St. Francis of Assisi– A Model of Charity

After his conversion at the age of 25, St. Francis was praying in the ruined church of San Damiano outside of Assisi. As he prayed, he heard Jesus’ voice say, “Rebuild my church, for it is falling to ruin.” Thinking Jesus meant the physical church of San Damiano, St. Francis set to work on repairing it. He decided to raise money by taking fabric from the shop his father, a cloth merchant, and selling. His father saw this as an act of theft and took Francis before the bishop, demanding he pay back what he had sold. The bishop told Francis to pay his father back and that God would provide. Upon hearing this, St. Francis stripped himself of the clothes he was wearing, returned everything to his father, and said, “Pietro Bernadone is no longer my father. From now on, I can say with complete freedom ‘Our Father who art in Heaven.’” Touched, the bishop removed his cloak and wrapped it around St. Francis. In time, St. Francis realized that Jesus wanted him to rebuild the Catholic Church, so he spent the rest of his life in loving service to his heavenly Father and the Church. He once said, “The Lord’s sheep followed him in tribulation and persecution, in shame and in hunger, in weakness and temptation, and in other ways; and for these things they received eternal life from the Lord.”

After reading about and discussing the life of St. Francis of Assisi, as a group, construct a definition of CHARITY in blank space below.

Select someone in the group to be a scribe and PRINT your definition.