The Year of Saint Francis: With Insights from Franciscans

In the eleventh canto of his Paradiso, Dante wrote that there “rose upon the world a sun,” a man who shone with love for Lady Poverty, as no man had since Christ:

She, reft of her first husband, scorned, obscure,
One thousand and one hundred years and more,
Waited without a suitor till he came.

After he sang of St. Francis of Assisi’s life and death, Dante, a Franciscan tertiary — that is, a member of the Third Order of St. Francis (Secular Franciscan Order) — wrote:

Think now what man was he, who was a fit
Companion over the high seas to keep
The bark of Peter to its proper bearings.

And this man was our Patriarch; hence whoever
Doth follow him as he commands can see
That he is laden with good merchandise.

In proclaiming a Year of Saint Francis and enriching the year with indulgences (decree), Pope Leo XIV has drawn renewed attention to the beloved saint in 2026, the 800th anniversary year of his death. The commemorative year began on January 10, with a gathering in Assisi of six Franciscan leaders; they marked the occasion with a joint letter, “Francis of Assisi: A Seed for Eternal Life.”

“In commemorating the significant anniversary of the eighth centenary of his passing, I wish to join spiritually with the entire Franciscan Family and with all those who will take part in the commemorative events, hoping that the message of peace may find a profound echo in the Church and society today,” Pope Leo wrote in his own letter for the occasion.

The Pope added, “Dear brothers and sisters, may the example and spiritual legacy of this Saint, strong in faith, steadfast in hope and ardent in active charity towards his neighbour, inspire in everyone the importance of trusting in the Lord, of living a life faithful to the Gospel, and of accepting and illuminating every circumstance and action of life with faith and prayer.”

Pope Leo’s decision to commemorate St. Francis is not novel. In 1882, Pope Leo XIII, a Franciscan tertiary, marked the 700th anniversary of the saint’s birth with the encyclical Auspicato Concessum. In 1909, Pope St. Pius X, a Franciscan tertiary, marked the 700th anniversary of the founding of the Franciscan order with the apostolic letter Septimo Iam.

In 1921, Pope Benedict XV, a Franciscan tertiary, marked the 700th anniversary of the founding of the Third Order of St. Francis with the encyclical Sacra Propediem. The pontiff even invited members of other “Catholic associations which multiply everywhere, associations of youth, of workmen, of women,” to “affiliate themselves to the Third Order,” so that “in every city, town, and even in each village, the Third Order count henceforth a sufficient group of members” (n. 14).

In 1926, Pope Pius XI, also a Franciscan tertiary, marked the 700th anniversary of the saint’s death with the encyclical Rite Expiatis. Pope Pius went so far as to assert:

It seems necessary for Us to affirm that there has never been anyone in whom the image of Jesus Christ and the evangelical manner of life shone forth more lifelike and strikingly than in St. Francis. He who called himself the “Herald of the Great King” was also rightly spoken of as “another Jesus Christ,” appearing to his contemporaries and to future generations almost as if he were the Risen Christ. He has always lived as such in the eyes of men and so will continue to live for all future time (n. 2).

All of the popes who reigned from 1846 to 1963 were Franciscan tertiaries, according to the Conventual Franciscan website Franciscan Voice; the last of them, St. John XXIII, visited Assisi in 1962, a week before the opening of the Second Vatican Council.

Recent popes, though not Franciscan tertiaries, have continued to pay tribute to St. Francis:

• Pope St. John Paul II made a pilgrimage to Assisi in 1978, two weeks after his installation as pontiff. He returned in 1982 (to mark the 800th anniversary of the saint’s birth), in 1986 (to pray for world peace), in 1993 (to pray for peace in Europe), in 1998 (to express his solidarity following an earthquake), and in 2002 (to pray for world peace). In 1993, he made a pilgrimage to La Verna, where St. Francis received the stigmata.
• Pope Benedict XVI visited Assisi in 2007 (to mark the 800th anniversary of the saint’s conversion), devoted a general audience to him in 2010, returned to Assisi in 2011 (to pray for peace), and visited the area of La Verna in 2012.
• Pope Francis, who took his name from St. Francis, visited Assisi in 2013, in 2016 (twice: to mark the 800th anniversary of the Portiuncula indulgence and to pray for peace), in 2020, in 2021, and in 2022. He began his second and third encyclical letters, Laudato Si’ (2015) and Fratelli Tutti (2020), by reflecting on excerpts of St. Francis’s writings.
• Pope Leo XIV released his first apostolic exhortation, Dilexi Te (on love for the poor), on the feast of St. Francis and devoted a brief section to the saint.

