St. Francis's father curses him, so a beggar blesses him

ASSISI, Umbria, 1206 AD — Saint Francis of Assisi gave his father back every piece of clothing he owned. But St. Francis couldn’t get away from his father, because they both lived in Assisi. His father, Pietro Bernardone, cursed him every time they met in the street.

Pietro was a rich cloth merchant. He travelled as far as France to buy the cloth he sold. He was away in France when his son was born. When he got home, he changed the baby’s name from John to Francis.

St. Francis grew up working in the family business. In 1206 AD, when he was in his mid-twenties, he loaded scarlet cloth from his father’s stock onto his horse. He rode to Foligno and sold the cloth, and the horse too. He wanted the money for the poor and for mending the church of San Damiano.

Pietro wanted his money back, and he wanted his son home. In the end he took his son before Bishop Guido of Assisi. There St. Francis handed back the money. He took off all his clothes and laid them on top of it. Then he said that from now on the only father he would name was “Our Father, Which art in Heaven”. Pietro carried the money and the clothes home and left his son nothing to wear.

A penny’s worth of sweat

St. Francis went back to San Damiano and started rebuilding it. He carried the stones on his own shoulders. For food, he went from door to door in Assisi with a dish. He ate whatever scraps people put in it.

St. Francis had once dressed in bright, expensive clothes. Now he was thin and cold, and his clothes were shabby. Pietro had loved his son very much, and seeing him like that filled Pietro with shame and grief.

Plenty of people in Assisi made fun of St. Francis. His brother, Angelo, was one of them. One winter morning St. Francis was praying in rags, shivering with cold. Angelo walked past and said to a man from the town: “Ask Francis to sell you now a pennyworth of sweat.” St. Francis heard him. He smiled and answered, “Indeed I will sell my sweat very dear to my Lord.” He said it in French, the language of the country where his father bought his cloth.

“Bless me, my father”

St. Francis found a beggar to walk through the town at his side. In return, he promised the beggar part of the alms people gave him.

From then on, each time Pietro cursed his son in the street, St. Francis said to the beggar, “Bless me, my father.” The beggar made the sign of the Cross over St. Francis. He blessed St. Francis in his father’s place.

Then St. Francis would ask Pietro: “Thinkest thou not that God can give me a father to bless me, to set against thy curses?” Many of the people who mocked St. Francis were amazed at his patience.

Years later, St. Francis was famous, and people crowded round to praise him. Sometimes, when they did, he ordered one of his followers to call him names. One follower called St. Francis a lout and a useless wretch. St. Francis smiled and blessed the man. He said those were just the right words for Pietro Bernardone’s son to hear: “The Lord bless thee, because thou art saying what is most true, for such things it is meet for the son of Peter di Bernardone to hear.”