Reflections on Creation

CANTICLE OF THE CREATURES 
RENEWING THE SACRED RELATIONSHIP 
BETWEEN HUMANITY AND THE CREATED WORLD

 Viterbo University – June 5, 2025

One day a man goes to his local parish to pray. During his prayer, he asks God a question, not expecting a direct answer:
“God, what’s a million years to you?”
Immediately, God responded: “One second,” my son.
So, the man said to God, “What’s a million dollars to you?”
God again responds immediately: “Why, it is a penny, my son.”
The man, in desperate need of some money, said: “God, would you give me a penny?
A pause…then God said, “Yes, my son, I will but give me just a second!”

My hope is that what I share with you today will not take more than “just a second!”

One Human Family and One Earth Community
                
It is written in the Earth Charter:

“We stand at a critical moment in Earth’s history, a time when humanity must choose its future. As the world becomes increasingly interdependent and fragile, the future at once holds great peril and great promise. To move forward we must recognize that amid a magnificent diversity of cultures and life forms we are one human family and one Earth community with one common destiny. We must join to bring forth a sustainable global society founded on respect for nature, universal human rights, economic justice, and a culture of peace. Towards this end, it is imperative that we, the people of Earth, declare our responsibility to one another, to the greater community of life (all living things, and the Earth), and to future generations.” [Earth Charter 2000, http://earthcharter.org/read-the-earth-charter/ preamble/]

Introduction:

Good morning to all of you who have gathered here at Viterbo University to remind ourselves about who we are as Catholic, Franciscan colleges and universities, to celebrate the great things God is doing in and through our institutions, and to deepen our understanding and commitment to a set of values reflected in the gospel project of St. Francis of Assisi, a disciple of the Risen Lord Jesus.

In a particular way, I want to thank Dr. Rick Trietly, President of the Association of Franciscan Colleges and Universities, and President of Viterbo University, and  Debi Haug, Executive Director for Mission of the AFCU, for the opportunity to share some ideas with you about the Canticle of Brother Sun, the focus of this morning’s session. Thanks, also, to all here at Viterbo University for your incredible welcome and hospitality. I wish I had a ‘penny’ to offer to each of you! 

Respect for Nature. Universal Human Rights. Economic Justice. A Culture of Peace. The Intrinsic Dignity and Value of Each and Every Creature. One Human Family in Solidarity. One Earth Community. A Cosmic Fraternity. An Evolving Universe guided by the Greatest Force that exists: God, who is Love.

These words from the Earth Charter, and several words of a more spiritual nature I have added to them, call each of us to reflect on the serious challenges confronting every living being and member of our Earth community, and the responsibility each of us bears to one another, to the greater community of life, and to future generations. These same core values for the future flourishing of the Earth community mirror those found in the prayer/poem/hymn that St. Francis received from God and sang into being 800 years ago. I am speaking about the Canticle of Brother Sun, also known as the Canticle of the Creatures, the Canticle of the Lord, or the Canticle of the Lord for His Creatures. 

As I began to prepare for this symposium, I realized how much many of you already know about the Canticle: its origins, linguistic structure, the life situation of Francis, the biblical and theological sources that inform its development, and the role that it has played and continues to play in the ongoing development of the Franciscan spiritual and intellectual tradition to the present. Some of you present here at Viterbo are the ‘real experts’ on the Canticle. Please do not hesitate to correct me if I misrepresent in any way either the human co-author, St. Francis, or provide a defective analysis of what the Canticle reveals about our place and role in the world today. One thing I have learned when saying anything about Francis, his writings, and about his early biographers: the need for a heavy dose of humility, and a willingness to admit just how little I know about what transpired in the mind and heart of the little man from Assisi. The late Franciscan scholar Br. David Flood often reminded the most erudite Franciscan scholars about this simple, plain truth. 

The celebrations of the anniversary of the Canticle have already begun in some – if not all – of our institutions. I hope that they will continue well beyond October 2026. I say this because to better understand the incredible vision of a world completely transformed, the dream of Francis communicated through the Canticle, will demand time, energy, a willingness to take a long, contemplative view of the real, and to open ourselves to the opportunity and promise it contains: to become a new creation, in the words of St. Paul. But how might we prepare ourselves to approach the Canticle? I propose three steps. 