Gaining the indulgence: pilgrimage sites

According to the Apostolic Penitentiary’s decree proclaiming the Year of Saint Francis, the faithful may gain a plenary indulgence “under the usual conditions (sacramental confession, Eucharistic communion and prayer according to the intentions of the Holy Father), also applicable in the form of suffrage for the souls in Purgatory,” if

with a heart detached from sin, [they] participate in the Year of Saint Francis by visiting, in the form of a pilgrimage, any Franciscan conventual church or place of worship anywhere in the world dedicated to Saint Francis or connected to him for any reason, and there devoutly follow the Jubilee rites or spend at least a reasonable period of time in pious meditation and raise prayers to God so that, following the example of Saint Francis, feelings of Christian charity towards their neighbours and authentic vows of harmony and peace among peoples may spring forth in their hearts, concluding with the Our Father, the Creed and invocations to the Blessed Virgin Mary, Saint Francis of Assisi, Saint Clare and all the Saints of the Franciscan Family.

The indulgence may thus be gained by a pilgrimage to a Franciscan conventual church (that is, a church entrusted to a community of Franciscan friars), or to any church dedicated to St. Francis. The National Shrine of St. Francis of Assisi is located in San Francisco; Franciscan friars staff other Franciscan shrines in the United States, including the Franciscan Monastery of the Holy Land (Washington, DC), the National Shrine of St. Maximilian Kolbe (Libertyville, Ill.), the St. Anthony Shrine (Cincinnati), and the Shrine of St. Anthony (Ellicott City, Md.). Three cathedrals and basilicas in the United States are dedicated to St. Francis of Assisi: in Metuchen (N.J.), in San Francisco, and in Santa Fe.

The decree adds that “the elderly, the sick and those who take care of them, and all those who are unable to leave their homes for serious reasons” are also able to obtain the indulgence under certain conditions.

Observing the Year of Saint Francis

Apart from making the indulgenced pilgrimage, how might one observe the Year of Saint Francis? I asked eight Franciscan friars, sisters, and laity for their insights and recommendations.

“My primary invitation would be to get to know the real St. Francis,” said Sister M. Karolyn, vocation director of the Sisters of St. Francis of the Martyr St. George. “Most people’s knowledge of St. Francis is limited to the animal part. While it’s true that he had a great love for creation, to stop there misses his greatest love and wonder at the Creator and the reality that Jesus came to meet us at the crib, died for us on the Cross, and stays with us in the Eucharist.”

She continued:

Learning more about him and his love of the Incarnation is the beginning, but perhaps there’s a greater invitation to live a little more like him: his humility, his poverty, his perfect joy, embracing simplicity, and finding a new solidarity with the poor and marginalized, or even those who we wouldn’t prefer to associate with. When his feast day comes around in the fall, it might be a good opportunity to find a celebration of the Transitus, a prayer service that commemorates Francis’s passing into heaven.

Father Mark Joseph Costello, OFM. Cap., provincial minister of the Capuchin Franciscan Province of St. Joseph, said that “the 800th anniversary of the Transitus or ‘crossing over’ to eternal life, of St. Francis of Assisi offers each of us a profound invitation to rediscover the Gospel through the eyes of a saint who saw Christ in every person and creature.”

“Catholics could mark this anniversary by focusing on simplicity, gratitude, and reverence for God, creation, and one another,” Father Costello explained. “We can start with small, daily acts of conversion: reconciling with someone in our life, reducing waste, extending hospitality to a strange,r or accompanying the marginalized.”

