St. Frances of Rome - When You Need Help With Family, Home & Finding God in Your Daily Duties

Feast Day: March 9

Do you sometimes feel pulled in a hundred different directions?

You want to give more time to God, but your family needs you. There is work to be done, people to care for, responsibilities that cannot wait, and unexpected problems that change your plans.

Meet St. Frances of Rome—wife, mother, widow, mystic, and religious foundress.

Her life gives tremendous encouragement to anyone trying to become holy while caring for a family and fulfilling the duties God has placed before them.

She teaches us something beautiful:

Sometimes leaving a prayer to fulfill your duty is itself an act of love for God.

Her Story

St. Frances was born in Rome in 1384. From an early age, she desired a life completely devoted to God and hoped to become a nun.

But her parents arranged for her to marry Lorenzo Ponziano, a young Roman nobleman.

Frances accepted God's will and became a devoted wife and mother.

Her life was not easy.

Rome experienced war, political turmoil, disease, poverty, and suffering. Frances herself endured family tragedies, including the loss of children.

Yet she did not allow suffering to turn her away from God.

Instead, she served Him right where He had placed her.

She cared for her husband and children, managed her household, helped the poor, tended the sick, and maintained a profound life of prayer.

Eventually, she founded a community of women dedicated to prayer and charitable works. After her husband's death, Frances joined the community herself.

“God Must Be Served First”

One of the most beautiful lessons associated with St. Frances concerns the interruption of prayer.

As a wife and mother, Frances could not always pray without interruption.

Family responsibilities called.

Household duties appeared.

Someone needed her.

Tradition preserves this wisdom from her life:

A married woman must sometimes leave God at the altar to find Him in her household affairs.

The lesson is not that prayer is unimportant.

It is that God can be loved through our duties.

Changing a diaper.

Preparing dinner.

Caring for an elderly parent.

Cleaning the house.

Helping a child.

Supporting your husband or wife.

Going to work.

Answering the needs of your family when you would rather have quiet time.

When these things are done with love and according to our duties, they can become offerings to God.

When Should You Turn to St. Frances of Rome?

Ask St. Frances to intercede when you are praying for:

• Your marriage

• Your husband or wife

• Your children

• Peace within your home

• Patience with family members

• Strength during family difficulties

• Help balancing prayer and responsibilities

• Mothers overwhelmed by daily duties

• Widows

• Sick family members

• Greater charity toward the poor

• Perseverance during suffering

• Greater trust in God's Providence

• The grace to become holy through ordinary life

She is also traditionally honored as a patroness of motorists and automobile drivers, making her a beautiful intercessor to invoke before traveling.

Her Guardian Angel

One of the most fascinating aspects of St. Frances's life is her extraordinary devotion to the angels.

Biographical traditions concerning her mystical life recount that she was granted a remarkable awareness of her guardian angel, whom she perceived accompanying and guiding her.

For this reason, St. Frances can be a wonderful saint for anyone who wants to develop a greater appreciation for the protection and guidance God gives us through our guardian angels.

Her life reminds us:

We are never as alone as we sometimes feel.

God has given each of us a guardian angel to watch over us and assist us on our journey toward Heaven.

Testimonies & Extraordinary Graces

St. Frances became well known in Rome for her holiness and charity even during her lifetime.

Accounts of her life describe extraordinary mystical experiences, visions, spiritual battles, and favors associated with her prayers.

But perhaps one of the greatest testimonies to her holiness was much simpler:

People saw the way she lived.

They saw a woman who suffered without abandoning God.

A wealthy woman who personally served the poor.

A mother who loved her children.

A wife who remained faithful to her vocation.

A woman of deep prayer who still attended faithfully to the ordinary responsibilities of her household.

Her ordinary duties became the road God used to make her a saint.

Prayer to St. Frances of Rome

O glorious St. Frances of Rome,
faithful wife, loving mother, servant of the poor, and friend of God,
I ask for thy intercession today.

Thou knewest the joys and burdens of family life.

Thou knewest what it was to have thy prayers interrupted,
thy plans changed,
and thy heart burdened by suffering.

Help me to find God in the duties He has given me.

When I become impatient with my family,
obtain for me charity.

When my responsibilities overwhelm me,
obtain for me strength.

When I wish my circumstances were different,
teach me to seek holiness where God has placed me.

I especially ask thy prayers for:

[Mention your intention.]

Protect my family,
bring peace into our home,
and help us to remain faithful to Our Lord in times of joy and suffering.

Through thy intercession,
may everything I do today—even the smallest and most ordinary duty—become an offering of love to Jesus.

St. Frances of Rome, pray for us.

Amen.

A Prayer Before Driving

Because St. Frances of Rome is a patroness of motorists, ask for her intercession whenever you begin a journey:

“St. Frances of Rome, pray for me and all who travel today. Holy Guardian Angel, protect and guide us. May Our Lord bring us safely to our destination. Amen.”

It only takes a few seconds.

Make it a family habit whenever you get into the car.

When Your Daily Life Feels Too Ordinary

You may look at the saints and think:

“I could never live like that.”

St. Frances gives us another answer.

Start with the life God has already given you.

You do not need to leave your family to find holiness.

You do not need perfect silence before you can pray.

You do not need every responsibility to disappear before you can belong completely to God.

Your kitchen can become a place of sacrifice.

Your workplace can become a place of virtue.

Your car can become a place of prayer.

Your family can become your school of charity.

Your interruptions can become opportunities to surrender your will.

The ordinary things may be exactly where God intends to sanctify you.

Learn More About St. Frances of Rome

Would you like to learn more about St. Frances, her extraordinary mystical life, her guardian angel, and her example as a Catholic wife and mother?

Visit our parish bookstore to see our selection of books about the saints and the spiritual life.

Reading the lives of the saints reminds us that there is no single path to holiness. God made saints from priests and religious—but also from husbands, wives, mothers, fathers, widows, workers, and people surrounded by ordinary responsibilities.

When You Feel Pulled in Every Direction

The next time your prayer is interrupted because someone needs you, remember St. Frances.

Say a quick prayer.

Take care of the duty God has placed before you.

Then return to prayer when you can.

Do not think that you have left God behind.

You may discover that He was waiting for you in the very person who interrupted you.

Offer Him your home.

Offer Him your marriage.

Offer Him your children.

Offer Him the dishes, the laundry, the commute, the interruptions, the worries, and the thousand little duties nobody else notices.

And ask St. Frances to teach you how to turn all of it into love.

St. Frances of Rome, patroness of families and motorists, pray for us.

Holy Guardian Angels, watch over us and protect us.