These creatures minister
to our needs every day
St. Francis of Assisi

Scriptures: Psalm 148:1-5, 7-13, Genesis 1:20-25

When the Board of Spiritual and Parish Life talked about holding a service of the blessing of the animals, our thoughts naturally turned to St. Francis of Assisi, known throughout Christianity as that one saint who particularly loved all of God’s creatures – including inanimate objects, as we shall see in a little bit.  His feast day is October 4, which is when many churches choose to hold a “blessing of the animals” service – we just decided to get it in a bit earlier.  One story told about him, is the story of St. Francis preaching to the birds.  It goes like this:

“Father Francis and his companions were making a trip through the Spoleto Valley near the town of Bevagna.  Suddenly, Francis spotted a great number of birds of all varieties.  There were doves, crows and all sorts of birds. Swept up in the moment, Francis left his friends in the road and ran after the birds, who patiently waited for him.  He greeted them in his usual way, expecting them to scurry off into the air as he spoke. But they didn’t move.

“Filled with awe, he asked them if they would stay awhile and listen to the Word of God.  He said to them: ‘My brother and sister birds, you should praise your Creator and always love him:  He gave you feathers for clothes, wings to fly and all other things that you need.  It is God who made you noble among all creatures, making your home in thin, pure air.  Without sowing or reaping, you receive God’s guidance and protection.’

“At this the birds began to spread their wings, stretch their necks and gaze at Francis, rejoicing and praising God in a wonderful way according to their nature.  Francis then walked right through the middle of them, turned around and came back, touching their heads and bodies with his tunic.  Then he gave them his blessing, making the sign of the cross over them.  At that they flew off and Francis, rejoicing and giving thanks to God, went on his way.”

OK, so that’s a bit fanciful, kinda giving birds human characteristics.  But it represents the way Francis of Assisi thought about birds and animals.  They were God’s creatures – and thus, like all things, they could praise God.  The whole purpose of life, Francis had found, was to praise God, who has created all of us.

Who was this St. Francis of Assisi?  Let me give you a bit of biographical background on him.  Catholic teacher Leonard Foley describes him this way:

“Francis of Assisi was a poor little man who astounded and inspired the Church by taking the gospel literally — not in a narrow fundamentalist sense, but by actually following all that Jesus said and did, joyfully, without limit and without a mite of self-importance.”

Francis was born in 1181 or 1182 in Assisi, which is in Umbria — a region of Central Italy.  He was born into a wealthy family. His father, Pietro Bernardone, was a cloth merchant.  Of his mother, Pica, little is known, but she is said to have belonged to a noble family of Provence.  Francis was one of several children.  He received some elementary instruction from the priests of St. George’s, but he really wasn’t very studious, and much preferred gadding about with his rather dissolute friends – sort of like fraternity brothers on a bender (since I’ve just come back from my college reunion, I can relate to this).  No one loved pleasure more than Francis; he had a ready wit, sang merrily, delighted in fine clothes and showy display.  Handsome, gay, gallant, and courteous, he soon became the favorite among the young nobles of Assisi.  But even then Francis showed an instinctive sympathy with the poor, and though he spent money lavishly, much of it went to help others.

But then he became seriously ill, and during a long convalescence he started questioning his life of self-indulgence.  Prayer — lengthy and difficult —led him to a self-emptying like that of Christ, climaxed by embracing a leper he met on the road. This action symbolized his complete obedience to what he had heard in prayer.

As he was turning his life more God-ward, Francis found himself in a run-down church at San Damiano.  There he had a mystical vision of Christ’s voice telling him, “Francis, go out and build up my house, for it is nearly falling down.” And so he became a  poor and humble workman until the church had been rebuilt.  His father was incensed by his actions, but Francis spurned his father’s fine clothes and all offers of money, devoting himself to a life of poverty, preaching the word of God, and gathering around him a group of devotees who would become the beginning of the group we now know as the Franciscan order.  Among those devotees was a young girl named Clare, whom Francis, along with her sister, established at St. Damian’s, in a dwelling adjoining the chapel he had rebuilt with his own hands, which was now given to the saint by the Benedictines as home for his spiritual daughters, and which thus became the first monastery of the Second Franciscan Order of Poor Ladies, now known as Poor Clares (we’ll have a chance to hear the blessing of St. Clare at the end of the service).

Always sickly, in the last years of his rather short life (he died at age 44, in 1226, back in his native Assisi after all his travels) he was nearly blind and seriously ill.  One of the enduring legends about him is that two years before his death, he received the stigmata, the real and painful wounds of Christ in his hands, feet and side.  Another legend, again rather fanciful, but I kind of like it, is that St. Francis on his deathbed thanked his donkey for carrying and helping him throughout his life, and the donkey wept.  Only two years later on July 16, 1228, he was pronounced a saint by Pope Gregory IX (the former cardinal Ugolino di Conti, friend of St Francis and Cardinal Protector of the Order).