“St. Francis teaches us that holiness is not about perfection but about presence and accompaniment, of being attentive to God working in our lives,” he added. “Whether through contemplative prayer, ecological stewardship or direct service, allow this year to be one where you deepen your relationship with Christ through the Franciscan lens of humility, fraternity and joyful service.”

Sister Judith Ann Duvall, O.S.F., a member of the governing board of the Sisters of the Third Order of St. Francis, noted that the decree on the Year of Saint Francis “calls us to ‘become saints in the contemporary world following the example of the Seraphic Patriarch.’”

“Nothing would honor St. Francis’s memory more than we form ourselves as far as possible on the model of Christ,” she said. “That entails a journey of being transformed into zeal and fervor of active charity, again, another focus.”

She added:

In a world where social violence has become a part of everyday life and peace across our world more fragile and distant, we are called to witness mercy and forgiveness after the example of Christ. The gift of this Jubilee Year focuses us on what is so core to living our Christian lives, growth in holiness, which not only enriches our own life with God’s grace, but enables us to be wonderful instruments in God’s hands blessing the lives of so many others.

“I would recommend that Catholics get to know the history and spirituality of Francis of Assisi, beyond the devotional portraits that have been painted of him,” said Fr. David Couturier, OFM. Cap., executive director of the Franciscan Institute at St. Bonaventure University. “There is more to him than the birdbath imagery that has saturated 20th-century spirituality.”

Fr. Couturier said that “because of the research done by scholars associated with the Franciscan Institute here at St. Bonaventure University, we have a more robust, exciting, and challenging picture of what Francis was all about.”

“And what Francis was all about was the goodness of God — that God is good, all good, supremely good, all the time and to everyone,” he explained. “Francis was building a new worldview and constructing a new social order. The worldview revolved around the goodness of God, and the new social order was ‘fraternity,’ that humanity was not in a ‘war of all against all,’ but called to be brothers and sisters with all other creatures under a good and loving God, the Father of all, and Jesus as Brother.”

“I would advise anyone to learn about St. Francis, for though he remains one of the most popular saints of the Catholic Church, his life and teachings are much lesser known,” said Fr. Jacinto Mary Chapin, F.I., U.S. delegate superior of the Franciscans of the Immaculate. “We can learn from St. Francis such timeless and urgent lessons on how to live a more fully human and Christian life, including a more Christocentric vision of life, that is, with Christ as the absolute center and with absolute primacy in our lives, being totally captivated and enamored of Christ, especially on the Cross and in the Eucharist, so as to be able to say with St. Francis, ‘My God and my All!’”

Fr. Chapin added:

I think St. Francis, who was known as the “Poverello” or “Little Poor Man of Assisi,” would exhort us today to live more simply, embrace Gospel poverty, shun the materialism and consumerism which continually seduces, but can never fulfill but only disappoint and leave empty the soul’s deepest yearnings. While simplifying one’s own life, one is also able to enrich others with surplus material goods and benefit others who are without, especially the poor and needy.

A simplified lifestyle lends itself well to a life of penance and sacrifice, which St. Francis heroically embraced. St. Francis, too, would recommend spending more time outdoors, in nature, among the beauty of God’s creation, as a means to arrive at God, the Creator and source of all beauty. This is all the more helpful to those who live more sedentary lifestyles nowadays and, perhaps, with more screen time than is necessary or desirable.

Fr. Frank Scornaienchi, T.O.R., minister provincial of the Province of the Immaculate Conception of the Third Order Regular Franciscans, said that pilgrims to Franciscan shrines and parishes could “meet some of the friars, who would be happy to speak to you about St. Francis and the Franciscan charism.”

“You would also get to see some of the various artwork that are in some of the Franciscan churches,” he added. “ Finally, you would get to meet and speak with other people who have been parishioners in Franciscan parishes for a number of years and what benefits that they have received from this experience.”

Sister Kieran Foley, F.S.E., of the Franciscan Sisters of the Eucharist recommended learning “more about St. Francis’ life by reading articles, watching videos, [and] listening to podcasts.” She suggested articles published by Vatican News, Catholic Link, and The Catholic Register.

