“If St. Francis had been less of a poet, he would have been less of a saint.”
St. Francis d’Assisi, a renowned Italian preacher, and poet, founder of the Franciscan order, was born at Assisi in Umbria, Italy, 1182, and died October 12, 1226. The most famous of his hymns is the “Canticle of the Sun.”
He who learns the rules of wisdom, without conforming to them in his life, is like a man who laboured in his fields, but did not sow.
—Sadi.
Sadi, one of the greatest of Persian poets, was born at Shiraz, in 1184, and died in 1291 (?). He wrote: “Bustán,” or “The Fruit Garden,” and “Gulistán,” or “The Rose Garden,” also his “Divan.”
The best perfection of a religious man is to do common things in a perfect manner. A constant fidelity in small things is a great and heroic virtue.
—St. Bonaventura.
Saint Bonaventura, an Italian theologian and scholar of great fame, was born at Bagnarea, 1221, and died in 1274. His real name was Giovanni di Fidenza. He wrote: “Life of Saint Francis,” “Progress of the Mind Towards God,” etc.
“To an absolute purity of life, St. Thomas added an earnest love of truth and of labor.”
Thomas Aquinas, a great mediæval theologian and philosopher, was born at Aquino in the kingdom of Naples, about 1225, and died at Fossa Nuova, March 7, 1274. Among his works are: “Sum of Catholic Belief Against the Heathen,” “Exposition of All the Epistles of St. Paul,” and his most famous work, the “Sum of Theology.”