So, what does this really quite extraordinary life have to say to us nearly eight centuries later and the pets that we’ve brought along to bless today?  Perhaps most importantly, Francis’s simple, childlike nature fastened on the thought, that if all are from one God then all are real kin.  So, his custom of claiming brotherhood with all manner of animate and inanimate objects came out of this sense of the oneness of all creation (Francis is often thought of as the patron saint of ecology, but that’s another sermon).  In his famous poem the “Canticle of the Sun” he personifies each element, referring to “Brother Sun” and “Sister Moon” (which became the title of the 1972 film by Franco Zeffirelli that brought St. Francis vividly to life).  I won’t quote the whole of the “Canticle of the Sun” here (though the whole thing is worth reading through and even having by your bedside; I wish I had thought to have it printed in the bulletin); each stanza begins with “Be praised, my Lord” and then goes on to offer praises to Brother Sun and Sister Moon and Brothers Wind and Air, Sister Water, Brother Fire, Sister Mother Earth, and ends up even praising Sister Bodily Death “from whose embrace no living person can escape…..  Happy those she finds doing your most holy will.  The second death can do no harm to them.”  It concludes, as does the whole of Francis’s life:  “Praise and bless my Lord, and give thanks, and serve him with great humility.”  The hymn that we often sing, “All Creatures of our God and King”, is a paraphrase of the Canticle of the Sun.

Francis’s love of creatures was not simply the offspring of a soft or sentimental disposition; it arose rather from that deep and abiding sense of the presence of God, which underlay all he said and did.  Francis had a habitual cheerfulness about him, and yet he was touched by sorrow, had hidden struggles, and was constantly wrestling with his doubts in prayer (sounds like someone we can identify with, does he not?).

Several quotes are attributed to St. Francis, some of which he may even have said (he’s a bit like Yogi Berra in that regard)!  My favorite, which is probably true of many preachers, is “Preach the Gospel at all times; when necessary use words.”  His humility shows through in the line, “If God can work through me, he can work through anyone.”  I also love this one as an inspiration for getting us going:  “Start by doing what’s necessary; then do what’s possible; and suddenly you are doing the impossible.”  And then there is the quote that is central for setting up our blessing of the animals (again, apologies for the non-inclusive language…but it was the 12^th century):  “If you have men who will exclude any of God’s creatures from the shelter of compassion and pity, you will have men who will deal likewise with their fellow men.”

Franciscan Kevin E. Mackin captures the significance of what St. Francis means for what we have done today when he says,

“For single householders, a pet can be a true companion.  Many people arrive home from work to find a furry friend overjoyed at their return.  Many a senior has a lap filled with a purring fellow creature.

“The bond between person and pet is like no other relationship, because the communication between fellow creatures is at its most basic.  Eye-to-eye, a man and his dog, or a woman and her cat, are two creatures of love.  No wonder people enjoy the opportunity to take their animal companions to church for a special blessing.  Church is the place where the bond of creation is celebrated….

“Some people criticize the amount and cost of care given to pets.  People are more important, they say.  Care for poor people instead of poodles.  And certainly our needy fellow humans should not be neglected.  However, I believe every creature is important.  The love we give to a pet, and receive from a pet, can draw us more deeply into the larger circle of life, into the wonder of our common relationship to our Creator.”

Undoubtedly, the most well known and beloved of all the sayings attributed to St. Francis is the “Prayer of Peace”, even though he didn’t actually write it.  As Friar Jack Wintz says, though, “[while he] may not have written the words of the prayer attributed to him, he certainly lived them.  Everyone who is able to read and understand these words, moreover, readily sees that they communicate the heart of the Gospels and capture what is most essential in the world’s great religions.”  Let me conclude, then, with this familiar, beloved prayer:

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace;
where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
where there is sadness, joy.
O divine Master,
grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console;
to be understood, as to understand;
to be loved, as to love;
for it is in giving that we receive,
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
and it is in dying that we are born to Eternal Life.

Amen.

Dave Pomeroy

St. Francis of Assisi (Psalm 148:1-5, Psalm 148:7-13, Genesis 1:20-25)

Psalm 148:1-5

148:1 Praise the Lord!
Praise the Lord from the heavens;
praise him in the heights!
2 Praise him, all his angels;
praise him, all his hosts!

3 Praise him, sun and moon,
praise him, all you shining stars!
4 Praise him, you highest heavens,
and you waters above the heavens!

5 Let them praise the name of the Lord!
For he commanded and they were created. (ESV)

Psalm 148:7-13

7 Praise the Lord from the earth,
you great sea creatures and all deeps,
8 fire and hail, snow and mist,
stormy wind fulfilling his word!

9 Mountains and all hills,
fruit trees and all cedars!
10 Beasts and all livestock,
creeping things and flying birds!

11 Kings of the earth and all peoples,
princes and all rulers of the earth!
12 Young men and maidens together,
old men and children!

13 Let them praise the name of the Lord,
for his name alone is exalted;
his majesty is above earth and heaven. (ESV)

Genesis 1:20-25

20 And God said, “Let the waters swarm with swarms of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the expanse of the heavens.” 21 So God created the great sea creatures and every living creature that moves, with which the waters swarm, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. 22 And God blessed them, saying, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth.” 23 And there was evening and there was morning, the fifth day.

24 And God said, “Let the earth bring forth living creatures according to their kinds—livestock and creeping things and beasts of the earth according to their kinds.” And it was so. 25 And God made the beasts of the earth according to their kinds and the livestock according to their kinds, and everything that creeps on the ground according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. (ESV)

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