About 795 years ago a poor little man died in central Italy, surrounded by friends he called his “little brothers”. Worn out with work, travel, illness, and excessive self-deprivation, he died exhausted, as he had driven his frail frame beyond its ordinary powers.
Indeed, at the end of his life he admitted, “I’ve been too hard on Brother Ass.”-- He called his body Brother Ass, like an overburdened burro.
He called all created things his brother or sister, not just humans, though surely those, but the sun, the moon, the elements, animals … and at last even death.
He himself was known to his friends as Brother Francis, though as soon as he died he was acclaimed as a saint.
Saint Francis is known for several things: his passion for the gospel, his embrace of poverty, his leadership of the religious orders known as Franciscans, his love for creation, and of course birdbaths.
We celebrate Creation Sunday on a Sunday close to October 4th, the feast of Saint Francis.
And it is only right. As we look at creation around us, all creatures, each other, ourselves, we look at them in part through Francis’ eyes.
He regarded all things through the lens of his devotion to his Lord and because of that he embraced what is holy in all things.
This was not an easy road.
Early in his career he asked God to grant him to know the pain and the love Jesus felt on the cross. And perhaps he did.
What we remember today - without forgetting the pain of the passion - is the love that surrounds it.
The love of the passion: paradoxical, all-embracing.
Today that love we particularly remember as we look with gratitude, hope, guilt, and a deepening desire to care, upon our fellow creatures, especially this fragile earth that is our home, and our creaturely neighbors, from fish and birds to sky and sea.
How can we love our fellow creatures as God would have us love them - as family? Maybe seeing through the eyes of the little poor man of Assisi - Saint Francis - will help.
JRL+
Published as "Love all of God's creation", Arizona Daily Star, Home + Life, Keeping the Faith. October 10th 2021. E3.
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