A Franciscan Perspective
Friday, May 2, 2025
In an episode of the podcast Learning How to See, Brian McLaren considers Francis of Assisi’s celebrated affinity for nature:
Saint Francis is probably best known for the “Canticle of the Sun,” the song of praise he wrote in 1225. It begins,
Most High, all-powerful, good Lord … praised be You, my Lord, with all Your creatures, especially Sir Brother Sun, who is the day and through whom You give us light. And he is beautiful and radiant with great splendor; and bears a likeness of You, Most High One. Praised be You, my Lord, through Sister Moon and the stars…. Praised be You, my Lord, through Brother Wind, and through the air, cloudy and serene, and every kind of weather…. Praised be You, my Lord, through Sister Water…. [1]
What strikes me in this poem is that Francis doesn’t say be praised for these things but be praised with them and through them. Francis is saying, I’m praising you, God, because I’m praising the sun. It seems to me that Francis was trying to return to a more primal identity—as part of nature, a child of soil, wind, and rain, a member of this earth community, all of which inhabits the loving presence of God.
Sister Joan Brown, former executive director of New Mexico Interfaith Power and Light, responds to McLaren’s question: “What does it mean for a person to be a Franciscan and to feel themselves part of a Franciscan movement?”
I think it’s being Franciscan-hearted.… It’s knowing and feeling oneself as part of everything—from the smallest molecule, to the tree, to the sun that was out this morning. This vast soul connection then interweaves us all together in a community…. We’re living in this time when it’s not the heroes that are influencing us; it’s the communal, it’s all of us, … and we recognize love as core to that. Love is what inspires and moves us towards justice, and towards engagement in the suffering world, to transform, I believe, to be a part of the evolution of beauty in the world, which is what we’re being pulled toward and into. That’s really what this Franciscan-heartedness is about: seeing of beauty within everything.
Michele Dunne, executive director of the Franciscan Action Network, shares what being a Franciscan means to her:
One of the things that appealed to me about the Franciscan life is that it’s a life of prayer and action, action and prayer, back and forth, one feeding the other…. I started down the path of becoming a Secular Franciscan [2], and I thought, I’m going to do this prayer and then I’m going to take action. Then I realized there was … something far more basic, which was my simply being in the present moment and seeing the humanity of every person in front of me and seeing the living earth. I realized I’d gone my whole life sort of objectifying and categorizing, hardly seeing living things. I was seeing them as things. I was seeing people in categories. I had to develop a whole new awareness, an ability to respond and live in the present moment, so that I could be open to what is mine to do.
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John Chaffee 5 On Friday
1.
“If you label me, you negate me.”
– Soren Kierkegaard, Danish Philosopher
The human person is far too complex to summarize under any title. To be labeled anything is a broad stroke that eliminates the nuances, feelings, stances, and paradoxes of what it means to be human.
Let’s take a moment and think about all the standard titles we use today…
Republican
Democrat
Libertarian
Believer
Atheist
Agnostic
Scientist
Professor
Park Ranger
Father
Mother
Child
Homeless
Rich
Poor
The list can go on and on.
At best, our labels only name one dimension of what it means to be who we are.
It is for this reason that names are better than labels.
2.
“Christ was never in a hurry.”
– Mary Slessor, Missionary to Nigeria
This one is quite a punch.
I admit to often thinking about the next thing while in the present. I am also prone to focusing on the next week or month at the expense of the now.
Modernity tells us that efficiency is one of the highest goals: to get things done as quickly as possible at a quality that is either “good enough” or “perfect.”
All of this contributes to a culture that hyperfocuses on hurry.
But Christ was never in a hurry.
According to our records, Jesus walked almost everywhere.
So, at best, God was content to go 2.5 miles per hour.
Also, if the universe is 13.8 billion years old, that means God took God’s time to get to us.
Yep.
This God is not in a hurry.
3.
“Love is our true destiny. We do not find the meaning of life by ourselves alone—we find it with [one] another. We do not discover the secret of our lives merely by study and calculation in our own safe and isolated meditations. The meaning of life has to be revealed to us in love, by the one we love.“
– Thomas Merton, Trappist Monk
As a head-oriented person, love has been too much of a theory.
That is not to say that I was not loved, but that over time, my head got the better of my heart. Frankly, my life experiences encouraged me to distrust love while at the same time wanting it on my terms.
Love is dangerous. It requires a vulnerability that exposes our weaknesses and insecurities.
Theories are never dangerous. They require nothing of us than to play with them in our imaginations.
So when I came across this quote from Merton in No Man is an Island, I had to accept that I was too independent and isolated. No one is made whole or human by standing at a safe distance from love. Myself included.
Love is our true destiny, our true identity, and it makes us whole again.
4.
“Justice is what love looks like in public.”
– Dr. Cornel West, American Theologian
I reject the notion that faith should not be political. I do, however, reject the idea that it should be bipartisan.
If God cared that humanity created a healthy household and economy (oikonomia), we likely should pay more attention to making certain justice happens in the public arena as well.
5.
“Good souls many will one day be horrified at the things they now believe of God.”
– George MacDonald, Scottish Preacher
This past week, I met with a couple in spiritual direction.
It was a lovely time, and I consider doing those sessions a privilege.
One of the things we said is that we are relatively okay with people converting to Christianity. However, we are not OK with people having “micro-conversions” within Christianity. We don’t always validate it when people “fine-tune” their understanding of faith or change a stance within the faith.
The Apostles Creed is an important document or statement of faith, not only because it is one of the earliest formulations of the faith, but also because of its brevity. There is a lot left out.
This leads me to think that there are a whole number of stances, positions, or opinions that are up for debate.
And so, thank goodness, we can constantly improve our understanding of this mystery we call “God” throughout our lives.
