Saint Francis of Paola (1416-1507)

A birth obtained through prayer (1416)

Francis was born on 27 March 1416 at Paola, a small town in the province of Cosenza, in Calabria, then in the Kingdom of Naples.^[6][7][8] His parents, Giacomo (James) Martolilla and Vienna (Vienne) de Fuscaldo, were humble landowners, devout and poor, married for several years without offspring.^[9][10]

According to the tradition received by all his biographers, the couple obtained this child after long invoking Saint Francis of Assisi. In gratitude, they gave him the name of the Poverello — Francis — and placed the child entirely under the patronage of the saint of Assisi, whose spirit of poverty would mark his whole life.^[11][12]

Healing of the eye and the parents' vow

When only a few weeks old, Francis was struck by a serious eye infection that threatened to blind him. His mother renewed her recourse to Saint Francis of Assisi and vowed, if the child recovered, to consecrate him for one year as an oblate in a Franciscan convent.^[13][14] The child immediately recovered his sight.

This first sign shaped his whole childhood. Francis grew up in an atmosphere of fervour, fascinated from his earliest years by prayer and by the stories of the lives of the Desert Fathers.

A year with the Franciscans of San Marco Argentano

At about thirteen years of age, to fulfil his mother's vow, Francis was entrusted for one year to the Friars Minor of the convent of San Marco Argentano.^[15] He led there a life so austere and so exemplary that the religious were struck by it: the child fasted, prayed at night, and surpassed grown men in fervour.

This Franciscan year was no mere interlude: it lastingly impressed upon him the ideal of the Poverello, which he would later carry further, into a rigour greater still than that of the order where he had learned it.

The 1430 pilgrimage: Assisi, Rome, Monte Cassino

In 1430, at about fourteen years of age, Francis made a great pilgrimage with his parents: he travelled to Assisi, to the tomb of his patron saint, then to Loreto, to Rome and to Monte Cassino, the cradle of Benedictine monasticism.^[16] The contrast he discovered in Rome between the pomp of certain prelates and the poverty of the Gospel shocked him; one tradition reports that he dared to reproach a cardinal for his lavish way of life.

Back in Paola, the young man had made his decision: he would be a hermit. He no longer recognized himself in any of the existing religious forms, which he judged too softened, and he wanted to carry the demand of poverty and penance through to the end.

The cave and the first years of solitude (c. 1435)

Back in his native region, Francis first withdrew to land belonging to his family, then moved to a wilder place by the sea, where he hollowed out a cave in the rock.^[17][18][19] He was about fifteen years old. There, for several years, he lived in absolute solitude: he slept on bare stone or on the ground, fed on wild herbs and on what a few shepherds brought him, and prayed without ceasing.

This austerity was no ascetic performance for its own sake: it was the literal expression of his desire to stand before God alone, stripped of everything. The hermit of Paola carried the Franciscan ideal of poverty to an almost total withdrawal from the world.

The first disciples and the first chapel

Holiness does not stay hidden for long. Drawn by the young hermit's reputation, men came to him to share his life. Around 1435, two companions joined him; soon they were numerous enough that building became necessary.^[20][21] A chapel and cells were erected; the people of Paola, won over by admiration, lent a hand in the construction.

Francis, who had sought only solitude, thus found himself, almost in spite of himself, at the head of a small community. It was the seed of a new order.

The birth of a new order (1436)

Tradition fixes the foundation of the community at 1436, first called the "Hermits of Saint Francis of Assisi".^[22][23] The brothers led a life of penance, prayer and charity towards the poor, in a poverty stricter still than that of the Franciscans.

The Archbishop of Cosenza canonically approved the monastery on 31 August 1452, the first official recognition of the work.^[24] The movement born of a cave became an institution of the Church.

"The least of all" — the meaning of a name

The most original feature of Francis' work lies in the name he ended up giving his religious: the Minims (Minimi), that is, "the least", the lowliest of all the faithful.^[25][26][27] Where other orders called themselves "Minors" (Franciscans), Francis wanted to stand lower still, in the last place.

