St. Francis dies in a borrowed habit, after lying naked on the earth

THE PORZIUNCOLA, Assisi, October 3, 1226 AD — Saint Francis of Assisi died at nightfall on Saturday, October 3, 1226 AD. He died on the earth floor of a small hut beside the chapel of the Porziuncola, in the plain below Assisi. He had been blind for many days. In his last hours, by his own wish, the brothers took off his habit and laid him naked on the ground.

St. Francis was the son of a rich cloth merchant of Assisi. Twenty years earlier, in the bishop’s palace in the town above, he had taken off every piece of clothing he had. He laid the clothes and his father’s money in front of Bishop Guido and stood naked before his father and everyone watching. He went on to found the Order of Lesser Brethren. Its Rule let the brothers own “neither a house nor place nor anything.” St. Bonaventure, who later wrote his life, linked the two days: as St. Francis had stood naked before the bishop at the start of his conversion, “so in the ending of his life he was minded to quit the world naked.”

In September 1224 AD, on Mount La Verna, St. Francis had received the stigmata, the wounds of the crucified Christ, in his hands, his feet and his right side. He had kept them hidden ever since. By the summer of 1226 AD he was dying, and in July he was carried home under guard to the bishop’s palace at Assisi. There a doctor from Arezzo told him he would die at the end of September or on October 4. St. Francis spread out his hands and said: “Welcome, my sister Death.” Then he asked to be carried down to the Porziuncola, the chapel where he had founded the order, so that he could die there.

St. Francis sent for Blessed Bernard of Quintavalle, the first man who had joined him. Bernard sat on the bed and asked for his blessing. St. Francis reached out his right hand and laid it on the head of Blessed Giles of Assisi, the third man to join him, who was sitting next to Bernard. Then St. Francis said: “This is not the head of my brother Bernard.” Bernard moved closer. St. Francis put his hand on Bernard’s head and blessed him, and had a companion write down that Bernard was “the first brother that the Lord did give unto me.”

St. Francis also had bread brought to him. He was too weak to break it, so it was broken into many pieces for him. He blessed the bread and held out a piece to each brother. Thomas of Celano, who wrote his first life, said he did it in memory of the Lord’s last supper with his disciples.

On the last evening, St. Francis had the brothers take off his haircloth habit and lay him naked on the bare earth. He lifted his face to heaven and covered the wound in his right side with his left hand so that no one would see it. Then St. Francis said to the brothers: “I have done my duty, may Christ teach you yours.”

The brothers wept. St. Francis had chosen one of them as his warden, a brother he had promised to obey. The warden got up quickly and brought him a habit, a cord and a pair of breeches. The warden told St. Francis: “These I lend unto thee, as unto a beggar, and do thou receive them at the bidding of holy obedience.” He also forbade St. Francis to give the clothes to anyone, so that St. Francis would know they were not his. St. Francis was glad and raised his hands to heaven, because not even the clothes he wore were his own: he had kept faith, St. Bonaventure wrote, “with the Lady Poverty even unto the end.”

Dressed in the lent habit, St. Francis had every brother in the place called to him. He spoke to them for a long time about patience and poverty, and told them that the Gospel came before every other rule they had. The brothers sat round him, and he laid his right hand on each head in turn, beginning with Brother Elias, who governed the order as his vicar. Through them St. Francis blessed all the brothers in the world and all who would come after them.

St. Francis asked for St. John’s Gospel to be read to him from the words “Before the feast of the Passover,” the passage that tells how Jesus knew his hour had come to pass out of this world to the Father. Then, as well as he could, he began to sing the psalm that opens “I cried unto the Lord with my voice, with my voice unto the Lord did I make my supplication,” and sang on to its last verse. Last, because he was about to become dust and ashes, he had the brothers lay him on sackcloth on the floor and sprinkle him with ashes.

The brothers gathered round him and waited for him to die. Lady Jacoba of Settesoli, a Roman widow he called Brother Jacoba, stayed with him to the end. St. Francis died at nightfall, without pain or struggle. The brothers were still watching his face for a sign of life when larks came down on the roof of the hut in great numbers, though the dark was falling. St. Bonaventure called them “birds that love the light, and dread the shades of twilight.” They circled the roof for a long time, singing more gladly than usual.