Saint Francis Determines to Beg His Bread

After his conversion, while Francis was dwelling with the priest of the church of Saint Damian, the priest, though a poor man, used to try to get some special food for him, knowing that he had lived delicately in the world. One day, when Francis saw what the priest was doing for him, he said to himself: 'Will you find a priest like this wherever you go to show you such kindness? This is not that poor man's life which you wished to choose. But even as a poor man goes from door to door with his dish in his hand, and, under stress of need, gathers together different kinds of food, so must you live of your own free will for the sake of Him who was born poor and lived very poor in the world, and remained naked and poor on the tree, and was buried in another's grave.' So one day he took a porringer, went into the city, and begged alms from door to door. But when he would eat the scraps he had collected he was disgusted at first, for he was not only unaccustomed to eat such things, but even to see them. But at last he conquered himself and began to eat; and it seemed to him that he had never had such pleasure in eating any dainty.

- text taken from Franciscan Days: being selections for every day in the year from ancient Franciscan writings, translated and arranged by Alan George Ferrers Howell