800 years on, Francis still points the way

On Oct. 3, the Catholic world solemnly marks the official 800-year anniversary of the death of St. Francis, the “little poor man” from Assisi.

Faithful throughout the world are likely to still call to mind his last moments on that day eight centuries ago when he drew his final breath, as he famously sang Psalm 141 on the bare floor of the Basilica of Santa Maria degli Angelini outside his Italian hometown. 

While the world as we know it has changed drastically since that early morning in 1226, what remains is a legacy that few figures in the history of the Catholic faith have seen kept so vividly alive and cherished by the lessons they’ve left behind.

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Today, saints come and go in popular devotion, some remembered only through statues or occasional feast-day observances. St. Francis, however, remains separate from the rest. His life story continues to reach across centuries passed with unusual clarity and urgency, still calling on the Church time and again to the same radical simplicity he once lived: to empty yourself so that God may fill the space, with eyes fixed unwaveringly on Jesus Christ and the Gospel.

In an age still marked by war, poverty, institutional fatigue and spiritual restlessness much as it was in Francis' time, the Poverello of Assisi’s memory functions not as distant memory, but as a living centrepiece on what it means to live a saintly life. Holy Fathers down the years have invoked him, environmental movements continue to claim him, peace initiatives look to his teachings, even ordinary believers from across the world find solace in his example as a mirror for their own conversion. For many, such sustained vitality after eight full centuries of change is a rarity unto itself.

For Friar Edward Debono, a 93-year-old Conventual Franciscan from Toronto, such a living legacy is not as abstract as it seems. It has, in fact, been what has shaped more than seven decades of his religious life, from a sudden and silent invitation while working as a teenage water boy, through to moments of near-surrender to his vocation. In this special anniversary and Pope Leo XIV’s proclaimed Franciscan Jubilee Year, that long experience of one of the roughly 650,000 Franciscans worldwide offers a glimpse into why the saint's legacy continues to matter to so many. 

Speaking to The Catholic Register from the St. Bonaventure Friary, a residence surrounded by calm forestry in north Toronto in what their founder could only have appreciated, Debono spoke first about being born into a large family of Maltese immigrants. Debono's father arrived in Canada in 1917 as a 17-year-old, travelling by way of Ellis Island and New York before eventually reaching Toronto. As a young man, Debono revealed that he dreamed of being a humble cabinet maker. To earn the tuition required for Catholic high school, Debono took a job as a water boy on a construction site. It was there that his first encounter with the order that St. Francis himself began through papal approval for his simple, poverty-focused way of life would take place. 

“One day when I was going to the site, everything stopped. I didn't hear any workers, machinery, hammering, anything. I felt as if I was in a capsule, and the idea that came into my mind was, ‘Become a Franciscan,’ ” he recalls vividly, even 76 years later. 

“I ended up going to St. Michael's College School for one year, and I still had that thought in my mind. When I saw an advertisement for the Conventual Franciscans, I wrote to them, and they took me right away.” 

Debono would become a member of one of three main branches of the First Order of the Franciscan movement, often called Greyfriars or Minorites due to their traditional habit colouring. The Conventuals, a Catholic male religious fraternity, emphasize a life shared in a community rather than in solitude, with the first Conventual Franciscans in Canada arriving in Montreal in 1915 to support the Polish community. A modern Canadian presence continues to span Toronto, Kingston and Ottawa. 

It was just outside of Kingston where Debono found himself after his eventual ordination in 1962, when he was assigned to Holy Rosary Parish in Belleville, Ont. There, he encountered an older priest whose sermons did not sit right with him in their accusatory delivery. Deeply disturbed by his approach, Debono confronted the priest, declaring outright that he was quitting both the priesthood and the Franciscans. 

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“He said to me, ‘If you quit now, you ruin your career as a priest.’ I got so angry that I stood up, looked him in the face, and said, ‘Priesthood is not a career.’ That is still very strong in my mind,” he told the Register. 

Alone in the locked church that Sunday afternoon, he prayed in anguish, uncertain of his future and even considering a return to cabinet making. It was there that a voice spoke to him again: “Do you believe you have a vocation?” When he answered yes, the voice continued, “Then do not let anyone deter you from it.” Those two experiences, his silent call to become a Franciscan and this later confirmation, became the steadfast frameworks of his life in the order. 

In doing so, Debono was free to truly connect with the profound spiritual, ecological and cultural gifts left by St. Francis that continue to shape both his world and the world at large today. The first, he attests, is a clear distinction between priesthood as service to the people and Franciscan spirituality as a path of interiority. St. Francis taught the ongoing examination of one’s own spiritual life, leading the way to the true focus: not St. Francis himself, but Jesus Christ and the Gospel; Francis simply points the way, Debono explained. 

The very name of the order, Fratres Minores, or “Friars Minor,” has captured this orientation. Fratres means brothers to one another; minores recalls the lower, poorer class of Assisi, who lived on the lower slopes of a mountain while the wealthy lived above. Franciscans are still called both to work with the poor and to become poor themselves, especially in the interior sense.

“That poverty, so synonymous with St. Francis, is understood as emptying yourself out so that we can make room for God. Our approach still has to be, ‘What does God want me to do?’ And the answer is in the following of Jesus Christ,” Debono reflected with a certain poorness about himself.

There is also the lesson of San Damiano, a pivotal moment in St. Francis’ own life at the ruined chapel near his home. After breaking communication with his wealthy father, St. Francis would live in extreme poverty. One day, praying before a large crucifix in the dilapidated San Damiano, he asked the Lord what he should do. The response came: “You see my church is falling into ruins. Go and repair it.” 

Recalling the story, Debono chuckled, explaining how St. Francis first took the words literally and began repairing San Damiano and two other chapels. Townsfolk at the time shared his amusement, albeit centuries apart, finding the irony in a rich merchant’s son doing manual labour. Only later did St. Francis understand the real work was not in the rebuilding of stone structures but in the sense of community and relationships. That same call, Debono believes, remains urgent today, and continues to be a main work of Franciscans regardless of branch.

Yet, on this day of remembrance for one of Catholicism's focal saints, a great many will call to mind the stereotypical St. Francis of Assisi, a humble man surrounded by birds, preaching to the animals as in the story of the Wolf of Gubbio, or simply walking the countryside in communion with creation. While that popular portrait is not false, largely true in many senses, Debono and fellow Friar Maurice Richard deem it incomplete. The importance of not reducing a radical Gospel life to an almost sentimental icon still matters to them and many Franciscans, with the deeper St. Francis, a visionary who stripped himself of wealth, who received the stigmata, who achieved sainthood, is still accessible to those who learn about the true message behind his earthly passions. 

In truth, there are few areas of the Christian faith as we understand it today that have not been impacted by St. Francis’ mission and legacy in one way or another. From his immortal Canticle of the Creatures poem, the foundation of the Order of Friars Minor, subsequent inspiration on the Poor Clares, Secular Franciscans, Capuchin Franciscans, as the subject of historic art and media and through the very lives of those comprising perhaps the largest of a Catholic order of the worldwide Franciscan family, St. Francis has become a model of holiness itself — poured out in love for the poor, creation and for the broken Church. 

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During the year of St. Francis, and on the date 800 years removed from his death, Debono’s counsel is direct and unadorned. The essential focus must remain the Gospel and the person of Jesus Christ, just as his saintly guide would want it. 

“That was his focus, and that remains the focus. The key for all our lives is to follow in the footsteps of Jesus Christ,” he said. “ Even after eight centuries, there is a future towards that.” 

A version of this article appeared in the October 04, 2026 issue of The Catholic Register with the headline "800 years on, Francis still points the way".