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What
St. Francis did for Physical World
The
Church | The Physical World | Humankind
"Praise
to you, my Lord,
for our Sister Mother Earth.
Praise to you, my Lord,
with all your creatures."
St. Francis of Assisi
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Francis was led by his original and radically new way of living the
body-spirit relation to set up a fraternal dialogue with all creatures
in the universe, both living and nonliving. The
Canticle of Brother Sun, which sums up the Franciscan vision
in poetic and minstrellike fashion, testifies most beautifully and
eloquently to this fact.
This understanding of the universe led Francis as a "new Adam"
to exult ecstatically before the spectacle of nature and to develop
a profound love for the inanimate universe. Of course he was aware
of the moral ambiguity inherent in earthly realities, including
the human body, where Francis calls the body "enemy".
Francis
recovered for Christian spirituality those wonderful pages
of Genesis which depict the creation of the world as good
and which had been thrust aside by some earlier spiritual
movements.
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However, Francis recovered for Christian spirituality those wonderful
pages of Genesis which depict the creation of the world as good and
which had been thrust aside by some earlier spiritual movements. Since
God, "the Good," "all Good," "the highest
Good," was the very center of his spirit, he in turn lived always
in love's orbit. Thanks to the liberating effect of poverty, he was
reminded unceasingly of the fundamental Gospel principle of salvation:
"Live in the world, but do not be of the world!"
Without underestimating the positive influence of several factors
then at work in various parts of Europe (such as Gothic culture
with its increased emphasis on realism) we must insist that this
renewed awareness of the value of earthly realities is due in large
part to the Franciscan vision. That vision has solid biblical and
theological sources. Creatures are "brothers" and "sisters"
for three fundamental reasons: (1) they share with us a common origin
and therefore the same Father; (2) they share with us the gift of
existence and the same destiny; and (3) all things are symbols and
bearers of Christ, the firstborn brother of every creature.
Francis'
outlook is diametrically opposed to the idea of humanity's
absolute dominion over the physical world and to the thoughtless
exploitation of creatures.
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Even the humblest creatures bespoke to Francis the presence of Christ,
and the whole physical world was to him a sort of gigantic natural
monstrance of the incarnate Word of God. In Sun, Flower, Vine, Light,
Lamb, Stone— in all creatures, Francis saw a Christian testimony
to the presence of the Most High. Perhaps the most amazing aspect
of the harmony Francis enjoyed with all earthly realities was his
submissiveness to them. Knowing that God can express his will through
any of his works, the Little Poor Man scanned creation attentively,
listened to its mysterious voices, and listened to the mute language
of things, growing all the while in vital spiritual enthusiasm. This,
surely, is the highest level of liberation that creatures ever enjoyed
at the hands of a Christian mystic. Francis treated objects "as
beings endowed with reason" and spoke to them "as if he
were speaking to human beings".
Francis's outlook is diametrically opposed to the idea of humanity's
absolute dominion over the physical world and to the thoughtless
exploitation of creatures. For the Franciscan no creature can be
reduced to the status of a mere object to be used and consumed by
human beings.
Confirmation of this is easily found in Franciscan art, such as
the icon depicting the Poverello's "sermon to the birds,"
that striking fraternal communion of the Saint of Assisi with the
world of animate and inanimate creatures.
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