St Francis of Paola, Founder of the Minims: Life and Feast

St Francis of Paola (1416-1507) was a hermit of Calabria, in the south of Italy, who founded the Order of Minims, "the least" of all religious, bound by a fourth vow to keep the fare of Lent all the year round. Famous in his lifetime for his miracles, above all for crossing the Strait of Sicily on his cloak spread upon the waves, he was summoned to France by King Louis XI and died there, at Plessis-lès-Tours, on Good Friday 1507; Pope Pius XII named him patron of Italian seafarers in 1943. In the calendar of 1962 his feast falls on 2 April, nearly always in Lent; here are his life according to the Roman Breviary, the order he founded, his miracles, and the prayers of his Mass in Latin and English.

Who is St Francis of Paola?

Francis was born at Paola, a small town of Calabria, of humble parents, in 1416. The Roman Breviary records that his parents, long childless, made a vow and obtained him through the prayers of blessed Francis of Assisi. (We quote the Breviary from the lessons it read at Matins before the rubrics of 1960 contracted them into a single lesson.)

The lives of the saint add that when the child was still in the cradle, a swelling threatened the sight of one of his eyes, and his parents turned again to St Francis, vowing that their son would spend a whole year wearing the "little habit" of the Franciscans in one of their friaries. The child was cured, and at about thirteen he went to fulfil the vow among the friars, where he edified them by his prayer and penance; afterwards he made a pilgrimage with his parents to Assisi and Rome. On the saint through whose prayers he was obtained, see our page on St Francis of Assisi.

Back at Paola, still a boy, he withdrew into solitude, first on his father's land and then in a cave by the sea. There, the Breviary says, he lived for six years a life "harsh in its food, but sweet with heavenly contemplation".

Founder of the Minims

His holiness could not stay hidden. As the fame of his virtues spread and men came to him seeking a life of piety, he left his solitude "for the sake of fraternal charity", the Breviary says, built a church near Paola, and there laid the first foundations of his order. First two companions joined him, for whom cells and a chapel were built; then many more, until, with the permission of the Archbishop of Cosenza, a large monastery and church rose near Paola, the people of the countryside, and even the nobles, carrying the stones.

In 1474 Pope Sixtus IV allowed him to write a rule for his community, under the title of Hermits of St Francis. Pope Alexander VI approved the rule and gave the brethren the name he himself had chosen for them: Minims, the least. "He so loved humility," the Breviary says, "that he called himself the least of all, and wished his disciples to be called Minims." He also founded convents of nuns, and, after the example of St Francis of Assisi, a third order for people living in the world.

Two things mark the Order of Minims:

• The fourth vow of the Lenten life. To the three vows of religion Francis added a fourth: his friars were to keep all the year round the abstinence of Lent, taking no meat and nothing that was forbidden in Lent. The Breviary describes his own fare: he ate once a day, after sunset, bread and water, with hardly anything beside of the kind allowed in Lent. The rules of that season are explained in our pages on Lent, the forty days of penance, and Lenten fasting and abstinence.
• Charity as their badge. The Breviary records that he was so given to charity that he commanded it to be the badge of his Order.

He himself kept perpetual virginity, wore a rough garment, went barefoot, and slept on the ground.

The miracles of St Francis of Paola

"God was pleased to bear witness to the holiness of His servant by many miracles," the Breviary says, "and among them this one above all is famous":

Walking on the waves: the crossing of the Strait of Sicily

Wishing to cross from Calabria to Sicily, Francis was refused passage by the boatmen, who would not take him. He spread his cloak upon the waves and crossed the Strait of Sicily on it with a companion.

Prophecy

The Breviary adds that he foretold many things to come by the spirit of prophecy. The lives of the saint also record that he rebuked the King of Naples for his misdeeds, and suffered persecution for it.

St Francis of Paola and King Louis XI

When King Louis XI of France lay in his last illness, he sent an embassy to Calabria to beg the holy hermit to come to him. Francis refused, and went only when the Pope ordered him to go. He came to the king at the castle of Plessis-lès-Tours and was with him at his death. The Breviary simply notes that he was sought by Louis XI and held by him in great honour.

