From conversion to inner freedom, from the Canticle of the Creatures to current ecology
Saint Francis: I’m giving up everything and changing my life.
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The Life Change of Saint Francis of Assisi
We often see on Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok people who had a role in society, a job, a series of comforts, and who suddenly leave it all behind to dedicate themselves to a secluded, solitary life, far from luxuries and even the most essential goods.
The algorithm, once you start looking at them, suggests them to you more and more often. It seems like a great novelty.
That's not entirely correct.
There was a person who, in 1200, had already come a long way: Saint Francis of Assisi.
Except he didn't have a YouTube channel, he didn't monetize his choice, he didn't build a motivational narrative about "changing your life," and he didn't sell courses on how to rediscover yourself while living on little.
Francis doesn't become poor for aesthetic reasons. He doesn't leave everything behind to appear different. He doesn't choose renunciation as a provocative gesture. His transformation is much deeper, more painful, and more universal.
St. Francis doesn't simply change his lifestyle. St. Francis is transformed.
His story is one of the most powerful Western images of the transition from a life of possessions to a life of inner freedom. It is a religious story, certainly, but it is also a profoundly human, secular, meditative, symbolic, and ecological story.
The real theme isn't just that Francis left everything behind. The heart of the story is what happens inside a man when the life he's received is no longer enough and the need for a deeper freedom arises.
The Francis of before: wealth, ambition and desire for glory
Before becoming Saint Francis, Francis was a young man fully in his time.
Son of Pietro di Bernardone, a cloth merchant, he was born into the comfortable fold of society. He wasn't a poor man who chose poverty because he had no alternative. He was a young man who knew money, fine clothes, parties, ambition, and the desire to be seen.
The Francesco from before wants to go up.
He longs for position, recognition, perhaps chivalrous glory; he seeks his own worth in the eyes of others. In this, he is extraordinarily timely.
Centuries change, tools change, but the mechanism remains the same: yesterday, it was the public square, the family, the city. Today, it's social media, the public, the market, and image.
Before his conversion, Francis lived within a logic we know well: becoming someone, being recognized, leaving a mark, having a place in the world.
But that's where the crack opens up.
Because the life others hand us doesn't always coincide with the life we want to live, or we're called to live by something higher. Sometimes the world offers us a perfectly reasonable path, yet something inside us begins to say no.
Not a clear no, not right away. First it's a nuisance. Then a worry. Then a fracture.
For Francis, this fracture passes through war, imprisonment, illness, disappointment. It passes through the experience of fragility.
The life that once seemed desirable begins to lose its substance. The young man who wanted to conquer the world discovers that the world, as it is, is no longer enough for him.
The Conversion of St. Francis: When Life Breaks Apart
Every real life change comes from a crisis.
Not necessarily from a spectacular tragedy. Sometimes all it takes is a question that never goes away. Sometimes it's enough to wake up one day and realize that what we've been chasing for years no longer resembles us.
The conversion of Saint Francis is not a sudden and isolated gesture. It is a process. A slow demolition of the old self.
First there's the brilliant, worldly, ambitious young man. Then comes illness. Then imprisonment. Then the return. Then the discomfort. Then the encounter with what he previously rejected.
The crisis doesn't destroy Francis. It opens him up.
This is a crucial point. In spiritual life, as in human life, crisis isn't always a punishment. Often it's a threshold. It's the point where the old identity no longer holds, but the new one hasn't yet been born.
It's a middle ground. No longer night, not yet day. And it's precisely there that the real transformations take place.
Discover how an essential gesture becomes a living testimony in the Chartula of St. Francis.
St. Francis and the Leper: The Heart of Change
The most powerful moment of St. Francis' conversion is not only the renunciation of his possessions.
It is not even, in itself, the dispossession before the father.
The central point is the encounter with the leper.
The leper represents everything that the previous Francis did not want to see: illness, exclusion, deformity, extreme poverty, the smell of death.
First Francesco avoids. Then Francesco approaches. First he feels repulsed. Then he embraces.
This is where changing your life stops being an external choice and becomes a transformation of your perspective.
Does this remind you of anything?
Francis's encounter with the leper recalls, in its symbolic structure, Dante's encounter with Lucifer in the depths of Hell. In both cases, man finds himself confronted with what he most fears, what he rejects, what appears unbearable to the eye. Francis feels bitterness before the leper, Dante feels frozen before Lucifer. But precisely what initially terrifies becomes a passage. For Francis, the leper becomes the threshold of mercy; for Dante, Lucifer becomes the ladder of ascent. There is a fundamental difference: Francis embraces wounded humanity, Dante traverses absolute evil. But the principle is the same: one does not emerge from the night by avoiding it, but rather by penetrating it to the point where it turns into light.
