A Moment Aside for 1 October 2020

 

A Moment Aside ---- 1 October 2020

Most High, all powerful, good Lord,
Yours are the praises, the glory, the honour, and all blessing.

To You alone, Most High, do they belong,
and no man is worthy to mention Your name.

Be praised, my Lord, through all your creatures,
especially through my lord Brother Sun,
who brings the day; and you give light through him.
And he is beautiful and radiant in all his splendour!
Of you, Most High, he bears the likeness.

                                                        (Francis of Assisi, The Canticle of the Creatures, 1224)

     October 4 is the festival of Francis of Assisi, an Italian friar who founded the Order of Friars Minor (“Lesser Brothers”.) He’s often seen as a statue in birdbaths and gardens all around. Yet he was a real person, a poet, a leader, and a man who suffered such fasting that he apologiesed to his own body at the end of his life. He lived his life according to the Gospel of Jesus Christ and I think that’s what he’d like to be remembered as.

     Some see him as preaching to the birds and animals, but he only did that because the people around him would not hear his preaching. So he turned to the birds, the rabbits, and once, a wolf in the town of Gubbio in Italy.

     I was a Franciscan for 12 years before I left the community to marry. I still carry the lessons of that community in my heart and I still try to live them out. In a number of ways, I am the man I am because of the grace of God channeled through Francis and his followers.

     I will not forget… and I will try to hold to these words, the words that end Francis’ Canticle of the Creatures:

Praise and bless my Lord,
and give Him thanks
and serve Him with great humility.                         (the closing of Francis’ poem)

Pax et Bonum! (Peace and Good!)