“Start by doing what’s necessary; then do what’s possible; and suddenly you are doing the impossible.” — St. Francis of Assisi

Assisi wasn’t just a place to learn about St. Francis. It was a place to ask what made him extraordinary.

Francis had everything most people spend their lives chasing—a loving family, wealth, friends, and every opportunity for a comfortable life. Then war, imprisonment, and illness shattered the future he had imagined. Rather than becoming bitter, he emerged with a different understanding of what gives life meaning.

Standing before the Bishop of Assisi, he returned everything to his father and declared: “Until now I have called Pietro di Bernardone my father. But now I can truly say: ‘Our Father who art in heaven.’” It wasn’t a rejection of his family. It was a declaration that his life would no longer be guided by possessions, status, or ego, but by service to something greater than himself.

Visiting the basilicas where he preached and where he is buried and quietly sitting in the cave where he sought solitude, one realization stayed with us: Francis is no longer there. The churches, the paintings, and the relics are reminders—but if we want to encounter the spirit that transformed his life, we have to discover it within ourselves.

Most of us are not called to abandon everything we own. But all of us are invited to loosen our attachment to the things that keep us comfortable. When we dedicate ourselves to the happiness of others and to a purpose greater than ourselves, we often discover a deeper freedom and strength that was there all along.

Perhaps that is why, eight hundred years later, people from every corner of the world still make the pilgrimage to Assisi, not simply to remember St. Francis, but to remember what is possible within ourselves.