Praised be Jesus, now and forever.
Saint Louis and I fulfilled these two commandments and thereby fulfilled the whole law.
He is a patron saint of the Franciscan Third Order together with Saint Elizabeth of Hungary and was born on April 25th, 1214.
His mother, Blanche of Castile, raised him to hate sin and love God.
Traditionally she is called, blessed, or some call her, saint, but she was never officially beatified or canonized.
She used to say to him when he was a child, I love you, my dear son, with all the tenderness a mother is capable of, but I would infinitely rather see you fall down dead at my feet than that you should ever commit a mortal sin.
He never forgot those words and never committed a mortal sin in his life, according to the testimony of his confessor during the crusade.
He confessed every crime, sometimes two or three times a week, in order to keep his soul pure of sin.
He grew up looking at everything in the light of the faith, and this attitude would save him from both vainglory and discouragement.
He always knew that the good that came to him came from God and that if he was passing through a trial, perhaps God was using it to purify him.
Perhaps he had deserved it for his sins.
He was always prouder to be a Christian than to be a king.
Blessed Blanche surrounded her son with capable teachers, like Blessed Pacificus, a disciple of St. Francis and the first provincial of the order in France.
Another was Blessed Mansueto Castiglione Argentino, another disciple of our Seraphic father, who for many years was St. Louis' confessor.
He also had a Dominican confessor in another period of his life.
In 1226, the king, Louis' father, died, leaving the throne to his son, who was only 12 at the time.
Blanche therefore became regent, and Louis was crowned immediately in order to stave off questions about the succession.
Nevertheless, there were wars, rebellions by others of royal blood who wanted to become king.
St. Louis is the only canonized king of France.
When it was time for him to marry, he looked for what we most look for in a wife, which was virtue.
He chose Margaret, daughter of the Count of Provence.
He was 20 when he married, and despite abstaining from relations during days of penance, they had six girls and five boys.
He was deeply religious, but that made him more determined to carry out his duties toward his nation.
One day, after assisting at the first Mass in his chapel, he went to his study to attend to his other duties as king.
During the second Mass, some people who were present saw the child Jesus appear on the altar, so they ran to get the king.
But he replied, go back on your own, I believe it without seeing it.
St. Louis was a Franciscan Tertiary, and also had Dominicans in his court.
St. Thomas and St. Bonaventure were sometimes guests at his table.
He loved the Franciscans and Dominicans for their profession of poverty, and he also served the poor personally, and would even wash the feet of the poor.
He wanted the people who served in the palace to be good, honest, and upright.
He didn't permit anyone to use foul language, nor was anyone allowed to remain in the palace if he knew that they were living in mortal sin.
In October 1244, the Christians in the Holy Night were badly defeated at Gaza by the Muslims.
Later that year, St. Louis fell ill, and in December 1244, the same year, he vowed to go on a crusade if he recovered, as indeed he did.
This was the Seventh Crusade. It took a few years to organize.
This crusade was beneficial to his country, which is divided between North and South.
There were some hard feelings from the conflict between the Albigensians and the Catholics.
And having a common external enemy united the country.
In 1248, he left for Cyprus, and his ultimate goal was to capture Jerusalem, but he didn't begin there.
So long as Egypt was a strong Muslim power, a Christian state in the Holy Land would be in danger.
So he began there, in Egypt, in the port city of Damietta.
It took the Fifth Crusade 18 months to capture that city, but he and his troops recaptured it almost overnight in June 1249.
From there, they tried to move inland, but floods and the heat made it difficult to advance.
But in November, they had a break. The Sultan died, and the crusades thought that this was their opportunity.
However, by February 1250, they wound up being encircled in Mansoura.
St. Louis tried to negotiate a deal.
We'll give you Damietta, we'll give you back your port city, if you give us Jerusalem.
But that failed, and so on April 5th, the Crusaders broke out of the siege and retreated to Damietta.
The following day, they defeated them in a battle near that city, and St. Louis was taken prisoner.
He was held for ransom, and at one point, there was a deal to free him that would have required him to swear to certain clauses that seemed blasphemous to him.
He refused to do this. They told him that if he didn't do that, they would cut off his head.
Again, he refused. It was much better to die, especially to die as a martyr, than to offend God with sin.
In the end, they didn't cut off his head, because that would mean losing the ransom, losing their negotiating power.
So, they proposed another deal, and finally, the king was released after a month of captivity on May 8th.
From there, he went to the Holy Land and worked for a few years to fortify coastal towns that were the crusaders, that Caesarea, Jaffa, Sidon. In that way, he could defend, at least in that way, he could work to defend the Christian presence there.
While he was working in Jaffa, he got news of his mother's death.
He continued on to Acre and then to Nazareth, which he had regained for the Christians in the deal for his release.
On his way there, he visited Sepphoris, Cana, and Mount Tabor.
When he saw in the distance the village where the word had become flesh, he dismounted from his house and knelt in prayer for a long time.
Then he proceeded on foot to Nazareth, where the word humbled himself. Certainly, the king should do so as well.
He wore a hair shirt and he fasted on bread and water that day, despite the fatigue of the journey.
In the church on the site of the Annunciation, he attended the Divine Office in Mass and received Communion.
Although he visited these holy places, he could not appear to go see Jerusalem, which he had failed to liberate.
Finally, after six years away, he returned to France on September 7th, 1254.
There were many things to attend to, many things to put in order in the country, and that took him about a dozen years.
Afterwards, he went again to try to liberate the holy places, once again to free Jerusalem, the Holy Sepulchre.
In 1267, he took the cross for the second time, leaving for what would be the 8th Crusade.
This time he would have a bigger army and there was even hope of a North African ally.
Once again, it took a few years to organize, but there was word that the leader of Tunisia was considering converting, so the Crusaders headed there first.
He made their camp outside Carthage and waited for St. Louis' youngest brother, Charles of Anjou, the grandfather of St. Louis of Toulouse, to arrive with more troops.
But while they were waiting, an epidemic broke out in the camp.
The charitable king visited, cared for, and consoled the sick in whom he saw Christ.
Whatever you do to the least of these, you do to me.
Then he too caught dysentery, and so he would not enter the earthly Jerusalem as he had wished, but the heavenly one.
Before he died on August 25th, 1270, he spoke these words from the Psalms, I will come into thy holy house, I will worship in thy holy temple, and I will sing to thy holy name.
He died at 55 years of age after having been king for 43 years.
Praised be Jesus and Mary, now and forever.