, his father was furious that Francis gave money to the poor. He dragged Francis to the bishop's court. Francis took off all his clothes — even his underwear — gave them to his father and said: "Until now I called you father. From now on I can truly say, 'Our Father who art in heaven.'" The bishop covered him with his cloak.
3. He didn't want to be a priest — he wanted to be "little."
He was only a deacon. He refused to be a priest because he thought himself unworthy. He called his group the _Friars Minor_ — the Little Brothers. And he called himself the smallest of them.
4. He heard Jesus from a ruined crucifix.
In the broken church of San Damiano, the crucifix spoke to him: _"Francis, go and repair my house, which as you see is falling into ruin."_ He first thought it meant stones. He rebuilt the chapel with his hands. Later he understood: the Church itself.
That San Damiano Cross is now in Assisi — it's the cross we see everywhere today.
5. He invented the Christmas Nativity scene.
In 1223 in Greccio, Italy, Francis wanted people to feel Christmas. He brought a real ox, a donkey, hay, and a manger into a cave and celebrated Mass there. It was the first _Belen_ in history. So when you put up a Belen in Manila — that's from Francis.
6. He received the stigmata — the wounds of Christ.
In 1224, on Mount La Verna, while praying and fasting for 40 days, a seraph angel appeared. After the vision, Francis had bleeding wounds in his hands, feet, and side — the same 5 wounds as Jesus. He was the first recorded person in history to receive them. He hid them, embarrassed, and wore gloves.
7. He called everyone brother and sister — even Death.
He called the sun Brother Sun, the moon Sister Moon, water Sister Water. He preached to birds. He tamed a wolf in Gubbio that was terrorizing a town — he made peace between the wolf and the people.
And at the end of his life, blind, in pain from the stigmata, dying at 44, he added a verse to his Canticle:
_"Praised be You, my Lord, through our Sister Bodily Death, from whom no living man can escape."_
He died singing, naked on the floor as he asked, like Jesus.
His most famous prayer — which he never actually wrote — but is his spirit:
Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.
Where there is hatred, let me sow love...
For it is in giving that we receive,
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.
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Today is his feast day. In the Philippines, animals are blessed in many parishes — dogs, cats, birds. Bring yours if you have one.
St. Francis is patron of: animals, ecology, merchants, Italy, and our Pope Francis — who took his name because of him.
CTTO