His successor, Charles VIII, so admired the saint that he kept him near the court, often consulted him, and built for the Minims a monastery at Plessis and another in Rome, on the Pincian Hill. Louis XII, who came to the throne in 1498, would not let him go home to Italy. And so the hermit of Calabria spent the rest of his life in France.

How did St Francis of Paola die?

He spent the last three months of his life in complete solitude, preparing for death. On Maundy Thursday he gathered his community around him and exhorted them above all to charity among themselves and to the faithful keeping of their rule, especially the perpetual abstinence. On Good Friday, 2 April 1507, he called them together again, gave them his last instructions, and died at Plessis, in the ninety-first year of his age. It was the very day on which the Church keeps the death of Our Lord; see our page on Good Friday.

The Breviary records that his body lay eleven days unburied and remained so incorrupt that it gave off a sweet fragrance. Pope Leo X canonized him in 1519. In 1562, during the wars of religion, the Huguenots broke open his tomb, found the body still incorrupt, and burned it; some of the bones were saved by Catholics and kept as relics in churches of his order.

What is St Francis of Paola the patron saint of?

Italian seafarers. By Apostolic Letters of 1943, Pope Pius XII made St Francis of Paola the heavenly patron of the seafaring people of Italy. On the 450th anniversary of his death, in a radio message to Italian seafarers on 16 June 1957, the same Pope recalled that act, the churches raised in his honour in nearly all the maritime cities of Italy, and the more than six hundred merchant ships that had chosen to carry his image with the invocation Ad litus educ Patriae, "Lead us to our native shore". "Entrust to his care before God," the Pope told them, "your ships, your yards, your ports, your lighthouses, your nets, your engines, your fragile boats."

The Roman Ritual also keeps, in its appendix of blessings proper to religious orders, a blessing and imposition of the woollen girdle in honour of St Francis of Paola. After blessing it and sprinkling it with holy water, the priest gives it with these words:

Accipe cingulum super lumbos tuos: ut sint lumbi tui praecincti in signum castitatis et temperantiae. In nomine Patris, et Filii, † et Spiritus Sancti. ℟. Amen.

Receive this girdle upon thy loins: that thy loins may be girt in sign of chastity and temperance. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, † and of the Holy Ghost. ℟. Amen.

The prayer of St Francis of Paola (Missal of 1962)

His Mass, printed in full in the Missal of 1962, opens with the Introit Justus ut palma florebit, and has the Epistle "the things that were gain to me, the same I have counted loss for Christ" (Philippians iii. 7-12) and the Gospel "Fear not, little flock, for it hath pleased your Father to give you a kingdom" (St Luke xii. 32-34). The Collect, Secret and Postcommunion are proper to him, and the Collect is a little treatise on humility.

Collect, 2 April

Deus, humílium celsitúdo, qui beátum Francíscum Confessórem Sanctórum tuórum glória sublimásti: tríbue, quǽsumus; ut, ejus méritis et imitatióne, promíssa humílibus præmia felíciter consequámur. Per Dóminum nostrum Jesum Christum, Fílium tuum: qui tecum vivit et regnat in unitáte Spíritus Sancti Deus, per ómnia sǽcula sæculórum. Amen.

O God, the exaltation of the humble, who hast raised blessed Francis, Thy Confessor, to the glory of Thy Saints: grant, we beseech Thee, that by his merits and by imitating him we may happily attain the rewards promised to the humble. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, Thy Son, who liveth and reigneth with Thee in the unity of the Holy Ghost, God, world without end. Amen.

Secret

Hæc dona devótæ plebis, Dómine, quibus tua cumulámus altária, beáti Francísci méritis tibi grata nobísque salutária, te miseránte, reddántur. Per Dóminum nostrum Jesum Christum, Fílium tuum: qui tecum vivit et regnat in unitáte Spíritus Sancti Deus, per ómnia sǽcula sæculórum. Amen.

May these gifts of Thy devoted people, with which we heap up Thine altars, O Lord, be made by Thy mercy, through the merits of blessed Francis, pleasing to Thee and profitable to us. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, Thy Son, who liveth and reigneth with Thee in the unity of the Holy Ghost, God, world without end. Amen.