First, we must take significant time to listen to the sung words in the Canticle, reflective of a vision of harmony and communion between heaven and earth, between all creatures, transporting us to the idyllic time of the Garden of Eden in Genesis 1. In our listening, let us explore the networks of interrelated beings and realities, allowing the Canticle to speak not only or principally to our intellect but, rather, to our heart, and to the complex internal and external realities of our lives.

Second, for the foreseeable future, let us dedicate time to the study of the Canticle, examining various approaches taken by different Franciscan scholars. I suggest we include time going to places where we might encounter nature, allowing the chirping of crickets, the songs of the larks, the hues and colors of leaves, bark, the earthy browns of dirt, the varying shades of light under the forest canopy, the gentle babbling of a brook or rushing torrent of a river, inhaling the multiple odors of flora. Given the artistic and musical nature of the Canticle, we might also wish to explore artistic and musical expressions that tease our senses and exploring the inner logic of the poem/prayer/hymn. I believe the Canticle offers us an amazing poetic and prayerful opening to a vision of the interconnectedness and unity of all of existence, what Pope Francis in his 2025 letter to the world, Laudato Si’, calls an integral ecology. From a Franciscan perspective, integral ecology begins with, is sustained through, and is being drawn back into the Christ, into God. As I will argue, Christ’s presence is infused in all of reality, permeating and providing direction to the Canticle. At the heart of this presence is the driving force energizing and giving direction to the ongoing unfolding of the evolving universe, the unfolding of our interrelated lives. In words attributed to Albert Einstein, love appears to be that force.

There is an extremely powerful force that, so far, science has not found a formal explanation to. It is a force that includes and governs all others and is even behind any phenomenon operating in the universe and has not yet been identified by us. This universal force is love. Love is God, and God is love.
The text continues:
After the failure of humanity in the use and control of the other forces of the universe that have turned against us, it is urgent that we nourish ourselves with another kind of energy…love is the one and only answer.

Even if these words were not penned by Einstein in a letter to his daughter Lisl, they remain relevant to our analysis of and reflection upon the central message of the Canticle.

We also recognize our study should include the incorporation of the principles of rigorous intellectual and empirical methodology, a nod to Franciscan theologian, mathematician, and scientist Roger Bacon. The goal of this endeavor: to lead us to a deeper awareness of the realities around us and to greater communion through what Jesuit theologian Walter Burghardt calls a “long loving look at the real.” What a wonderful way to approach the Canticle!

A third step involves integration and action. The Canticle of Brother Sun is the fruit of a lifetime journey of a person who progressively opened himself to the mystery and challenges of life, allowing himself to de-center his life, to cease trying to become homo deus or act as master of his future, the temptation of Babel (Genesis 11:1-9). It is amazing what happens when we no longer must usurp the duties and obligations of the Master of life and of the universe, no longer strive be a god. It was in his discovery of what it meant to be a creature, one among so many others, that Francis found himself journeying along the path of solidarity, reconciliation, and freedom, what it means to become part of God’s new creation. These are the fruits of a process of ecological conversion that occurred in the life of Francis – a process more phenomenological than chronological. But solidarity, reconciliation, and freedom come with a cost: the willingness to let go and no long try to define the meaning and purpose of all creatures so that humans might exercise power and control over them, using and abusing without any regard to the intrinsic goodness and value of all things. The journey Francis was led to undertake enabled him to discover his place in the world, and to renounce all temptation to try to control and dominate. This act of sine proprio, renunciation, allowed Francis opened new doors within his mind and heart, a new way of seeing, caring, and serving all, making himself subject to all peoples, to all of creation (cf. Francis of Assisi, Regula non bullata:16). 
 
Everything Has a Story

To better understand the context from which the Canticle of Brother Sun emerged, we must take a brief but necessary journey with St. Francis, examining some of the key life-changing events that prepared him to both receive from God and to actively participate in giving specific form to the Canticle of Brother Sun. 

Francis most certainly experienced many things in his childhood and early youth that contributed to his understanding of the world, of God, what it meant to be a member of a society, of the Catholic faith community, what it meant also to work, and duties of Christian charity towards all. We do not have adequate information regarding Francis’ childhood that might allow us to speculate about key events, and the impact these might have had in shaping his future vision of the interconnectedness of life. Even if we had such information, I believe the origins of the Canticle more than likely lie elsewhere. Considering Francis’ insistence on the central place of peace in his life, his preaching, and the mission of the Franciscan movement, I propose we initiate this exploration by allowing ourselves to be transported to the killing fields of Collestrada, the plain somewhere midway between the competing city-states of Assisi and Perugia, and to the year 1202. 

