A farmer, military leader, member of the assembly, councillor, judge and mystic, he was respected as a man of complete moral integrity.

[5] At the age of 21, he enrolled in the army and during the Old Zürich War, waged against the canton of Zurich by the rest of the Old Swiss Confederacy, Nicholas distinguished himself as a soldier and took part in the Battle of Ragaz in 1446.

It was thanks to Nicholas' influence that a house of the Dominican nuns, the convent of St. Katharinental, where many Austrians had fled after the capture of Diessenhofen, escaped being destroyed by the Swiss confederates.

In 1467, he left his wife and his ten children with her consent[1] rescinded all his political duties and aimed to join a mystic brotherhood near Basel.

Discovered a few days after his arrival by some hunters, he eventually set himself up a hermit in the Ranft chine in Switzerland, establishing a chantry for a priest from his own funds so that he could assist at mass daily.

Having arrived in the Ranft, he began to fast and after having received the consent of Oswald Yssner, the priest in Kerns, he didn't eat anymore.

[9] The Benedictine abbot of Sponheim Johannes Trithemius convinced by the reports he heard from people who met Niklaus, compared him with Saint Anthony.

[10] In 1470, Pope Paul II granted the first indulgence to the sanctuary at Ranft and it became a pilgrimage site on the Way of Saint James,[11] a pilgrims' route to Santiago de Compostela in Spain.

[10] After Nicholas of Flüe died in 1487, his funeral was attended by a large number of people[14] and he was buried in the chapel in Sachseln.

In June 1984, Pope John Paul II held a mass in Flüeli Ranft and a prayer at the tomb of Niklaus von Flüe in Sachseln during his visit to Switzerland.

[17] As a layman with family responsibilities who took his civic duties as an ancestral landowner seriously, Brother Klaus is a model of heroic manhood for many concerned with the flourishing of local communities and sustainable use of open land.

[21] The Government of Obwalden requested from Heinrich Wölflin, a noted historian of the time to write a biography of Niklaus von Flüe in 1493.

[23] Nicholas described his vision of the Holy Face at the center of a circle with the tips of three swords touching the two eyes and mouth, while three others radiate outwards in a sixfold symmetry reminiscent of the Seal of Solomon.

A cloth painted with the image, known as the meditation prayer cloth[24] associates the symbol with six episodes from the life of Christ: the mouth of God at the Annunciation, the eyes spying Creation both in its prelapsarian innocence and redemption from the Fall at Calvary, while in the inward direction the betrayal by his disciple Judas in the Garden of Gethsamene points to the crown of the Pantocrator sitting in the judgment seat, the glad tidings of the Nativity scene's "Glory to God in the Highest and Peace to his people on Earth" echoes in the ear on the right of the head, while the memorial of the Lord's Supper "This is my body, which will be given for you" at the prayers of consecration in the Divine Liturgy of the Mass echoes to the ear on the left of the head.