Sister Kieran also offered the following recommendations:

• request a tour of a Franciscan church to learn about the images, statues, and items there, and find out how that parish is celebrating the jubilee year,
• learn how to pray the Franciscan Crown Rosary,
• “select your own ‘Franciscan saint of the week’ each week of the year to learn more about and appreciate the many ways the Franciscan charism has been lived over the years throughout the world,” “pray to that saint,” and “reflect on what inspires you about that saint,”
• “pray the Liturgy of the Hours on Franciscan feast days using the prayers and readings special to the feast,”
• “wear a medal of St. Francis or St. Clare of Assisi to remind you daily of the power of their intercession for your needs,”

Jane DeRose-Bamman, O.F.S., national minister of the Secular Franciscan Order – USA, described a conference this summer in Lexington, Ky., as an “excellent opportunity for Secular Franciscans and Franciscan-hearted people to connect and reflect on the Year of Saint Francis in the United States.” She also recommended the Global Franciscan Virtual Summit’s monthly online gatherings (schedule, registration, January video), organized by Franciscans in India.

Books and other resources

Asked to recommend books or other resources about St. Francis, the majority of the eight Franciscans interviewed recommended early Franciscan sources: the writings, prayers, and early biographies of St. Francis.

In 1973, Franciscan Herald Press, which no longer exists, published the Omnibus of Sources, a volume of the writings and early biographies of St. Francis of Assisi. This 1,900-page volume is out of print but available online.

Beginning in 1999, New City Press published the three-volume Francis of Assisi: Early Documents. These volumes are happily still in print (Volume I, Volume II, Volume III) and are also available online.

Four of the eight suggested G. K. Chesterton’s Saint Francis of Assisi; three suggested the Little Flowers of St. Francis. Two recommended FranciscanTradition.org, the website of the Commission on the Franciscan Intellectual Tradition, and two recommended the 1950 film The Flowers of St. Francis, included on the Pontifical Council for Social Communications’ 1995 list of 45 important films.

In addition:

• Fr. Chapin said that a contemporary film “worth recommending is Francis and Clare.”
• Fr. Costello recommended the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church, which “provides a framework to understand how Franciscan values continue to inform our witness today, particularly in the areas of justice, peace, and care for creation.”
• Fr. Couturier praised Michael Cusato’s Francis of Assisi as “the best modern biography of Francis in English.” He also recommended two books he has written or edited (A New Moral Imagination: The Way of Francis and Clare of Assisi and Lesser Ethics), as well as Darleen Pryds’s Enduring Presence, on the first generations of Franciscan laity.
• DeRose-Bamman suggested books on the saint by Murray Bodo, Julien Green, and Bret Thoman, as well as Build with Living Stones, a book on the Franciscan charism. She also recommended websites on Franciscan saints and secular Franciscans, as well as videos on the death of St. Francis, Franciscan ministry, the appeal of Saints Francis and Clare, and Franciscan theology.
• Sister Judith Ann described Omer Engelbert’s biography as “the best compilation of the life and spirit of St. Francis, a true classic.”
• Sister M. Karolyn said that “Fr. Augustine Thompson wrote an excellent scholarly biography that gives an accurate historical read of the saint’s life. I was also very moved by Brother Francis, Barefoot Saint of Assisi, a 10-part audio drama produced by the Augustine Institute that kept me hungry for the next part on a long road trip!”
• Fr. Scornaienchi recommended “visiting the [website of the] Franciscan Federation and seeing some of their resources.”

Following in the footsteps of St. Francis

I asked the eight Franciscans what it was about St. Francis of Assisi that led them to dedicate their lives to following in his footsteps.

“I grew up in a Franciscan parish in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, and knew the friars all my life,” Fr. Scornaienchi recalled. “I got to know the friars very well and felt that their ministry was so valuable that I would like to follow in their footsteps. St. Francis was an inspiration to me because of his simple life and ministry with the poor.”

“Francis of Assisi was not a theologian; he was an artist and an actor,” said Fr. Couturier. “He could dream and then act out his vision, which was often radical and exciting.”

