St. Francis Anthony Fasani

Welcome to INSPIRING LIVES, a series on the lives of Saints in the catholic church from around the world. In this series we bring you those saints who are canonized by Pope John Paul II. Saints are holy people who lived ordinary lives in extraordinary ways. Each saint the Church honors responded to God's invitation to use his or her unique gifts. These saints are examples of great holiness and virtue, and they invite us to follow their paths to holiness. Their unique stories inspire us to be rooted in our faith. God calls each one of us to be a saint.
Today we shall listen to the heroic life of St. Francis Anthony Fasani (1681-1742). He was a sought-after confessor and preacher. One witness at the canonical hearings regarding Francesco’s holiness testified, "In his preaching he spoke in a familiar way, filled as he was with the love of God and neighbor; fired by the Spirit, he made use of the words and deed of Holy Scripture, stirring his listeners and moving them to do penance." Francesco showed himself a loyal friend of the poor, never hesitating to seek from benefactors what was needed. He was canonized on 13^th April 1986 in the St. Peter's Square in Rome.
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Francis was born in Lucera, Southeast Italy, on 6^th August 1681, the son of Giuseppe Fasani and Isabella Della Monaca. His parents gave him the name ‘Giovanniello’ at his baptism. They had the joy of seeing their ‘Giovanniello’ grow up endowed with promising moral and intellectual gifts. His life was directed toward God in a singular manner from his very infancy, thanks to the Christian education received from his parents and to the workings of the grace of a religious and priestly vocation upon his soul.
Francis began his studies at the Franciscan friary of the Friars Minor at Lucera. It was here that Giovanniello's understanding of his vocation became clearer - a vocation to which he gave himself totally. He entered the Order of Friars Minor and took the names of Saints Francis and Anthony, thus expressing his fervent desire to follow their example by consecrating himself to an evangelical and apostolic life. Professing his vows in 1696, the young Friar Francis Anthony completed his liberal arts studies and followed with his philosophical studies in the seminaries of his province. Thereafter, he began theological studies in Agnone and continued them in the General Study Centre at Assisi near the tomb of St. Francis. It was there that Francis Anthony was ordained to the priesthood in 1705 and there, too, that he completed his theological studies in 1707.
His application to studies, carried out with diligence and with a lively desire to assimilate the salvific value of the mysteries of faith, made him ‘profound in philosophy and learned in theology.’ The Venerable Antonio Lucci, bishop of Bovino, attested to this in the canonical hearings investigating Fasani's holiness. Bishop Lucci was a fellow student of his and imitated him in the exercise of religious virtue.
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For 35 years, he lived at Lucera, always giving splendid witness to the gospel in life and zealous pastoral ministry. The faithful of his neighborhood admired him for this reason. Within his Franciscan Order, he was a respected teacher of scholastic philosophy and a revered master of novices. He also made notable contributions to the spiritual and doctrinal formation of his confreres. In 1709 he received a graduate degree in theology and from then on Fr. Fasani was known to all as ‘Padre Maestro’ or Father Master. He exercised the offices of local superior and minister provincial with charity and wisdom, demonstrating that he was an effective animator of the religious life of his brethren.
Through an intense spiritual formation aided by enlightened spiritual masters, Francis Anthony progressed in a life of union with God, patterning himself on the Lord through religious consecration and the priestly charism. His spiritual life was characterized by those virtues of St. Francis of Assissi. He imitated St. Francis in building his religious life on the basis of a generous participation in the mysteries of Christ through the most faithful practice of the evangelical counsels, which he considered to be a radical expression of perfect charity. In fact, it was said in Lucera: ‘Whoever wants to see how St. Francis looked while he was alive should come to see Padre Maestro.’
Fr. Francis had fervent devotion to the Immaculate Mother of the Lord and he made her known to others, while at the same time knowing and making known the maternal role entrusted to her in the history of salvation.
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The priestly life of Father Anthony Fasani was a splendid testimony to fidelity and dedication to the mission given to all priests in the Church. In exercising this evangelical mission Fr. Fasani gave himself totally to such an extent that a witness could assert: ‘He allowed himself no rest in the salvation of souls.’ The ministry of preaching the word of God assumed a special role in his pastoral life. He preached popular missions, retreats, Lenten devotions and novenas almost constantly. He invited ‘all people to conversion and holiness’ through a type of preaching based on the scriptures that was well prepared and persuasive. It had the particular purpose, as one witness recalled, ‘of rooting out vices and sins and planting in their place goodness and the exercise of virtue.’
Fr. Fasani dedicated himself with zeal-especially the administration of the sacrament of Penance and the celebration of the Holy Eucharist. ‘He heard the confession of every type of person’, asserted a witness, ‘with the greatest patience and kindness on his face’. He was charitable and welcoming to all, giving as his reason the hope of being able one day to say to the Lord: ‘I was indulgent, I don't deny it; but it was You who taught me to be so.’
The most holy Eucharist was the summit of his religious life and wholly represented the goal toward which he ordered his entire priestly ministry. In fact, he always considered the Eucharist ‘the source and summit of evangelization,’. A fervent minister, Fr. Fasani celebrated the Eucharist with an intense ardor that lifted and nourished his spirit while at the same time it edified all the participants. Through his preaching he inculcated in the faithful the love of the Eucharist, promoting even daily communion.
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The poor, the sick, and the imprisoned held a privileged place in his pastoral activities. Motivated by his ideal of gospel charity, he loved to pray with the poor and for them. Every day he personally distributed to the poor the alms of his religious community and he often gave them gifts and special goods collected from benefactors. Often his prayers obtained extraordinary interventions of divine Providence for the poor. He visited and comforted the sick, exhorting them to seek reasons for hope and resignation in the goodness of God. The spiritual care of the imprisoned, an apostolate given to him by the Bishop of Lucera, permitted him to visit them daily and to exhort them to trust in the merciful love of God. He was also given the responsibility of assisting those condemned to death in their last moments.
When Fr. Fasani was taken by his final illness in 1742, he wanted to offer it to the Lord in a spirit of perfect joy, saying ‘The Will of God: that is my Paradise.’ On 2^nd November of the same year, comforted by the holy sacraments and the protection of the Immaculate Virgin Mary for which he prayed, Fr. Francis Anthony Fasani surrendered his soul to God. At his death in Lucera, children ran through the streets and cried out, ‘The saint is dead! The saint is dead!’
The fame of the sanctity that surrounded him spread more after his death. Pope Pius XII, having approved two miracles attributed to the intercession of Venerable Fasani, raised him to the honor of Blessed on 15 April 1951. Pope John Paul II canonized him on 13 April 1986 in the St. Peter's Square in Rome.
The witnesses at the canonical proceedings for his holiness assure us that God rewarded the apostolic zeal of Fr. Fasani with abundant fruits of conversion and a renewed Christian life among the faithful. Eventually we become what we choose. The holiness of Francesco Antonio Fasani resulted from his many small decisions to cooperate with God’s grace. Today he invites us to do so.P.J. Joseph SJ