Aug 13, 2026 · 11 min · 8 segments
St. Francis fasted 40 days every year and it left wounds that never healed. Padre Pio kept the same devotion for the same reason. It's called St. Michael's Lent. It starts this Saturday, August 15th…
On Monte Gargano in southern Italy, there's a cave where the Archangel Michael reportedly appeared multiple times in the late 400s, beginning around 490, in a series of apparitions tied to a local bishop and a herdsman whose lost bull was found kneeling at the entrance of the cave.
The site became one of the most visited pilgrimage destinations in medieval Christendom.
Francis, deep in his own devotion to St. Michael as the great defender against evil, wanted to prepare himself properly before making his own pilgrimage to that site.
So he chose to observe a 40-day fast leading up to Michaelmas, retreating to remote places, eating almost nothing, and praying with an intensity that his own brothers found difficult to witness.
It was during one of these observances in 1224 on Mount La Verna specifically that he received the stigmata.
The Franciscan tradition has kept the practice alive ever since, quietly though, as one of the order's own internal disciplines rather than something imposed on the wider church, but it's still observed today inside Franciscan communities even though almost no one outside of them has heard the name.
On Monte Gargano in southern Italy, there's a cave where the Archangel Michael reportedly appeared multiple times in the late 400s, beginning around 490, in a series of apparitions tied to a local bishop and a herdsman whose lost bull was found kneeling at the entrance of the cave.
The site became one of the most visited pilgrimage destinations in medieval Christendom.
Francis, deep in his own devotion to St. Michael as the great defender against evil, wanted to prepare himself properly before making his own pilgrimage to that site.
So he chose to observe a 40-day fast leading up to Michaelmas, retreating to remote places, eating almost nothing, and praying with an intensity that his own brothers found difficult to witness.
It was during one of these observances in 1224 on Mount La Verna specifically that he received the stigmata.
The Franciscan tradition has kept the practice alive ever since, quietly though, as one of the order's own internal disciplines rather than something imposed on the wider church, but it's still observed today inside Franciscan communities even though almost no one outside of them has heard the name.
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