Feast of St. Francis of Assisi

So here we are; another first Sunday in October, another blessing of the animals, another occasion to take joy in God's creation; and another opportunity to rediscover the death-defying passion of the saint behind all this.

Preaching to birds: literally stripping himself naked of all his possessions: walking right up to a wolf that had terrorized a village but promptly lay down at Francis's feet and became the village pet. Anyone who did these things today we would call crazy. But Francis we honor as a saint, perhaps the greatest of all the saints since the New Testament.

None of us are going to follow in every single one of Francis's footsteps. But in our own way each of us can follow his trust in the God who created all that is good in this world, even unto "Sister Death," as Francis called it. And in that trust, we can also share his calling to restore the House of God.

Restoring God's house is really what lay at the heart of God's call to Francis. After his disillusionment with his wealthy lifestyle and attraction to "Lady Poverty;" Francis began to frequent a Church in the country side that was broken down and in disrepair. But Mass was still celebrated daily by an old priest, and Francis would serve at the Mass. There also he would spend hours each day, meditating before the Church’s crucifix.

One morning, as he knelt there in prayer, Francis heard God speak to him—“Restore My house.” He initially took it at a quite literal level -- he went out immediately, found some of his Father’s most expensive fabric and sold it at market (this might be called theft) and took the money to the Church to rebuild it. This forced the public confrontation between Francis and his father in which Francis literally stripped himself of his father's wealth and walked away naked.

And so Francis started to follow God's call to restore the Church. How? By possessing nothing but the clothes on his and his fellow friars' backs. In this, they shared the experience of God-who-was with-us in Jesus Christ. And when people saw the Franciscans living in total trust that God the Father would give them whatever they needed, then the people would see Jesus Christ himself. In this total trust in God the Father, they mirrored God's Son as no human beings have since. They walked in Jesus's footprints as no one has since. And in this trust, they found the joy in all of God's creation, a joy open to all willing to trust God.

Even in death, Francis found joy. As he lay dying, his friends approached in tears, and yet he cut them off, as he began singing a new verse to his "Canticle of the Sun," which we know from our hymnal as "All Creatures of Our God and King" -- “Praised be you, My Lord, through our Sister, Bodily Death, from whom no living man can escape....” Death, for Francis, as life, was a time for trust in God, and praise in God, and joy in God, and a complete self-emptying. For what can you do before death but empty yourself.

Again, I don’t expect that any of us will imitate Francis’s radical trust in God. But Francis’s example continues to serve as a beacon of restoration for all of God’s Church 800 years later. We have a much smaller piece of the church and the world to restore. What miracles might God work through us if we but trust in God just a little? And what unimaginable joy might we find if we but trust in God just a little?