"To reach the dawn there is no other way than the night" Kahlil Gibran
Francis and Dante seem to tell us the same thing with two different images: man is saved when he stops fleeing what frightens him. The leper and Lucifer stand at opposite ends of the spectrum; one represents human frailty, the other the denial of God, but both mark a threshold. The first leads to mercy, the second to the stars. In both cases, what was once an abyss becomes a path.
Because you can leave a home, but remain a prisoner of yourself. You can give up money, but still desire power. You can change your clothes, but not your soul.
Francis truly changes when he changes his way of seeing what he previously found unbearable.
The Francis of old seeks himself in the eyes of others. The Francis of later times stops seeking himself and begins to encounter others.
This is the crucial difference.
Conversion isn't an escape from the world, but a deeper entry into it. Francis doesn't escape reality: he escapes illusions.
He does not leave the world because he hates it, he leaves it as a possession, to find it again as brotherhood.
St. Francis before and after: the great contrast
The story of St. Francis can be read as a great symbolic opposition.
Before and after. Light and darkness. Day and night. Possession and gift. Glory and humility. Noise and silence. Surface and depth.
But it would be wrong to reduce everything to a banal contrast between good and evil.
The Francis of before isn't simply "evil," and the Francis of after isn't simply "good." Life is more complex (it seems St. Francis has always retained his fiery nature 😊).
Great symbols never work so poorly.
Francis's before is dispersion, his after is orientation.
The first is the fragmented man, attracted by a thousand images of himself, the second is the unified man, brought back to a center.
The before is the raw material. The after is the transformed material.
In this tension, we can read something universal, almost a hidden signature in the fabric of existence. Every great human transformation seems to pass through a duality: what we are and what we could be, what we possess and what possesses us, what we show and what we truly are.
But duality alone is not enough. If duality remains, conflict remains. Division remains. Sterile opposition remains.
In the story of Saint Francis, however, duality becomes composition. And composition always requires a third element.
When duality becomes trinity
Between the Francis of before and the Francis of after there is a third element: conversion.
It's not a simple psychological transition, it's not a decision made at the table.
It is a threshold, it is the point where the old man is not simply erased, but crossed, burned, purified.
We can call it many things.
In a Christian context, this third element is Christ. It is the evangelical call that shatters the old identity and generates a new one.
In a secular sense, it's a crisis. That moment when your previous life isn't enough and forces you to question who you really are.
In a meditative sense, it's inner silence. The space where you no longer automatically respond to others' expectations, but listen to a deeper voice.
Symbolically, it is dawn: no longer night, not yet day, but the mysterious point where the night begins to become light.
Francis the Worldly. The Transformative Crisis. Francis Transfigured. Or: Possession, Disposal, Freedom. Or again: Lead, Fire, Gold.
It is here that the story of Saint Francis encounters the great alchemical principle.
This transformation of man through symbols and knowledge is a recurring theme in other great works of tradition.
Explore the relationship between symbol, knowledge, and transformation in two key figures of medieval and modern culture:
Dante Alighieri: The Dante Code
Fibonacci and the Liber Abaci: Fibonacci, Merchant of Numbers: Economics and Commerce in the Liber Abaci
Saint Francis and Inner Alchemy: From Lead to Gold
Talking about internal alchemy in relation to Saint Francis doesn't mean turning him into a magician or an occult initiate. That would be a misguided historical and spiritual exaggeration.
But his life can be read through an alchemical grammar, because it stages the same profound movement: the transformation of imperfect matter into a higher form.
Alchemy isn't just the dream of transforming base metals into gold. In its deepest interpretation, it's also an image of human transformation.
It is the Great Work: taking what is opaque, heavy, disordered and leading it towards a luminous, stable, incorruptible form.
Francis starts from external gold: his father's money, fabrics, trade, social position, prestige.
Then he goes through the darkness: the crisis, the illness, the imprisonment, the loss of meaning, the clash with his father, the public dispossession, the encounter with what previously horrified him.
Finally, he arrives at another gold: no longer the gold that accumulates, but the gold that incarnates.
His philosopher's stone isn't an object. It's a new perspective.
That gaze that allows him to call the sun brother, the moon sister, water sister, fire brother, earth mother, and even death sister.
This is the true alchemical fulfillment of St. Francis: no longer possessing the world, but recognizing it as brotherhood.
The poverty of St. Francis is not minimalism
Today Franciscan poverty risks being interpreted in too modern a way.
We might confuse it with minimalism, with living with little, with the desire for a simple, orderly, essential life.
But the poverty of St. Francis is much more radical.
Minimalism can still be an elegant form of control: I choose a few, but beautiful, things; I eliminate clutter; I build a more efficient, cleaner life, more consistent with my image.
Francis goes further.
His poverty is a stripping, not a furnishing of the soul. It is nakedness, a departure from the pretense of self-sufficiency.
