On October 3, 1226, in his hometown, Francis of Assisi asked to be laid naked on the ground. After hearing the Passion according to Saint John and while praying Psalm 141—“With my voice I cry to the Lord”—he reached the verse, “The righteous will wait for me, until you reward me,” and in that moment he died. He was only forty-five years old.
Six years earlier, Francis had wisely stepped aside from directly leading the movement he had begun, which had already grown far beyond what he had imagined. He returned to his love of solitude.
Francis had a joyful, loving way of seeing creation—an optimistic outlook that was unusual for his time and that some connect with the early stirrings of Italian humanism. He embraced poverty so completely that he even personified it, calling it “Lady Poverty,” not as a burden, but as a gift. This spirit set him apart from the more traditional view of monastic life, even though Francis himself—whatever later generations made of him—remained deeply monastic at heart.
Two years before his death, on Mount Verna, Francis received the stigmata—the wounds of Christ—what Dante would later call “the final seal of Christ.” This was the visible sign of what had already happened deep within him: Francis had become totally conformed to Christ. From his contemplation of the greatness of God the Father, he had been led to live out in his very body the humility and self-emptying of the Word made flesh.
