St. Francis of Paola
Feast 04-02 · Canonized 1519
Patron of
About
Francis was born in 1416 in Paola, Calabria, in southern Italy. His parents had prayed for a child through the intercession of St. Francis of Assisi, and they named him in gratitude. As a young man he spent a year with the Franciscans before withdrawing to a cave to live as a hermit.
Disciples gathered around him, and he founded the Order of Minims, whose members embraced a life of humility, penance, and perpetual Lenten abstinence. His reputation for holiness and miracles spread, and in 1483 King Louis XI of France, gravely ill, summoned him to the royal court, where he remained as a spiritual counselor until the king's death.
Francis died on April 2, 1507, at the age of ninety-one. He is venerated as the patron saint of sailors, mariners, and naval officers, and his feast is celebrated on April 2.
Suggested prayer
O God, who carried St. Francis of Paola across the sea on his cloak when the boatman refused him passage, grant through his intercession that sailors and all who travel may be brought safely home. We ask this through Christ our Lord. Amen.