One of Francis’ earliest desires was to become a victorious knight modeled after the heroic figure of the “Song of Roland,” the nephew of Charlemagne whose story of bravery became legendary. Francis failed miserably in his pursuit of this idealized Roland-like knighthood. At Collestrada, a horrendous battle ensued, and the forces of Assisi were soundly defeated. I highly recommend the battleground account found in Adolfo Fortini’s The Life of St. Francis (New York, Crossroads, 1991:154-156), which provides a blow-by-blow description of the horrors of the battle. According to Fortini, “The battle burned over the hill. It ran over the castle and the woodlands. It even spilled into the leper’s hospital” (Fortini:154). Citing Thomas of Celano, Fortini continues: “The contemporary Thomas of Celano uses the phrase non modica strages to signify a massacre beyond expression strages latissimi, ceces servissima.” Citing another source, the poet Bonifazio who wrote some 50 years after the Collestrada debacle, Fortini continues: “Oh, how disfigured are the bodies on the field of battle, and how mutilated and broken are their members! The hand is not to be found with the foot, nor the entrails joined to the chest; on the forehead terrible windows open out instead of eyes. That no prophet, interrogated before the battle, could have seen such omens! Oh, you of Assisi, what a sad day and what a dark hour this was” (Fortini:155). This description helps us to better understand the traumatic impact war on the young man from an ascending family in Assis, Francis. What followed was more than one year of imprisonment in somewhat less than five-star accommodations in Perugia, the central prison of that city. Francis was one among other surviving combatants from wealthy families, the ones deemed worthy to take hostage. During his more than 1-year imprisonment, it is reported that Francis cared for the poorer and less-fortunate fellow prisoners, calling upon his jongleur skills, perhaps one way of surviving the wretched conditions in which he and some of his friends found themselves. It was during this time that  Francis became infected with various bacteria that would create various physical health challenges throughout his life, to say nothing of the impact of psychological trauma of war and imprisonment.

We know that following Francis’ ransom from prison and return to Assisi, he was, according to Celano a very different person (I Celano, The Life of St. Francis, Chapter II: 3-4, in Regis Armstrong, O.F.M. Cap, J. A. Wayne Hellman, O.F.M. Conv., and William Short, O.F.M., Francis of Assisi: Early Documents (FAED), Vol. I, New York, New City Press, 1999:184-85). He shunned his friends, did as little work as possible, and lost all ‘joie de vivre’. He spent most of his time wandering the countryside, frequenting forests and caves, socially isolating himself. We do not know much about what was going inside his mind and heart, but Celano makes clear that Francis’ life had been turned upside down. Recent studies examining the consequences of violence and war on those directly involved – soldiers, others present in war zones, surviving family and friends, etc. – identify a type of trauma that carries with it a wide range of physical and/or psychological problems. It might be anachronistic to suggest that Francis experienced what is now called Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome since this was unknown during the time of Francis. However, simply because the term did not exist does not mean that something similar might have occurred in the life of Francis and others present at the battle of Collestrada. However we might define it, there is little doubt that Francis experienced severe trauma: what other conclusion might we draw from Celano’s explicit description of the severe psychological and physical consequences Francis experienced following his release from prison and return home? 

Other recent studies on the effects of severe trauma highlight something very curious regarding what can also occur during these dark moments in human existence, namely, the birth of new possibilities. One of the most effective means to help people face trauma and reassert agency, rediscover a sense of purpose and meaning to their lives, and move in the direction of healing and reconciliation is to provide opportunities for the victims of violence to serve others. Victims move from a type of imprisonment in a “vicious circle of memory of trauma” towards “a virtuous cycle of healing” (Cf. Ijeoma Nkaka and Duncan Peacock, January 21, 2001). It would be interesting to examine the encounter between St. Francis and the leper from this perspective, a movement from a vicious circle of memory to a virtuous cycle of healing. Enter a second, Tsunami-like event in the life of Francis: his encounter and the mutual embrace between of an unnamed leper. What appears to have followed from this mutual embrace were the beginnings of an interior and exterior redefinition of the nature of family, community, fraternity.

