Waldron offers us a Francis of Assisi who speaks to us of the twenty-first century, a Francis with whom modern people can identify.

Robert Waldron's new book serves as an introduction to the life of the world's favorite saint. The author explores Francis from three perspectives: biographical, psychological and aesthetic. His book is innovative because he understands Francis through our new science of psychology and through the beauty of Bellini's masterpiece St. Francis in the Desert, the painting shown on the cover of the book. For a psychological understanding Waldron employes Carl Jung's theory of individuation: the steps taken by Francis to become his True Self. Waldron also employs Bellini's painting to shed light on St. Francis the mystic, he who was gifted by God with the Stigmata. Waldron also addresses Francis's poem The Canticle of the Creatures, offering an exegesis of the poem that also provides insights into the saint's life as Christian and as a mystic. Waldron's book provides a Study Guide that encourages the reader to go more deeply into understanding Francis's life; thus, it can be used in the classrooms of both high school and college.