This radical humility is inscribed even in the order's vocabulary: its superiors are not called priors or abbots, but "correctors" (correctores), to recall that they do not command but correct fraternally and serve.^[28] The very name of the order is a permanent lesson in evangelical abasement.

The fourth vow: perpetual Lenten life

To the three classic vows of poverty, chastity and obedience, Francis added a fourth vow, proper to his order: perpetual Lenten life (vita quaresimale).^[29][30] His religious undertook to live the whole year as in Lent: permanent abstinence not only from meat, but also from eggs, dairy products and everything of animal origin.

This rigour, which may surprise, has a precise spiritual meaning in the founder's thought: to make reparation for the lukewarmness of Christians who no longer keep Lent, and to make the community a living sign of permanent penance. With him, austerity is never an end; it is a language, the language of conversion.

"Charitas": the motto and the rule

At the heart of this penitential order, Francis placed not rigour but love. The motto of the Minims is a single word, which he had painted at the centre of a radiant sun: Charitas, charity.^[31][32] For the saint, penance has value only as a path towards love of God and neighbour.

He wrote for his brothers a rule marked by this twofold demand of austerity and gentleness, completed by a Correctorium (a collection of fraternal corrections). Charity is presented there as the summary of the whole Christian life, which his famous letter of 1486 would go on to develop (see below).

Roman recognition: Sixtus IV (1474), Alexander VI

The order passed a decisive milestone on 17 May 1474, when Pope Sixtus IV officially recognized it by a bull, under the name of the Paulan eremitical congregation.^[33][34][35] It was the juridical birth of the order in the universal Church.

The definitive name of "Order of Minims" and the approval of the rule of extreme austerity came later, under the pontificate of Alexander VI, at the end of the fifteenth century.^[36][37] The work of the Calabrian hermit was now a fully constituted religious order, which would spread through Italy, France, Spain and Germany.

Crossing the Strait of Messina

Among the countless miracles attributed to Francis, the most famous is the crossing of the Strait of Messina. Wishing to pass into Sicily with a companion, the hermit asked a boatman to take them aboard; the man, out of contempt for these poor religious, refused.^[38][39] Francis then spread his cloak upon the waves, stepped onto it with his companion, raised one corner like a sail, and crossed the strait borne upon the waters, before the mariner's amazed eyes.

This account, fixed by iconography and tradition to the year 1464, became the saint's emblem: he is most often depicted standing on his cloak, sailing upon the sea.^[40] It also grounds his patronage of seafarers.

The lamb Martinello drawn from the oven

Another scene, more homely, tells of the same power over creation. Francis had a little tame lamb, named Martinello, which lived among the brothers. Workmen building the convent, short of food, killed it, roasted and ate it, throwing the fleece and bones into the oven.^[41] When the saint asked for his lamb, the embarrassed workmen confessed. Francis drew near the oven and called: Martinello! — and the lamb, alive and whole, came out of the ashes, bleating.^[42]

This miracle, of an almost evangelical freshness, illustrates the recurring theme of Francis' life: all creatures obey the one who serves God with a perfect heart.

Resurrections and healings

The biographers of Francis credit him with a considerable number of miracles: healings of the sick, the lame, plague victims, and even several raisings from the dead.^[43][44] Tradition reports in particular that he brought back to life his nephew, the child Nicholas, who had died suddenly, by praying at length over his body.^[45]

The most precise dossier on this point is that of the canonization process, whose acts report in detail numerous healings, several miraculous multiplications, a prophecy on the capture of Otranto attested by several witnesses, and eight raisings of the dead from death, documented in the Acta sanctorum for April (Antwerp, 1675, pp. 177-189).^[46]

In times of epidemic, he was invoked: the old accounts credit him with halting the plague in several places in Provence on the road to France (Bormes, Fréjus) in 1481-1482.^[47] These facts, reported by witnesses at the canonization trials, explain the saint's immense reputation even in his own lifetime.