It's having nothing left to defend, nothing left to prove, nothing left to possess.
In this sense, Saint Francis does not become free because he has fewer things, he becomes free because he no longer belongs to things.
Franciscan poverty is not poverty. It is liberation from possession as an identity. It is a poverty that does not impoverish the soul, but makes it transparent.
The spiritual meaning of St. Francis
Of course, for Francis, all this isn't abstract philosophy. It's the Gospel lived to the letter.
Poverty is not a strategy for well-being, it is an imitation of the poor Christ.
Renunciation is not just personal liberation, it is obedience to a calling.
Brotherhood is not just ecological sensitivity or poetic sentiment, it is the recognition of creation as a gift from the Father.
The religious St. Francis is the most radical, and perhaps also the most uncomfortable.
Why doesn't it simply say: "Free yourself from the superfluous to feel better."
He says something more challenging: lose yourself to find yourself in God.
Here conversion is not psychology, it is faith.
Francis doesn't just want to be well, he wants to belong to Christ.
This belonging transforms everything: the relationship with money, with the body, with pain, with nature, with the poor, with death.
His freedom doesn't come from the fact that he can do whatever he wants, it comes from the fact that he no longer needs to want everything.
The Secular Side of St. Francis: Breaking the Script
Yet, St. Francis also speaks to those who do not believe.
It speaks to every man who, at a certain point, feels that a life built around success, consumption, image, and productivity is no longer enough.
It speaks to those who have achieved much, but no longer know why they wanted it. It speaks to those who have followed the right path, but feel out of place. It speaks to those who are tired of always being high-performing, always visible, always measurable. It speaks to those who sense that not all that glitters shines.
The secular Francis is the man who breaks the script.
It comes from a life already written, and she decides not to recite it anymore. This gesture, even without reading it religiously, retains enormous power.
It is the rejection of automatism, it is the decision not to coincide with the assigned role.
Today we would say: Francis is leaving the system. But it would be better to say: Francis is leaving the illusion that the system is everything.
His quest is not about how to have more, but about the possibility of recognizing what truly possesses us and freeing ourselves from it.
This question remains very relevant.
Because many modern men are not slaves to poverty, but to abundance. They are oppressed not by lack, but by excess.
Too many possibilities, too many images, too many expectations, too many identities to sustain.
Francesco cuts. Not out of contempt for life, but to find a more authentic life.
St. Francis and Meditation: Changing Our Perspective on the World
Then there is a meditative Saint Francis, perhaps the closest to contemporary sensibility.
He is the Francis of silence, of nature, of listening, of contemplation.
But even here, we must avoid softening it too much. Francis doesn't contemplate the world because he wants to relax; he doesn't go to the nature of La Verna as if he were going to a spiritual wellness center.
His meditation arises from the poverty of his gaze.
When you stop possessing, you can finally see. When you stop using, you can finally listen. When you stop wanting to dominate, you can finally relate.
The Canticle of the Creatures is the fruit of this transformation. It is not a naturalistic poem in the modern sense; it is a cosmic prayer.
It is the world seen by a man who no longer feels like a master, but a brother.
Brother Sun. Sister Moon. Brother Fire. Sister Water. Mother Earth. Sister Death.
Here Francis reaches an impressive peak: he reconciles even that which man fears most.
Not just light, but also darkness. Not just life, but also death. Not just health, but also wounds.
True transmutation is this: integrating what was previously rejected.
The Canticle of the Creatures and Current Ecology
The Canticle of the Creatures is perhaps the highest point of Saint Francis's new vision and is also the passage closest to current ecological themes.
After abandoning the logic of possession, Francis doesn't find an empty world. He finds a more alive world.
The sun is not just light, it is a brother. Water is not just a resource, it is a sister. The earth is not just soil, property, production, it is mother. Fire is not just energy, it is presence. Even death is not just an end, it is a sister.
There's something surprisingly timely about this vision. Long before ecology became a modern term, Francis understood that man is not the absolute master of creation, the owner of the world, or an isolated dominator.
It's part of a relationship.
It is no coincidence that Saint Francis was proclaimed the patron saint of ecologists, and it is no coincidence that the encyclical Laudato si' takes its cue from the Canticle to speak of caring for our common home.
The Song of Songs speaks to our time because our time has broken this relationship. We have transformed the earth into a resource, water into a commodity, fire into energy to be consumed, air into space to be polluted, animals into tools, the landscape into a surface to be exploited.
Francis overturns this vision.
It doesn't start from possession, but from brotherhood. It doesn't start from profit, but from gratitude. It doesn't start from consumption, but from praise.
And here his message becomes profoundly ecological.
Franciscan ecology isn't just environmental protection. It's a conversion of perspective. It's not enough to use less, consume less, pollute less if we continue to see the world as something mute and at our disposal.
