Saint Francis of Paola, Hermit

Francis was born in 1416 at Paola in Calabria. At fifteen he went to live as a hermit in a cave near the sea, and companions soon joined him. From them grew the Order of Minims, “the least,” who kept a lifelong Lenten fast, without meat, eggs or milk. Tradition holds that when a boatman refused to take him across the Strait of Messina, he spread his cloak on the water and crossed on it.

His fame reached King Louis XI of France, who, mortally ill, begged the pope to send him. Francis arrived in 1483 and stayed on in France for the rest of his life, advising the next kings. He died at Plessis-lès-Tours on Good Friday, 2 April 1507, aged ninety-one, and was canonized in 1519.