Christianity: Saint Francis of Assisi Quiz

Answer: Giovanni

Born Giovanni di Pietro di Bernardone in 1181, Francis of Assisi was one of seven children, his father being Pietro di Bernardone dei Moriconi, a wealthy Italian businessman and silk salesman; his mother was Pica de Bourlemont, a French woman from Provence, south-eastern France. Petro was abroad when the son who would later become Saint Francis of Assisi was born, and upon his return he began to call his son "Francesco" which can either mean "French man" or "free man".

This could have been to honour his son's French heritage, or his father's appreciation of French culture.

Answer: Gave a beggar his profit after selling his father's silk

Young Francis worked for his father's clothing business, which usually catered to the wealthier members of society. A dishevelled beggar approached Francis to ask him for money. Francis was busy serving other customers and asked the beggar to wait his turn in an impatient manner, as Francis was in the middle of a sale.

The beggar was dejected and left. Francis felt sorry for the beggar and went out into the street to look for him. Once he had located the beggar he gave him the profit from the sale, placing the gold coins in the dumbfounded beggar's hands. Francis' father was furious when he learned of this, but Francis' charitable nature would cause further problems in their relationship as he grew older.

Answer: Perugia

Now the capital of the Umbria Region in Italy, Perugia was then a smaller town near to Assisi. Francis was captured as a prisoner of war after the battle, and spent a year imprisoned at Collestrada. His fine clothes and new, expensive armour likely saved his life as the troops from Perugia realised that he could gain them some substantial ransom money. During his imprisonment, he spent his time trying to establish a closer relationship with God.

He spent a year waiting for his father's payment of his ransom, contracted several illnesses and began to receive visions from God.

Answer: Walter III of Brienne

Walter III, Count of Brienne was a French noble who came to Italy to claim his wife's inheritance, a Sicilian princess named Elvira. Francis joined his army readily but upon arriving to give his military service, he received a vision from God telling him to turn back. God asked Francis who was better to serve, the servant or the master. When Francis answered, "The master", God replied, "Why then do you worry to look for the servant instead of the master?" When Francis asked what God would prefer him to do, God responded, "Return to Assisi, this is not your life."

This was the end of Francis of Assisi's military career. His life would soon take a radically different direction.

Answer: Rome

Francis had always wanted to go to Rome to see for himself the place where so many saints and martyrs had died. As is the case today, many people would travel to Rome to see St. Peter's Church. The church in the thirteenth century was not the church we see today (St. Peter's Basilica), with its huge dome. Still, people travelled far and wide to see the old church, which stood where the new St. Peter's Basilica now stands. Francis loved being inside the church, but when he had left the altar to stand in the church porch he noticed the vast amount of beggars outside. Feeling such a strong empathy for them, Francis joined them and even swapped his fine clothes with one of them to their astonishment.

Francis spent the rest of the day with the beggars, giving them everything he had with him and joining them on the ground outside the church. He decided that no service could be considered too low for him, and that he would spend the rest of his life dedicating himself to helping and empathizing with those in need.

Answer: San Damiano church

Still standing today since Francis' reconstruction of it, San Damiano church is located near Assisi. In 1205, according to Franciscan records, Francis received a vision from God that he must rebuild this church which had fallen into disrepair. Francis was wandering the countryside near Assisi, praying and asking God for inspiration. He happened upon the San Damiano church and saw its condition. He prayed under the church's crucifix and God said to him, "Francis, go and repair my church which, as you see, is all in ruins!"

Francis took this message literally and decided to rebuild the church before him, although he later realised the message could have meant he was to repair and replenish the Catholic church in general, which had become corrupt over time.

Answer: Stole from his father

Francis, perhaps thinking it was for the greater good, stole his father's horse and some fabric from his clothing shop in order to gain the money to rebuild the Church of San Damiano. When Francis approached the priest at this church with this money, admitting how he had come by it, the priest refused to accept it as it was an ill-gotten gain and he felt morally obligated to not take it. Frustrated, Francis threw the coins down and stormed out of the church.

Francis knew his father would be furious with him so he decided to live in the mountains for a month in hiding, hoping his father would calm down. Unfortunately for Francis, he had underestimated how angry his father truly was.

Answer: To disinherit him and get his money back

After hiding from his father in the mountains for a month, Francis incorrectly believed that he had calmed down following Francis' theft of his fabric and horse. Francis' father had actually become more and more angry with every passing day of his son's absence. When Francis finally returned to the family home, starving and bedraggled, his father beat him, tied him up and locked him in a store room. His mother freed him once his father was out of sight and Francis ran to the church of San Damiano.

Francis' father however, was not done with him. He dragged Francis before the Bishop of Assisi, demanded his money back for Francis' misguided attempt at raising funds to rebuild the church and also insisted on disinheriting his son. Some versions of the story include Francis throwing off his clothes in protest (with the bishop giving him a tunic for him to leave the church in) and renouncing his father and his inheritance. Now Francis was finally free to fully live the life he knew was destined for him. The next months saw Francis travelling the hills of Assisi as a beggar, ending up in a monastery to work as a servant.

Answer: Gubbio

Gubbio is an Italian town which is now part of the modern day Umbria Region of Italy. Francis visited there, now free to travel as he pleased without the interference of his father. Once in Gubbio, Francis was gifted by a friend a cloak, a girdle and a staff, which now is prevalent in most of his iconography.

