St. Francis of Paula

Boyhood and the Hermit's Cave

St. Francis of Paola was born in 1416 in the town of Paola in Calabria, southern Italy, to devout parents who named him after St. Francis of Assisi in thanksgiving for his birth. After a year spent with Franciscan friars as a boy and a pilgrimage to Assisi and Rome with his parents, Francis withdrew at about the age of fifteen to live as a hermit in a cave near his hometown, giving himself to prayer, solitude, and severe penance.

Founding the Minims

Disciples gathered around the young hermit, and a community took shape that Pope Sixtus IV approved in 1474. Francis eventually named his followers the Minims, the 'least' of all religious, as an expression of radical humility. To the usual vows the order added a fourth: a perpetual Lenten fast, abstaining always from meat and other animal products as a life of continual penance.

Wonder-Worker and Patron of Mariners

Francis never sought fame, but reports of his miracles spread widely. According to tradition, when boatmen refused him passage across the Strait of Messina, he crossed the water on his cloak spread upon the waves, the legend behind his patronage of mariners, which Pope Pius XII formally confirmed for Italian seafarers in 1943. He was fearless before the powerful, rebuking the king of Naples for injustice.

Called to France by Louis XI

In 1483 the dying King Louis XI of France begged the pope to send him the famous wonder-worker. Francis, ordered to go, prepared the king not for a cure but for a holy death, and remained in France as a counselor to Louis's successors. He spent his last twenty-five years at Plessis-lez-Tours, where he died on Good Friday, April 2, 1507, at the age of ninety-one.

Canonization and the Shrine at Paola

Pope Leo X canonized Francis in 1519, only twelve years after his death. Huguenots burned his remains in 1562, though relics were recovered and are venerated at Paola, where the shrine of San Francesco di Paola remains a major pilgrimage destination in Calabria. His feast is celebrated on April 2, and he is honored as a patron of mariners, boatmen, and of Calabria.

Significance

Francis called his followers the least of all religious, and his life reveals the strength hidden in radical humility. A hermit who wanted nothing for himself, he could still rebuke a king for injustice and prepare another for a holy death rather than a cure. Mariners, boatmen, and the people of Italy who claim his patronage honor a man whose lifelong penance freed him to speak the truth to the powerful.