St. Francis of Assisi, Seraphic Father, COLLECTION

In 1224, while meditating on Christ’s Passion on Mt. Alvernia in the Apennines, St. Francis of Assisi (1181-1226) had a vision. He beheld a seraph, a six-winged angel of the highest order, with a man on a cross. In response to his prayer to imitate Christ more closely, the angel gifted St. Francis with the stigmata, the wounds in the wrists and feet from nails and in the side from a lance that were inflicted on Jesus; hence, the title "Seraphic Father." The wounds bled on and off until his death two years later. The skull on the rock in the otherwise barren landscape is a memento mori, a visual reminder of the transitory nature of life and the inevitability of death. + Feasts: September 17 (Stigmata of St. Francis of Assisi); October 4 (Life of St. Francis himself)