Welcome to the happiness podcast. I'm Dr. Robert Puff. Throughout history there have been

some beautiful souls that have lived, but I do think one of the most beautiful

that I've ever lived is St. Francis of Assisi.

I've been a fan of his for many, many years and have studied his life pretty extensively.

He was born in the 12th century and lived through the 13th century.

He didn't live a long time, but he made a huge impact on history and those who have followed him.

Briefly to describe his life, he was born to a pretty wealthy merchant family, and he

went up to war, and then when he came back he had a conversion and what this entails is

that he renounced his family inheritance and went off to live a life of poverty.

He felt a calling to build a new church, but at a deeper level what he was called to is

reform the church from within the Catholic Church, which he did, and his influence continues to this very day. We probably all are familiar with

friars, people and habits who walk around and live the life of St Francis. A beautiful life. There are about four movies out there on

St Francis, but perhaps the most accurate one that is out there is this one called

Claire and Francis. It was produced in 2007 and even though

no movie is exactly historically accurate it does give a very good overview of St. Francis.

Now in today's episode I want to talk about one act in St. Francis, which I think is a beautiful

act that we can all learn from. During his time there were people that contracted

the disease called leprosy. It's a really horrible disease that disfigures people

and ultimately will kill them.

And these people, when they got it, were ostracized.

They were made to live outside of the community in their own small communities, and they had to walk around with a bell in order to warn people that they were coming because they were so shunned by society.

They were truly treated as outcasts.

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