The gift of prophecy

To thaumaturgy Francis added a gift of prophecy which the chroniclers carefully recorded. He is credited with foretelling the fall of Constantinople (1453), the capture of Otranto by the Turks (August 1480) and its recapture the following year.^[48][49] Tradition also reports that he foretold to the young Giovanni de' Medici, still a child, that he would become pope — fulfilled by his election as Leo X, the very pope who would canonize him.^[50]

This gift of reading the future, joined to the frankness with which he addressed the powerful, made the Calabrian hermit a voice listened to by kings as well as popes.

A king who did not want to die

At the end of his life, the King of France Louis XI, ill and terrified of death, desperately sought to prolong his existence. Having heard of the Calabrian holy hermit and his miracles, he persuaded himself that Francis could heal him and obtain him a reprieve.^[51][52] He redoubled his efforts to bring him over.

Francis, faithful to his refusal of all display, resisted: he would neither leave his solitude nor "tempt God" for human motives. Only the pope's intervention would decide him.

The journey to France (1482-1483)

It was under pressure from Louis XI that Pope Sixtus IV sent Francis the formal order to travel to France.^[53][54] In obedience, the hermit, over sixty-five years old, set out. He crossed Italy, passed through Naples and then Rome, where the pope received him with honour, before reaching France and arriving at Plessis-lès-Tours in the spring of 1483.^[55]

The contrast is striking: the poor ragged hermit, who had never wanted either office or honour, entered the castle of the most powerful king in the West, escorted like a prince.

"The lives of kings have their fixed limits"

Louis XI had hoped for a miracle of healing; he received a lesson in Christian wisdom. Far from flattering the king or promising him health, Francis invited him to accept death and to prepare to appear before God.^[56] Tradition has retained the firmness of his word:

"The lives of kings have their fixed limits, like that of the humblest of subjects; God's decree is unchangeable." — Words attributed to Saint Francis of Paola to Louis XI^[57]

The saint knew how to console and calm the terrified monarch. Louis XI died on 30 August 1483, reconciled and resigned, assisted, according to the accounts, by the hermit he had brought over to save him from death and who helped him to die well.^[58][59]

Twenty-four years at the French court

Francis never saw his Calabria again. Kept back by successive kings, he spent the rest of his life in France, nearly twenty-four years.^[60][61] Charles VIII, son of Louis XI, deeply venerated him, took him as counsellor and as godfather to his son, and favoured the establishment of his order. Louis XII continued this protection.

The saint founded several Minim convents in France — notably at Plessis-lès-Tours, at Amboise and at Nigeon, near Paris — as well as in Rome, on the Pincio, the convent of Trinità dei Monti.^[62] The humble hermit had become, without ever seeking it, a leading spiritual figure in the Christendom of his time.

Penance and conversion of heart

The whole spirituality of Francis of Paola is a school of conversion. The penance he imposed on himself and proposed to others was never an end in itself: it aimed to tear the heart from sin and restore it entirely to God. In his great letter of 1486 — taken up by the Church in the Office of Readings for 2 April — he urged his correspondents to turn from evil without delay:

"What we hide from men, God knows; turn to him, then, with a sincere heart." — Saint Francis of Paola, Letter (1486)^[63]

For the saint, conversion is no matter of appearances: God sees the secret of hearts, and it is there, in the innermost self, that everything is decided.

Fixing one's mind on the Passion

The centre of his teaching is the contemplation of the Passion of Christ, the source of patience and love. The letter of 1486 makes it the heart of all spiritual effort:

"Fix your minds, then, on the Passion of our Lord Jesus Christ: inflamed with his love, you will bear all things for him." — Saint Francis of Paola, Letter (1486)^[64]

Christ, he writes, came down from heaven and endured every torment of soul and body to redeem us; to behold him suffering out of love is what makes every trial bearable. Here we find a note close to the spirituality of the Passion that runs through the whole Catholic tradition, from Saint Rita of Cascia to the great mystics.