Postcommunion

Sumpta, Dómine, sacraménta cœléstia: beáto Francísco Confessóre tuo intercedénte, precámur; ut et temporális vitæ subsídia nobis cónferant et ætérnæ. Per Dóminum nostrum Jesum Christum, Fílium tuum: qui tecum vivit et regnat in unitáte Spíritus Sancti Deus, per ómnia sǽcula sæculórum. Amen.

We pray, O Lord, that the heavenly sacraments we have received may, through the intercession of blessed Francis, Thy Confessor, bring us the helps both of this temporal life and of the life eternal. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, Thy Son, who liveth and reigneth with Thee in the unity of the Holy Ghost, God, world without end. Amen.

The Collect is the best prayer to St Francis of Paola: it asks not for wonders but for his humility, and the reward promised to the humble, as Our Lady sang, "He hath put down the mighty from their seat and hath exalted the humble" (St Luke i. 52). Those who wish to make a novena to St Francis of Paola may pray it on the nine days before his feast, from 24 March to 1 April. To pray further for that virtue, the Litany of Humility follows the same road.

When is the feast day of St Francis of Paola?

In the calendar of 1962 the feast of St Francis of Paola, Confessor, falls on 2 April, the day of his death. It is a feast of the third class, in white vestments, without the Creed. Because 2 April nearly always falls in Lent, Passiontide, Holy Week or the octave of Easter, the way it is kept changes from year to year under the rubrics of 1960:

• On a weekday of Lent or of Passion Week, the Lenten weekday takes precedence: the Office is of the feria with a commemoration of St Francis, and at Mass his Collect is added to that of the day, though in a Mass that is not conventual the priest may take the Mass of the saint.
• On Passion Sunday or Palm Sunday, in Holy Week, or within the octave of Easter, days of the first class, the feast is not kept that year. In 2026, for instance, 2 April is Maundy Thursday.
• Only in some years when Easter falls very early, so that its octave is over before 2 April, is the feast celebrated in full, in Paschaltide.

There is a fitness in this: the founder of an order that keeps a perpetual Lent is honoured almost always within the Lent of the whole Church. You will find the day in our traditional Catholic calendar of 1962, and St Francis of Paola takes his place among the saints of the year in our guide to the Catholic saints, listed by feast day. The calendar of 1969 kept his feast on 2 April.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who is St Francis of Paola?

A hermit of Calabria (1416-1507), obtained by his parents through the prayers of St Francis of Assisi, who founded the Order of Minims, worked many miracles, and spent the last years of his life at the court of France, where he died on Good Friday 1507.

Why are his friars called Minims?

Out of humility: he wished them to be "the least" (minimi) of all, and Pope Alexander VI gave them that name when he approved their rule.

What is the fourth vow of the Minims?

To keep throughout the year the Lenten abstinence from meat and from all that is forbidden in Lent.

Did St Francis of Paola walk on water?

The Breviary records that, refused passage by the boatmen, he crossed the Strait of Sicily with a companion on his cloak spread upon the waves. That is the miracle people mean when they speak of his "walking on the waves".

What is St Francis of Paola the patron saint of?

Of Italian seafarers, by the Apostolic Letters of Pope Pius XII in 1943.

How did St Francis of Paola die?

At Plessis-lès-Tours in France, on Good Friday, 2 April 1507, in his ninety-first year, after exhorting his brethren to charity among themselves and to the faithful keeping of their rule.

Is there a novena to St Francis of Paola?

The surest form is to pray the Collect of his feast, given above, on the nine days before 2 April, from 24 March to 1 April.

The Iter Fidei app carries the Roman Missal of 1962 with the Mass and Lenten commemoration of St Francis of Paola, the Breviary, the blessings of the Roman Ritual and the traditional calendar, in Latin and English. Join early access here.

Sources. Roman Breviary, 2 April, lesson of St Francis of Paola (1960) and the lessons read before 1960. Roman Missal (1962), Proper of Saints, 2 April. Roman Ritual, Appendix, blessing of the girdle of St Francis of Paola. Pius XII, radio message to the seafarers of Italy, 16 June 1957. Holy Bible, Douay-Rheims version, Philippians iii. 7-8; St Luke i. 52 and xii. 32.