SAINT FRANCIS "Delight in thy whole creation" Francis, born in 1181, was the son of a prosperous merchant of Assisi. After various encounters with beggars and lepers, which pricked the young man's conscience, he decided to embrace a life devoted to Lady Poverty. At this time, Francis totally renounced all material values and devoted himself to serve the poor. This eventually led him to find the order of Friars Minor, which is characterized by a loving, joyous worship of Christ and led by a profession of poverty. In 1224, he prayed that he might feel in his body the agony of Christ on the Cross and was rewarded with purple marks on his hands and feet, symbolizing the wounds inflected by the nails at the Crucifixion. Of all the saints, Francis is the most popular and admired, but probably the least imitated; few have attained his total identification with the poverty and suffering of Christ. Sometimes referred to as "The Poor Little Man", Francis is typically shown in a brown habit, having a stigmata, with a winged crucifix before him or seen preaching to the birds. Emblems associated with Saint Francis are a crown of thorns, a crucifix and a wolf or animals. Saint Francis of Assisi was donated by: Virginia Zehnder Bailey in memory of Virginia Zehnder Bailey, Francis X Zehnder, Alma and Albert Gedeon and in Thanksgiving for Lee J. Bailey Jean M. Bergold and Joan F. Hruby