A New Family is Born

If someone seeking to better understand St. Francis were to read only his Testament, composed in Siena in the spring of 1226, they might be left with the impression that the single greatest conversion experience in Francis’ life was the mutual embrace of Francis and the leper in 1205. Before exploring the impact of this event on Francis, let us try to understand the consequences of Hansen’s Disease for those infected with the disease. Francis, himself, makes clear how repugnant the physical wounds of this disease were in his Testament. The mere physical disfiguration, not to mention the stench of rotting flesh, was repulsive to Francis. He simply could not bear being in the presence of lepers. We know from different sources much about the social consequences for those diagnosed with leprosy in 12th-13th century Assisi, and, more broadly, Umbria and the entire central zone of the Italian peninsula. Following diagnosis of leprosy, formal steps were taken to exclude the individual from participation in the ‘human’ community. A type of funeral Mass was celebrated with the leper kneeling, covered with a black pall symbolizing their death. They were marched in ritual procession to the edge of the social world – to a leper colony - cast into the wild natural world beyond the protective walls of city-state. No longer fully human but also not animal, lepers lived in a permanent state of liminality. They were forbidden to enter churches, markets, nor were they to interact with those who were ‘healthy’. They wore a sackcloth robe with a distinctive mark, carried a bell to announce their presence, bore a cross in hand, and a box for collecting alms. It is not clear to what extent the fear of contagion created these conditions for social exclusion since documents from the period around Francis’ time reveal a rather complex set of reactions to the disease. However, what is clear is that Christian charity as intrinsic to faith in God, and as a means for escaping eternal damnation for sins committed, led the townspeople – rich and poor alike - to share food and other goods with lepers while maintaining a wide berth. There is reason to believe that both Francis and Clare performed similar acts of Christian charity prior to their conversion. 

Francis makes clear in his Testament that at a very precise moment in his life, sometime while suffering the psychological and physical consequences of war at Collestrada and imprisonment in Perugia, he experienced an encounter with a leper that would transform and redefine his life. In his own words:

While I was in sin, it seemed very bitter to me to see lepers. And the Lord Himself led me among them and I had mercy upon them. And when I left them that which seemed bitter to me was changed into sweetness of soul and body: and afterward…I…left the world.  

Francis: isolated, depressed, lacking any sense of meaning or purpose, suffering a type of internal deformation and dehumanization; the leper, suffering an external deformation, and the dehumanizing social consequences that followed. Suddenly, an embrace, a kiss, a chance encounter that changed everything in the lives of two human beings. For both, a new family was born. This encounter gave birth, I believe, to the first ‘brother’ of what became the new fraternity, the movement that would become the Franciscan Order. The leper was recognized, embraced, incorporated into Francis’ future, inclusive, fraternity. Another note was added to the Canticle that God was singing within the mind and heart of Francis, characterized by the values of dignity, inclusion, fraternity, and solidarity.

“Go, Repair My Church”

Sometime after Francis’ encounter with the leper, he was drawn to enter a dilapidated church dedicated to the patron of healing, St. Damien (San Damiano). Interesting! It was in that church, dedicated to a saint and healer, San Damiano, that Francis, in1206, kneeling in prayer before a wooden cruciform bearing the image of a Byzantine-style risen, victorious Jesus, surrounded by witnesses to his death, by popular local saints, and even by a rooster and a black cat, with God’s hand of blessing extended over the crucified and risen Jesus that Francis heard the words: “Francis, go and repair my church, which you see is falling into ruins.” Celano tells us that Francis’ life-project suddenly took on a new sense of direction and purpose. While Francis’ new project began with the physical rebuilding of dilapidated churches, it was transformed into the building of new sets of relationships between people who would normally never associate with one another: rich, poor, lepers, and others. Even the townspeople of Assisi who were very skeptical about Francis were eventually began providing food, brick and mortar to Francis and his companions. Fast forward to today for a moment. In his encyclical Laudato Si’, Pope Francis speaks about a similar rebuilding project, one promoting an integral approach to life, an integral ecological vision capable of bringing people together around a new, shared identity, promoting the restoration of harmony and balance to the universe (multiverse).  

