00:00Picture this.
00:01You're young, rich and popular.
00:03You can have whatever you want and enjoy life to the fullest.
00:07Yet you can't shake the nagging feeling that something's missing.
00:09Is it just about having, having, having?
00:12Or is it more about being?
00:15We're here to meet someone who changed his entire life,
00:19left his old existence behind,
00:21to emulate a man who did the same some 800 years ago.
00:24That man was a dropout who valued sustainability and mindfulness,
00:28someone who did without almost everything
00:30and in so doing found happiness,
00:32the monk Francis of Assisi.
00:38Francis of Assisi is the patron saint of animals
00:41which he treated with respect.
00:43We'll explain why later.
00:46Brother Jens is a Capuchin friar living in a monastery
00:50in the German city of Frankfurt.
00:52He joined the order 16 years ago.
00:59At first I told myself I was crazy and just pushed it aside.
01:04I was in college, studying, and I didn't want to admit it to myself either.
01:09But then, when I couldn't shake it off anymore, I thought,
01:12well, maybe you really do need to give this idea some thought.
01:20Brother Jens owns nothing, has no bank account, and lives a celibate life.
01:25For him, the teachings of his role model St. Francis are very timely.
01:30When I look at our society, I realize that our longings for peace, justice, brother and sisterhood,
01:38reconciliation and respect for the environment may not be all that different than his.
01:44These have, perhaps unfortunately, been the same issues for 800 years.
01:52What brings true happiness, money and success, or a life lived in harmony, in balance with the environment?
02:05It's not going to be possible to limit climate change in any way if we keep consuming more and more
02:10energy,
02:11if we keep producing more and more and more.
02:16And I'm not saying that everyone should now go around like beggars, but we need to find a balance.
02:23I don't know if we currently have a balance that truly addresses our problems.
02:33800 years ago, St. Francis modeled a radically different way of living, one connected to nature, but just as out
02:39of step with his times.
02:41Francis is the most famous saint, a Catholic saint of all time.
02:45People who are not Catholic resonate with him.
02:48People who do not even come from Christian traditions.
02:52There's a sort of a interesting parallel between the Buddha and Francis of Assisi as these sort of relationship with
03:00animals,
03:00with this idea of being at peace with the environment, with animals, with nature, that I think does resonate.
03:08So, it's high time to learn more about Francis. Who was he?
03:15Francis was born in 1181 or 82 in the Italian city of Assisi.
03:20His given name was Giovanni, but he was called Francesco, Italian for Francis, as a kind of nickname.
03:26His father was a successful cloth merchant, which meant Francis grew up with plenty of money and lots of parties.
03:33There are stories about how Francis would just hang out with his friends on the weekends.
03:38And he would always pay for everything because he could afford to. That made him very popular, of course.
03:45Francis was ambitious. He wanted to become a knight to gain fame and glory.
03:49At 20, he took part in a war against the neighboring city of Perugia.
03:53But things didn't go as planned and he ended up a prisoner of war.
03:58His father, money again, bought his freedom.
04:04But the year spent as a prisoner of war changed Francis, as one can imagine.
04:11He began desperately searching for meaning, praying and withdrawing from society, giving away all his possessions and restoring churches.
04:19He forbade himself from even touching money.
04:24This is a really radical change from sort of this wealthy playboy going to war to being somebody who renounces
04:33everything that has been markers of success in his life.
04:37He renounces wealth, he renounces possessions, he renounces his family.
04:41There's a story where Francis once again publicly renounces his father, takes off his clothes, stands there naked and says,
04:50here, all your clothes, you rich cloth merchant, you can have them all back.
04:54For me, there's only the father in heaven now. A radical step.
04:59The young rebel shaves his head and wanders the country as a mendicant, caring for lepers and helping those who
05:05have nothing. For him, they too are part of God's creation.
05:14To Francis, everything is connected. Every living being has value and a place in the world.
05:21That's such a radical sense of brotherhood and sisterhood. He wrote a psalm, The Canticle of the Sun, in which
05:28he refers to all kinds of elements, phenomena and weather conditions as sisters and brothers.
05:36And that's of course a wonderful way of looking at the world. If everyone were just sisters and brothers.
