Born of the noble Di Bussi family , she was baptised Francesca (Freedom) and her ambition from childhood was to be a nun. When her father arranged an appropriate marriage for her, she appealed to her Spiritual Director, Don Antonio,   who told her that her true vocation was to serve God in the way HE required. How did she know, Don Antonio asked her, that her earthly father’s directive was not the more worthy way ? (Don Antonio was an Olivetan Benedictine of the church of S. Maria Nuova in Rome. Most Benedictines wear black habits, but Olivetan Benedictines wear white as do the Benedictines of Prinknash)

So Francesca was married at 13, and eventually became the gifted and efficient teenage administrator of the family estates of the noble Pontiani family, the family of  Pope Pontianus  ( 230 - 235 AD ). Her many and varied gifts and experiences make her an ideal saint for all modern people. She was at the same time  mother,  successful and diplomatic businesswoman, visionary, teacher, nurse and healer, benefactor of the poor, friend and supporter of popes, and eventually, as a widow and a nun, the writer of a rule and reforming founder of an order of nuns still working in Rome today. She was blessed with the literal presence of her guardian angel, by whose light, it is said, she was able to travel in Rome and write out her ‘order’ during the night hours.

This incredible lady guided and maintained her family, friends and people through the turbulent years of 14^th-15^th century Rome; through everyday problems, wars, crises in the Church and the Papacy; through death, destruction and epidemic diseases until comparative calm at the time of her death 9^th March 1440.    Her body was laid out and venerated in the church of Santa Maria Nuova where she was spontaneously acclaimed Santa Francesca Romana by the people of Rome.  She was formally canonised afterwards by Pope Paul 5^th in 1608

In the Milennium year of 2000 the only parish in Britain now named after her made a pilgrimage to Trastevere, her district in Rome, where our group were privileged to stay for eight days in the Palazzo Pontiani, Francesca’s family home for more than 40 years in the 14/15^th century. Our spiritual director was Father Fabian Binyon osb of Prinknash Abbey, and a lifelong devotee of Santa Francesca. We were able to visit and celebrate Mass in most of the places St. Frances knew in her lifetime, including….

The Basilica of St. Agnes in the Piazza Navona, where Francesca was baptised in 1384 - her baptismal font is still there  - (and the tiny skull of the child martyr St Agnes ).

The Basilica of St. Cecilia (patron saint of music), Francesca’s family church in Trastevere ; the Pontiani family vaults are in the crypt there. The house of S.Cecilia is still there also, beneath the church, and we sang our Mass there.

The atmospheric Basilica of S. Maria in Trastevere, home of Dom Mattiotti, Olivetan Benedictine and Francesca’s second spiritual guide, is situated in what is still the main centre of Trastevere; here is still the heart of the social and spiritual life of the old Trastvere district, just as it was when Francesca was here,  and at S. Maria in Cappella, a short walk away, where Francesca nursed the sick in the first hospital founded by her husband Lorenzo in the Jubilee year 1400.......

Finally we visited her own Basilica of S. Francesca Romana, near the Coliseum, where her body still lies in the crypt. We were privileged to see her, dressed in the robes of her order and holding the book of rules which she wrote, based on the rule of St. Benedict. This is now her church - it was at one time known as S. Maria Nuova, the home of Don Antonio, Francesca’s first Spiritual Director.

Later we were given a warm and gentle welcome by the Sisters of St. Frances at her convent in Tor de’ Specchi (Tower of Mirrors). This is the convent virtually unchanged since its foundation by Francesca in 1433, when she gathered together her band of Roman Ladies, at S.Maria in Trastevere on the feast of the Annunciation , and walked across the Tiber (Tevere) bridge to the first and only mother house of her new order. This convent has been visited by Popes and Saints through the ages, most recently by Blessed John XXIII and Pope John Paul II in 1984 for its 5ooth anniversary , and it has the distinction of being the only convent in the whole of Rome which has never been closed or abandoned.  The present Mother Superior  showed us the badges of office of all her predecessors in unbroken line back to the foundation of the convent in 1433. We helped to celebrate Mass in the convent, as Francesca did all those years ago, and the sisters took us on a complete tour of the convent, including the gardens (orchards), and kitchens where they still keep the cooking implements of centuries ago, and to the cell of St.Frances; her room  as it was nearly 700 years ago; full of memories; her clothes, jewellery, shoes, and books. It is almost as if she is still praying just round the corner.