Books with title Saint Francis of Assisi

Chesterton was an orthodox religious person, eventually converting to Roman Catholicism. In 1923, he wrote this short biography of St. Francis of Assisi, after whom Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio chose his papal name, Pope Francis, when he was elected as the 266th and current Pope of the Catholic Church, on 13 March 2013. The biography of St. Francis may help one understand why the Pope chose St. Francis as his namesake. Chesterton begins:"A sketch of St. Francis of Assisi in modern English may be written in one of three ways. Between these the writer must make his selection; ... First, he may deal with this great and most amazing man as a figure in secular history and a model of social virtues. ... Second, he may go to the opposite extreme, and decide, as it were, to be defiantly devotional. ... Third, he may try to do what I have tried to do here; ... I am here addressing the ordinary common man, sympathetic but sceptical, and I can only rather hazily hope that, by approaching the great saint's story through what is evidently picturesque and popular about it, I may at least leave the reader understanding a little more than he did before of the consistency of a complete character; ....""Here is an historical character which is admittedly attractive to many of us already, by its gaiety, its romantic imagination, its spiritual courtesy and cameraderie, but which also contains elements (evidently equally sincere and emphatic) which seem to you quite remote and repulsive. But after all, this man was a man and not half a dozen men. What seems inconsistency to you did not seem inconsistency to him. Let us see whether we can understand, with the help of the existing understanding, these other things that now seem to be doubly dark, by their intrinsic gloom and their ironic contrast."

This book was originally published prior to 1923, and represents a reproduction of an important historical work, maintaining the same format as the original work. While some publishers have opted to apply OCR (optical character recognition) technology to the process, we believe this leads to sub-optimal results (frequent typographical errors, strange characters and confusing formatting) and does not adequately preserve the historical character of the original artifact. We believe this work is culturally important in its original archival form. While we strive to adequately clean and digitally enhance the original work, there are occasionally instances where imperfections such as blurred or missing pages, poor pictures or errant marks may have been introduced due to either the quality of the original work or the scanning process itself. Despite these occasional imperfections, we have brought it back into print as part of our ongoing global book preservation commitment, providing customers with access to the best possible historical reprints. We appreciate your understanding of these occasional imperfections, and sincerely hope you enjoy seeing the book in a format as close as possible to that intended by the original publisher.

Saint Francis of Assisi is one of the most influential men in the whole of human history. This acclaimed biography of Saint Francis examines the life of a pure artist, a man whose whole life was a poem. Here is the Saint Francis who prayed and danced with pagan abandon, who talked to animals, and who invented the creche. Yet Francis also acknowledged the mystic responsibility to communicate his divine experience. Chesterton examines the existence of the pure eccentric and the devout mystic in one man, offering an understanding of Saint Francis in both body and soul. It has been said that G. K. Chesterton converted to Catholicism in 1922 because only the Roman Church could have produced a Saint Francis of Assisi. This biography, published shortly after Chesterton's conversion, is universally considered the best appreciation of Francis' life, one that gets to the heart of the matter.

This book was originally published prior to 1923, and represents a reproduction of an important historical work, maintaining the same format as the original work. While some publishers have opted to apply OCR (optical character recognition) technology to the process, we believe this leads to sub-optimal results (frequent typographical errors, strange characters and confusing formatting) and does not adequately preserve the historical character of the original artifact. We believe this work is culturally important in its original archival form. While we strive to adequately clean and digitally enhance the original work, there are occasionally instances where imperfections such as blurred or missing pages, poor pictures or errant marks may have been introduced due to either the quality of the original work or the scanning process itself. Despite these occasional imperfections, we have brought it back into print as part of our ongoing global book preservation commitment, providing customers with access to the best possible historical reprints. We appreciate your understanding of these occasional imperfections, and sincerely hope you enjoy seeing the book in a format as close as possible to that intended by the original publisher.

In Saint Francis of Assisi, G. K. Chesterton celebrates one of world’s most beloved saints. “It is perhaps the chief suggestion of this book that St. Francis walked the world like the Pardon of God. His appearance marked the moment when men could be reconciled not only to God but to nature and, most difficult of all, to themselves. . . . It was in fact his whole function to tell men to start afresh and, in that sense, to tell them to forget.” —from Saint Francis of Assisi