How did St. Francis live an exemplary life by controlling his desires and cultivating a beautiful inner life?

This article describes the life of St. Francis, born in Assisi, Italy, at the end of the 12th century, and how he lived an exemplary life through inner beauty, correction of mistakes, and control of emotions and desires, and how I hope to emulate him in these ways.

 

There was a man named Francis, born in the late 12th century in the Italian province of Assisi. He is now known as St. Francis. He was the son of Pietro di Bernardone, a wealthy merchant in Assisi, and as you would expect from the son of a wealthy merchant, he was skilled at trading and had a great deal of mercantile skill. He had a good reputation in the neighborhood and was often invited to parties. The person I want to be like is St. Francis, who came from a family with nothing to lose and seemed like the perfect master.
I have several criteria when choosing a person to emulate. First, they should be able to fix their mistakes. No one is perfect, and I don’t think I can live perfectly like him. But that doesn’t mean you should ignore your mistakes. When you recognize a mistake or wrongdoing, you should try to fix it, even if it’s hard.
The second condition is to be beautiful on the inside. Inner beauty is less visible than outer beauty. That’s why it seems to be more difficult to be beautiful on the inside. However, the spirit of people who are beautiful on the inside makes me want to be like them.
The third and most important requirement is to be able to control your emotions and desires. Living among people, there are many situations that I don’t like and that make me angry. But if you get angry or express anger every time, you’ll get into trouble. You shouldn’t let your desires get the best of you. We have a lot of desires because we’re human, but we’re rational beings, so I think we need to try to control them.
St. Francis of Assisi was a man who was born into a family of means and was recognized for his abilities. He had the ability to make money, so he spent it well and got along well with his friends. But this is not the aspect of Francis that I want to emulate. Francis had a beautiful inner life. When he saw a homeless man sleeping against the wall of a church in the Middle Ages, he was willing to give what he had to help him, and he once donated his wealth to fix a crumbling church.
Francis was a man who could fix his own mistakes. He stopped trading when he realized how his aggressive behavior could hurt others. He stopped partying when he realized how fleeting his enjoyment of parties was. As good a spender as he was at making money, Francis was said to have been wasteful in his adulthood.
Francis was also in control of his desires. As a young man, he was fond of women and loved to entertain. He didn’t hesitate to commit lavish and extravagant acts. However, he gave up on taking over the family business because he was ready to come into conflict with his father. After that, his life took a 180-degree turn: ‘I married the wife of poverty,’ is one of his famous quotes. He gave up the desire to live a life of luxury and opulence, and dressed in the garb of a poor hermit, working to save others. But even after he became a friar, Francis felt sexual desire. He was tormented by this, and in prayer to rid himself of his lust, he rolled bareback on a rose thorn bush until the desire disappeared. What I most admire about Francis is that he made a bloody effort to suppress his urges.
However, there are critics of this idea of suppressing desires and living a rational life. Human life is not only about rational judgment, but sometimes we need to enjoy it emotionally. Philosophers like Nietzsche had a negative view of repression. Nietzsche even saw it as ‘morbid’.
I respect that limiting your desires is a negative thing. However, if you indulge your desires indefinitely in order to enjoy life, your life can become drained by them. So for me personally, I want to learn how to control my emotions and desires, and if there is someone who controls them well, I want to emulate them. I want to be a person who fulfills the three conditions mentioned above and live a life like Francis.