05:47Be praised, my lord, through brothers wind and air, and clouds and storms and all the weather, through which you
05:54give your creatures sustenance.
05:57Be praised, my lord, through sister water. She is very useful and humble and precious and pure.
06:03Francis saw nature as a living creature. For many today, it's no more than a resource.
06:08How can profit be made from it? How much meat can you get from a cow? As cheaply as possible.
06:16How much lumber from a forest? As cheaply as possible.
06:21Francis held the opposite view. If you own nothing, he said, you have nothing to defend. Does that mean there
06:27would be no more war? Brother Jens likes the prospect.
06:32Ultimately, I'd rather live in a utopia like that, than in a world where everyone is a wolf, to everyone
06:38else.
06:43And so the most famous animal stories are the Wolf of Gubbjör. There's a story of this wolf that is
06:49terrorizing the city of Gubbjör. And Francis shows up and everyone's like, oh no, this wolf is going to eat
06:54you. And Francis is like, I'm going to talk to the wolf.
06:56And then Francis goes and negotiates essentially a peace treaty between the wolf and the city of Gubbjör. And the
07:03wolf becomes a sort of like a, almost like a mascot figure for the city.
07:06True or not, the story has a clear message. Even in the toughest conflict, Francis sought peace rather than violence.
07:13During the Crusades, he sought dialogue with non-Christians.
07:20St. Francis traveled to the Holy Land to convert the Muslims. But then, as he encountered them, he realized they
07:27weren't these terrible devils after all, as some people in parts of Europe had believed.
07:35Francis said they pray too, and they do try in their own way to do good.
07:44And then, having seen how the Crusader army had rampaged through the Holy Land in such a warlike, anti-evangelical
07:51manner, he said that maybe we weren't quite right about everything after all.
07:59Francis challenged the church establishment, living according to the Gospel and the examples set by Jesus.
08:06Even the Pope started paying attention, seeing that Francis was sparking waves of enthusiasm among the people.
08:12And this becomes a really popular phenomenon. Other people start following him, and a few years later, there's so many
08:20that they kind of need to organize.
08:22Francis founded a new brotherhood, the Franciscans. Over the centuries, it's split into different branches, including the Minorites and the
08:30Capuchins.
08:31To this day, there are tens of thousands of Franciscans worldwide. Francis died on October 3rd, 1226, at just 45
08:39years old, weakened by his self-imposed hardships.
08:43Legend has it that he received the stigmata, wounds like those suffered by Jesus at the crucifixion, a few years
08:49before his death.
08:50The Catholic Church canonized Francis in 1228.
08:57In the centuries since, people have continually rediscovered him, especially when the world seems to be in turmoil.
09:03In the 19th century, with the Industrial Revolution and the Scientific Revolution, there's sort of cultural anxieties around all this
09:11modernity.
09:11We're starting to see pollution. We're starting to see environmental degradation on a scale that just had not been possible
09:16before.
09:17We're seeing really interesting cultural movement of Romanticism that is sort of looking to the past in ways to kind
09:25of find solace, comfort, role model.
09:29And there start to come several biographies of Francis of Assisi.
09:33In a world full of crisis, Francis's teachings can offer comfort.
09:38That's one reason millions travel to Assisi. This year, his relics were put on public display for the first time.
09:44He's such an incredible saint, and it's been a very, very moving experience.
09:48Saint Francis is an example of a life full of love.
09:51It was a truly, deeply moving moment, a moment of prayer, and for me, one of deep emotion.
09:57The Pope was among the visitors. He called on us all to listen more closely to what the medieval saint
10:03has to say to us today.
10:06The reason Saint Francis still draws us to him 800 years after his death lies in the magnificent humanity that
10:13led him to abandon well-trodden paths.
10:16The name of your gathering, Go, is a mission to set out on roads for which we have no maps.
10:21So let's go. Dedicate yourselves, dear young people, to the civilization of love, bringing Francis's vision to life in new
10:29and varied ways.
10:32Brother Jens tries to live according to his great role model and hopes that will help him find a more
10:37fulfilled and happy life, both for himself and the beings that share the Earth with us.
