In the footsteps of St. Francis: How my travels through Italy brought me closer to a beloved saint
All of life was a pilgrimage for St. Francis of Assisi. It only made sense, 800 years after his death, that I would go on my own pilgrimage in search of him.
It was 7:30 a.m. in Assisi during the third week of March, and I was standing with hundreds of pilgrims waiting in lines. Beside me, a man named Francis was tracing his lineage out loud—a father, a grandfather and a great-grandfather all named Francis, after the saint. On my other side, a young Italian woman introduced herself as Chiara, or Clare in English, and told me that she lived in Gubbio, the town made famous as the place where legend claims St. Francis tamed a wolf. “We really do have wolves in Gubbio,” she insisted.