The most radical change is learning to see creation as presence again.
If the earth is merely matter, I can consume it. If the earth is mother, I must protect it. If water is merely a resource, I can waste it. If water is a sister, I must respect it.
The Canticle of the Creatures does not offer us an environmental policy, but something more fundamental: a grammar of relationship. It reminds us that no true ecology can arise from a predatory gaze.
Even before laws, technologies, and strategies, an internal transformation is needed. We need to move from the world as a possession to the world as a common home.
This vision of the world as a relationship and not as possession also finds continuity in contemporary reflections on caring for the earth.
Discover how these themes are explored today through initiatives and projects dedicated to sustainability and the relationship with the local area:
Olivami Project: OLIVAMI: from Xylella to new olive trees, Salento is reborn with EVO oil and adoptions
Leaving Everything Today: The Teaching of St. Francis
Ultimately, the question comes back to us.
Today, “letting go of everything” means, first of all, acknowledging what has taken center stage in our lives.
Not necessarily quitting your job, selling your house, going to a hermitage, or walking barefoot. That would be a superficial reading.
For some this may be the case, but that is not the essential point.
The point is to understand what, in our lives, has taken the place of the center.
You can be rich and free, just as you can be poor and still a prisoner.
Because prison isn't always outside, it's often inside us.
While I was writing, I realized that this last thought is very similar to Guzzanti's Quelo: the answer is inside you, but it's wrong 😊.
Jokes aside, you can be possessed by money, but also by self-image. By the need for approval, by career, by success, by resentment, by fear. Even by the idea of being spiritual.
Saint Francis leads us to a more radical awareness: every life becomes true only when it finds the courage to abandon what makes it false.
Maybe not all of us have to leave everything behind. But sooner or later, we all have to leave something behind.
A role, an illusion, a mask, an ambition turned into a cage, a possession that possesses us, an old image of ourselves.
To Have or to Be: The Manuscript as a Choice of Identity
Here the message of Saint Francis encounters one of the great questions of modern man: to have or to be.
His passage from wealth to poverty, from prestige to dispossession, from accumulation to fraternity, is a radical choice between two ways of inhabiting the world.
Having means recognizing the value of what you own.
To be means to allow oneself to be transformed by what one encounters.
The two dimensions are not enemies. An ancient manuscript, a precious facsimile, a rare work can have historical, aesthetic, economic, collectible, and representative value. They can speak of taste, culture, authority, and belonging to a tradition.
All this is beautiful and legitimate.
But the deeper meaning begins when the work is not only owned, but preserved, not only shown, but listened to.
An ancient manuscript isn't just paper, ink, gold illumination, binding, or rarity. It's a threshold, a fragment of long time entering our short time.
It is part of a chain of beauty and knowledge that spans the centuries and creates a message projected towards the future, towards those who will come after us.
Here the bond with Saint Francis becomes natural.
Francis doesn't despise things, he doesn't hate matter, he doesn't reject creation. Just when he stops possessing, he finally begins to see.
It is the same logic as the Canticle of the Creatures.
The sun is not just light: it is a brother.
Water is not just a resource: it is a sister.
The land is not just soil or property: it is mother.
Creation, in Francis's view, is not matter to be consumed, but a presence to be protected. And it is here that the Franciscan message also meets contemporary ecological sensitivity.
This is why the collaboration with Olivami fits naturally into this journey. If the manuscript powerfully launches memory into the future, the olive tree teaches us to protect the land. If ancient works free us from the logic of rapid consumption, the olive tree reminds us that what has value requires time, care, roots, and continuity.
A manuscript and an olive tree seem to belong to distant worlds. In reality, they speak the same language.
Both require time, care, they unite past and future, they survive the rush.
St. Francis, the Canticle of the Creatures, ancient manuscripts, and ecological commitment meet here: in the transition from a superficial relationship with things to a higher, more conscious, and more lasting relationship.
Because some works truly become ours not only when they enter our home, but when they enter our way of seeing.
And from that moment on, they're no longer just precious objects. They're part of who we are.
St. Francis as a universal symbol of transformation
Saint Francis continues to speak to us because his life is not just a biography.
It's a symbol.
It is the passage from noise to silence, from possession to gift, from the self to the we, from the world as conquest to the world as brotherhood, from lead to gold.
And in this passage we also understand the deeper value of the works we choose to preserve: not what they add to our possessions, but what they add to us.
Some things aren't chosen just to own them, they're chosen for the message we want to leave.
The young man who wanted to become someone agrees to become nobody.
This is its great contradiction, but also its mystery.
It loses everything and becomes very rich. It strips itself and becomes luminous. It descends and rises. It disappears and remains for centuries.
Saint Francis isn't just someone who gave up everything.
He is a man who walked through the night and emerged with a new perspective.
And from that gaze an entire world was born.
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