Catholic Fire

Also known as Gabriel of the Sorrowful Mother; Gabriel Possenti; Francis Possenti; Francesco Possenti Francis Possenti was the eleventh of thirteen children born to Agnes and Sante, a well-to-do professional and respected Catholic family, in Assisi, Italy on March 1, 1838. He was baptized in the same font in which St. Francis of Assisi had been baptized. His later life would mirror that of Francis -- as he turned from the pleasures and excesses of this world to the glory of the next. Francis grew up in a household where devotion to Our Lady of Sorrows was a part of his everyday family life. He lived the life of a typical teenager, becoming popular for his warm and outgoing personality, his love of dancing, hunting and the theater. During a procession of an icon of the Mother of Sorrows, Francis heard Our Lady speak to him and tell him that he was not meant to live in the world, but God desired him to become a religious. On the night that his father had arranged for him to become engage...