When Pope Leo declared 2026 as the Jubilee Year of St. Francis, I quickly determined to visit Assisi. I had never been to Assisi before, and I knew now was the time.

Every person with whom I spoke before going on pilgrimage had similar sentiments about Assisi: “Oh, it’s a heavenly place.” “Such a place of peace!” “There’s nowhere in the world quite like Assisi.” “It’s unlike anywhere in Italy.” I took their word for it, even if I didn’t yet understand what they meant.

Now having come back from Assisi, I can say that I understand — and more than understand, I have experienced this “certain something” for myself. The exquisite beauty of the Umbrian countryside that surrounds the hill of Assisi certainly helps its reputation, though of course it’s not a sufficient reason. It’s not as if the inhabitants were all pure angels, or like it didn’t have the struggles of any other town. But in Assisi, there seemed to be a certain spiritual awareness. People there, natives and pilgrims alike, knew they were standing where saints had trod. It’s a place where, even 800 years later, the holiness of St. Francis is still recognized and revered (as well as that of St. Clare and now St. Carlo Acutis).

While on pilgrimage, it’s sometimes difficult to take time to really take things in. Sometimes this requires a more conscious effort: knowing when to slow down or even skip a stop to just sit and reflect. Thankfully, Assisi is a small town and the major sights only take a few days to see, which lends itself to taking pauses. I took one of these pauses to pray for an hour by the tomb of St. Francis. We are so blessed to live in a time where this is possible for us, since for many centuries Francis’ tomb was kept hidden to avoid robbers. As I sat there and prayed, I was deeply impressed by the reverence of the constant pilgrims passing through. It also led me to ponder more deeply on Francis’ witness of poverty and what it means for my life as well as the world today.

“Blessed are the Poor in Spirit”

In the long history of the Catholic Church, there is perhaps no saint who more boldly embodies the reality of “poverty of spirit” than St. Francis, il Poverello, “the Poor Man” of Assisi. Francis’ life and witness intimately resembled Jesus, the Poor Man of Nazareth. However, perhaps owing to his popularity, the poverty of spirit that Francis lived out is often flattened to a caricature: a free-spirited wanderer who loved animals and nature. Francis indeed loved these things, but we should not hollow them out of their inner spiritual depth. Even for those of us who appreciate the reality of Francis’ life of poverty, we risk missing the heart of his message. Francis was not a carefree proto-hippie, but he also was not poor for the sake of austerity, and poverty as such was not the source of his joy. Perhaps, then, we should ask: What does it really mean to be “poor in spirit?”

First, let’s consider the Beatitudes themselves. These have been called Jesus’ “self-portrait,” a description of his own Heart, his own characteristics. They are the perfection, the summit of our moral life. When we ask ourselves what it looks like to imitate Christ, these are the standards or mirrors by which we may measure ourselves. Jesus was “meek and humble of Heart,” so we also pray that our hearts be like his. Jesus was merciful, so we should also be merciful. Taking each Beatitude as Jesus’ self-portrait, the very first one Jesus offers before any of these others is that he is “poor in spirit.” This tells us that to be “poor in spirit” is actually the most important way we should try to resemble Jesus.

“Poverty in spirit” encapsulates various things, especially detachment from possessions. At its heart, however, to be poor in spirit is to be entirely dependent on God — in other words, to be a child. Think of the utter helplessness and dependency of a baby for food, water, clothing, and love. We often are ashamed or insecure of our dependence on others, but for Jesus it is a reflection of his very identity as the Son. Consider Jesus’ own words: “Amen, amen, I say to you, a son cannot do anything on his own, but only what he sees his father doing” (John 5:19). Or again: “All things have been handed over to me by the Father” (Matthew 11:27). The Father has given Jesus everything: all authority and power, all glory and dominion. Yet Jesus always remains in the posture of recipient before the Father, for he is always and eternally Son. The Father perfectly and unreservedly gives everything to the Son, and the Son in turn perfectly receives all from the Father. In his earthly life, Jesus constantly placed himself in a state of dependence on the Father’s care: born into poverty, being a child refugee, growing up in obscurity, working his ministry off of the generosity of others, foregoing comfort and sleep, and of course, permitting himself to be crucified with confidence in the Father’s loving plan.

St. Francis intuited all of this in his own desire to follow Christ. He did not want to be poor for its own sake; he recognized that to be poor was the best way he could resemble the Son. He saw in Jesus’ poverty a means of constantly turning to the Father for everything, and recognizing that the Father delights when we allow him to care for us and entrust ourselves to him. The detachment that comes through poverty of spirit is underlied by trust in the Father’s provident care. Without this underlying trust in the Father, Christian detachment becomes cold, hollow, and self-reliant.

The person who lives this way inevitably begins to see the Father’s generous hand at work in all things. This is why Francis preached to the animals and wrote the Canticle of the Creatures, because he could refer them all to God at just the sight of them. He saw the Spirit of God working in all things to care for us. In this way, even death became “sister” to him, because God has given his love to us even through death.

There is a particular, somewhat hidden narrative arc that I particularly love in the journey of Francis from worldly youth to spiritual maturity. Francis’ relationship with his earthly father Pietro di Bernardone was… let’s call it… strained. Pietro deeply disapproved of Francis’ pursuits to follow Christ, not from outright hatred as much as a deep misunderstanding of Francis’ zeal and his mission. He also disdained the social shame Francis brought on the family. In modern terms, Francis had something of a “father wound.” Yet for Francis, healing undoubtedly reached his heart as he learned to turn to the heavenly Father for all things, in imitation of Christ the Son. This is not something that Francis speaks about in our accounts of his life, but the joy and freedom of being loved as a son of the Father are unmistakable when we examine his life.

Imitating the Poverty of Francis

Not all of us are called to embody this poverty of spirit like St. Francis did; however, we are all called to live this call radically. In other words, we might not live out dependence on the Father like Francis did, through a vow of material poverty, but we are called to live a life depending on the Father in all things.

Pilgrimage is a surprisingly effective microcosm of seeing this principle at work, because pilgrimages frequently remove us from our comfort zones and challenge us: a closed church, a late bus, a rainy day, a fever, steep hills, lack of sleep, and so on. When we face such moments, as in ordinary life, we are left with a range of possible responses. We might choose to disengage and turn cynical, which is really a form of anger. We might try to “manage” and go into a problem-solving mode, trying to fix something we may not be able to fix. The greatest response we can make, however, is the response that Francis models for us: to turn our interior gaze heavenward and cry out, Father. If we turn with trust to our heavenly Father, we may be assured he will answer our prayers. This might translate into different practical responses afterward; one situation might require us to act boldly, another simply to accept things and move on. But when our starting point is turning to the Father in trust, the inner reality of our actions is transformed. Situations where we feel our limitations suddenly become avenues of grace and continual reliance on the Father’s care. Our poverty is no longer a burden, but a blessing.

Pope Leo especially invoked this Jubilee Year of St. Francis for his love for peace. When we look at situations in the world today, it is easy to feel that mounting difficulties and conflicts are hopeless. Yet when confronted with these events, I invite you to make the same response as in any other moment we face our poverty: to turn to the Father in trust. We will never be left disappointed.

St. Francis, pray for us!