Fr. Couturier explained:

He lived in a world of tremendous greed and violence. He disrupted that world with his vision of goodness and humility. And when the Lord gave him brothers, as he said, he created a new social order that was based not on hierarchy and power, but on equality, humility, reconciliation, and compassion. He was a religious genius and a social innovator, all because he heard a voice to “repair my church, which is falling into ruins.”

My own research has been in Francis’ development of a “fraternal economy.”” His time period was roiled with economic greed and financial exploitation and the creation of coinage that exploited the poor. Francis imagined a different kind of economic relationship than one that settled for a gross division between elite few and the destitute many. The friars would be intrigued by these economic instincts of Francis and would influence the Middle Ages with their research on economic issues. I have tried to revive that in the 21st century.

“When I first became interested in religious life, I didn’t actually know all that much about Saint Francis of Assisi,” Fr. Costello recounted. “What I knew instead were the friars I had encountered. Something about the way they lived stayed with me. They were simple, human and approachable. They prayed, they laughed and they showed up for people.”

“Only later did I realize that what I was responding to in them was Francis himself — his freedom, his trust in God, his closeness to the poor, his joy in living the Gospel without a lot of pretense,” said Fr. Costello. “In time, learning more about Francis put words to what I had already seen lived out. Following in his footsteps as a friar felt like a way to step into that same freedom and faithfulness I had first witnessed in the lives of others.”

Sister M. Karolyn recalled:

As a freshman at Franciscan University, I participated in the Transitus on October 3. I was deeply moved by the experience and that began to learn more about him. I then had the chance to take some classes and visit Assisi and I was increasingly captured by the way that he followed Jesus.

The word that embodies Francis for me is “passion.” That refers not only to his devotion to Christ crucified but even more, the passion with which he lived his life. Ultimately, Francis was a man who lived everything whole-heartedly. There was no half-way with him. That resonated with me and the way that I felt drawn to follow Jesus. Additionally, my Confirmation saint is St. Clare, so that was an earlier indicator of my Franciscan spirituality!

“I was drawn to Saint Francis’s seraphic love for God, his love for and harmony with all creation that lifted his heart to the Creator, his deep respect and care for every person, and the joy he found in the Lord even in the midst of great challenges and physical illnesses,” added Sister Judith Ann. “He was a man focused on loving God with every fiber in his being and drawing others to that love he found. I could not desire more for my own personal life, and so Francis drew me and has become my perfect model in following Christ.”

Fr. Chapin said, “I was inspired to follow in the footsteps of St. Francis as a friar on account of his extraordinary devotion to the Eucharist and to Our Lady. That he had a very great devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary seems to be little known and appreciated.”

He explained:

For example, he better understood his vocation at the little church of the Portiuncula, dedicated to Our Lady of the Angels, and there he wished his friars to remain always; it’s considered to be the “crib” of the Franciscan Order. His first biographer, Blessed Thomas of Celano, informs us that “toward the Mother of Jesus [St. Francis] was filled with an expressible love, because it was she who made the Lord of Majesty our Brother. He sang special praises to her, poured out prayers to her, offered her his affections, so many and so great that the tongue of man cannot recount them.”

“I am inspired by St. Francis’ experience at San Damiano, where he heard Christ’s voice speak to him from the crucifix saying, ‘Go, rebuild My church, for, as you see, it is falling apart,’” said Sister Kieran. “St. Francis took the command literally and started rebuilding the dilapidated church of San Damiano.”

She added:

In doing so, he eventually came to realize that Christ’s call to him was not only to restore the church physically, but to restore the Church, which, with humility, he effected through his life of poverty, goodness and holiness which in turn, attracted men and women of his day to follow his example. Thus the Franciscan Order came into being.

“I was drawn to his love for God’s creation and care for the poor,” said DeRose-Bamman. “He brought Christ’s peace to each person he encountered.”

“Francis of Assisi showed us that humans can take Jesus’ Gospel message to heart and follow Him,” she continued. “It was a radical message in the 1200s and in many ways still is today. What a gift from God! On his deathbed, St. Francis told his brothers to figure out what is theirs to do in following Jesus. During this Year of Saint Francis, may we all be inspired to figure out what is ours to do in applying the message of Jesus Christ each day.”