Forgiveness and love of peace

From this contemplation flows a practical demand: forgiveness and peace. Francis, who reconciled so many families and kings, made the forgetting of offences a condition of charity. His letter is severe against rancour:

"Give up hatred and enmity; take care to avoid harsh words. [...] Forgive one another, and no longer keep any memory of the wrongs you have suffered. To remember evil is an injustice, the height of anger, the nursing of sin, hatred of justice." — Saint Francis of Paola, Letter (1486)^[65]

And he sums up everything in a luminous exhortation, an echo of his motto Charitas:

"Love peace, the most precious good one can desire." — Saint Francis of Paola, Letter (1486)^[66]

The humility of the "Minims"

Lastly, the cornerstone of his whole work is humility, inscribed even in the name of his order. For Francis, there is neither true virtue nor true happiness outside the recognition of our littleness before God.^[67] This humility is no withdrawal into self but a liberation: it is by abasing itself that the soul opens to the almighty power of grace.

"All creatures obey those who serve God with a perfect heart." — Words attributed to Saint Francis of Paola^[68]

It is this intuition — greatness hidden in littleness — that makes the poor hermit of Paola, become the oracle of kings, one of the most perfect disciples of the Gospel of the Beatitudes.

Good Friday 1507

After a long retreat of preparation, Francis of Paola died at Plessis-lès-Tours on 2 April 1507, the day of Good Friday, at the age of 91.^[69][70][71] To die on the very day the Church commemorates the Passion of Christ, which he had so contemplated, seemed to his contemporaries the seal of his whole life.

His mortal remains, according to the accounts, stayed incorrupt for several days, and his tomb at once became a place of pilgrimage and miracles.

Beatification and canonization (1518-1519)

Popular fervour and the many miracles hastened his cause. Francis was beatified on 1 November 1518, then canonized on 1 May 1519 by Pope Leo X — the very one whose elevation to the pontificate he was said to have foretold as a child.^[72][73] His canonization, only twelve years after his death, was one of the first and most brilliant of Leo X's pontificate.

The Church fixed his feast on 2 April, the day of his death.^[74] (Some old accounts, such as Butler's, wrongly date his death to 1508; the date retained by historiography and the liturgy is indeed 2 April 1507.)^[75][76]

The Huguenot desecration of 1562

The history of Francis' body came to a tragic end. In 1562, during the Wars of Religion, Huguenots seized Plessis-lès-Tours, opened the saint's tomb and, finding his body still preserved, burned it.^[77][78][79] A few fragments were saved by the faithful and dispersed as relics; some are kept today at Tours, in the church of Notre-Dame-la-Riche, and in his sanctuary at Paola.^[80][81]

This desecration belongs to the wider context of sixteenth-century iconoclastic destruction, but it only rekindled popular devotion to the Calabrian saint.

Patron of seafarers and of Calabria

Veneration of Saint Francis of Paola has remained alive to this day, particularly in the south of Italy. In memory of the crossing of the Strait of Messina, Pope Pius XII proclaimed him, on 27 March 1943, patron of seafarers, sailors and the Italian navy.^[82][83] In 1963, John XXIII declared him principal patron of Calabria.^[84][85]

Thus the hermit who had wanted to be only "the least" became one of the great intercessors of the Christian people — protector of those who face the sea, and a beloved figure of a poor, supernatural and trusting holiness.

• Saint Francis of Assisi (1182-1226) — the saint whose name he bore and whose ideal of poverty he carried further still.
• Saint Rita of Cascia (1381-1457) — his near-contemporary, another figure of popular holiness and of the spirituality of the Passion.
• Pope Sixtus IV — who officially recognized the Order of Minims in 1474 and ordered him to travel to France.
• The Fall of Constantinople (1453) — the event tradition counts among his prophecies.