Once he returned from Gubbio, Francis went about rebuilding the church of San Damiano, the right way. He begged in the streets not for money, but for stones to rebuild the church. He then transported the stones to the church himself and rebuilt it stone by stone. Francis also rebuilt other churches that were in need of repair, such as the San Pietro church in Spina and the chapel of St. Mary of the Angels, the latter which Francis was particularly fond of and chose to live there. When Francis was not rebuilding churches he was taking care of lepers.

The legend of Saint Francis taming a wolf comes from the "Little Flowers of St. Francis" compilation of texts by an unknown author. It was written over a century and a half after Saint Francis' death, therefore its historicity is understandably questioned. The text asserts that in Gubbio, Saint Francis tamed a wolf that had been killing, mauling and harassing the community. Francis was charged at by the wolf but made the sign of the cross, spoke to the wolf and relaxed it, becoming friends with the wolf, who then ceased to attack the town. It even befriended the townsfolk it had previously been attacking.

Answer: A deserted leper colony

The sermon Francis heard at the chapel of St. Mary of the Angels stated that Jesus' followers should go out and spread the gospel. Francis was deeply inspired by this, and had long believed that the Catholic Church had become too corrupt and had lost sight of its own teachings. He decided a simpler way of preaching was better, travelling with ragged robes and no finery, spreading the word of Jesus.

His teachings attracted followers who had similarly become disillusioned by the way the Catholic Church was being run. By the end of the year his 11 followers had left behind all worldly pleasures, and moved into a deserted leper colony in Rivo Torto, where they wandered the mountains and preached the gospel to anyone they met.

Answer: Innocent III

Pope Innocent III ruled the Catholic Church from 1198 until he died in 1216. He was reluctant to meet Francis at first, but eventually agreed. When he had spent some time with Francis, he agreed that the order could become an official order of the Catholic Church provided that Francis' followers increased.

The Pope also had a dream in which he saw Francis holding up the Basilica of St. John Lateran, and took this as a sign from God that Francis was legitimate. The group Francis took with him were all tonsured (had their head shaved for religious devotion). This protected the group from accusations of heresy, seeing as the Pope himself had legitimized their movement. However, Francis was not wholly accepted within the Catholic Church. His eccentric behaviour and habit of preaching to animals had him nicknamed "God's Fool".

Answer: Third Order of Brothers and Sisters of Penance

Clare of Assisi was one of Francis' first followers. A young Italian noblewoman, she heard Francis preaching in the church San Rufino, Assisi, in 1211, and was inspired by him. Her cousin Rufino was also impressed with Francis and his teachings. Francis gave her a habit and had her, her sister Caterina and some other women posted in a monastery for Benedictine nuns, until he could find more suitable accommodation for them. They were later relocated to some huts in San Damiano. This would be the place where the Poor Clares, or the Order of Saint Clare, would grow.

The Third Order of Brothers and Sisters of Penance, or the Third Order of Saint Francis, was created for followers of Francis who could not fully leave their lives and dedicate themselves to the order. They would not take vows but would implement the teachings of Saint Francis in their day-to-day lives.

Answer: La Verna

By 1213, Count Orlando Catani of Chiusi had gifted a mountainous patch of land to Francis to use as a retreat, hidden away in wild just east of Florence. There is a lone mountain peak called Mount Penna, surrounded by a birch tree forest and Francis spent much time praying and fasting around here.

In 1224, Francis was partaking in a 40 day fast around La Verna, with his follower, Brother Leo. Francis prayed and prayed to share in the suffering that Christ endured. Early accounts record that an angel (or seraph) with six wings appeared bearing the image of Jesus on the cross. When the angel left Francis had the stigmata on his own body, which he retained for the last two years of his life. Sceptics of Francis did not believe his wounds were the stigmata, however, insisting that his constant association with lepers were what actually had caused the wounds, despite their place on his body matching that of the stigmata.

Today there is a monastery called the Sanctuary of La Verna where Francis received his stigmata, which is the second most sacred place of the Franciscan Order, second only to Assisi, Francis' home town.

Answer: Assisi

Whether the stigmata on Francis' body were indeed caused by a holy miracle or were the effects of constantly being around lepers, the wounds began to take their toll on Francis' health. For the last two years of his life he bore them and medical treatment would not ail them. He died on October 3 1226, in his home town of Assisi. When it became apparent he was dying, knights were sent to guard him. It was believed even before his death that he would certainly be canonised, and the knights were sent to ward off relic hunters who would steal the (limited) personal items of this soon to be saint, or even worse: his body.

Pope Gregory IX canonised Francis of Assisi as a Saint in 1228.

Answer: Basilica of Saint Francis of Assisi

The Basilica of Saint Francis of Assisi is located in Assisi in the Umbria Region of Italy. Since 2000, it has been listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The Pope ordered the church to be built the day after Francis was canonised. It was kept a secret that Francis was buried there because there was an understandable fear that his remains would be stolen. In 1253, the church was consecrated by Pope Innocent IV.

Francis' remains were discovered in the church in 1818. A crypt was built so that Christians were able to visit Francis' tomb. Pope John Paul II visited the church twice, in 1986 and 2002, to pray for peace. In 1997 two earthquakes of g 5.7 and 6.0 magnitudes hit Assisi. Two Franciscan friars were killed, and the church was slightly damaged and had to be closed for two years to be repaired.

Francis has remained an inspiring figure to the religious and the non-religious. He abandoned his pampered life of luxury to work with those less fortunate, and in an age where the Catholic Church was rife with corruption he pushed for an honest, humble and generous way of life.