Embracing the invitation of Jesus at San Damiano, one of the first performative public acts Francis performed took place at the residence of Bishop Guido, his spiritual advisor. Not only did Francis strip himself of financial security for the present and future by renouncing inheritance; he redefined the nature of his future family, the fraternity, into which he wanted to be reborn. As with all personal renunciation, his break with family and friends came with a heavy price. Time does not permit but I recommend to you the work of Friar Richard Rohr dealing with what he calls the “father/mother wound”, the consequence of broken family relations (see Rohr,  From Wild Man To Wise Man: Reflections on Male Spirituality, Cincinnati: Franciscan Media, 2024). We learn his renunciation of his earthly nuclear and extended family opened him to a new horizon, a type of  spiritual adoption into  his heavenly Father’s family, the Most High, all-powerful, good Lord, to whom praises, glory, honor and blessing are due. This is reflective of the new creation theology present  in the writings of St. Paul proclaimed in sacred liturgies in churches in Assisi attended by Francis. Another musical note is added to the Canticle, directing Francis’ mind to a recognition of the new creation unfolding in the universe, an unfolding that involved all creatures who recognized their place in the story, and their vocation and responsibility to give thanks to the Creator. 

Damietta and the Birth of an ‘Interreligious’ Fraternity

Francis’ understanding of family, of fraternity, would undergo yet a further development in the last months of 1219 and early months 1220, a consequence of his visit to the Muslim military camp at Damietta, Egypt. While we know from early sources Francis spent time in the Muslim military camp, we have no eyewitness information regarding the specific nature and content of the encounter(s) between Francis and Al-Malik al-Kamil, the head of the Muslim forces. Nor do we know with any certainty the exact motives for this visit. Celano would have us believe that Francis wanted to die in the same way as Christ, through martyrdom, his motive for going to Damietta and the hope to reach the Holy Land. St. Bonaventure, on the other hand, wanted to make of Francis a great evangelizer, on fire with a sense of the absolute superiority and singularity of the Christ event. Seen in this light, Bonaventure depicts Francis as hell-bent on converting the sultan and his Muslim brothers to Christianity and the worship of the one, true God. More recent interpretations, influenced by post-modern thought and post-Vatican II theological reflections, suggest that Francis was, perhaps, consumed by a desire to promote a type of interfaith dialogue that might create conditions for peace between two world religions: Christianity and Islam. This approach suggests a much less aggressive approach to conversion to the Christian faith, something Francis does not fail to mention in Chapter 16 of the Regula non bullata (cf. Paul Moses, The Saint and the Sultan, New York, Doubleday, 2009). What appears to have ensued from this encounter is some sort of transformation of thinking in the life of a saint and a sultan, the title of a recent movie (2016, The Saint and the Sultan). To understand more of what this encounter might have meant to St. Francis, we look to his letters and prayers, most of which Francis composed following his return from Damietta in 1220. Of particular interest is his Letter to the Rulers of the People, which expresses some form of respect for the spiritual thought and practices of his Muslim hosts, especially the Muslim call to adherents to submit their lives to Allah by way of prayer five times daily. His poem/prayer entitled “Praises of God” also suggests a particular sympathy and respect for God’s working in the world, recognizing the qualities of God’s engagement, and possible outcomes for those who submit to the Most High God. Indirectly, one could argue that Francis ‘anticipated’, in a certain sense, Nostrae Aetate, the  “Spirit of Assisi” meeting in 1986 organized by St. John Paul II, the 2019 “Document on Human Fraternity for World Peace and Living Together” by Pope Francis and Sheikh al-Azhar Ahmed al-Tayyeb, and the 2020 encyclical Fratelli Tutti. Three of the four documents cited above point, explicitly, to the example of Francis of Assisi, underscoring his desire to promote encounter, dialogue, and peace among all believers. During the celebration of the 800th anniversary of this at Damietta in 2019, Cardinal Sandri, former Prefect of the Dicastery for Oriental Churches, suggested that this encounter resulted in a different type of conversion, one that permitted a Christian mendicant and a Muslim commander to gain deeper insight into the human and divine dignity present in the other. He went on to suggest that this encounter led to the birth of a new, more universal and fraternal space where those who choose to enter might experience transformation. I believe this encounter helped Francis further expand his understanding and practice of fraternity, an ever-expanding inclusivity, the embrace of a sultan, and with him, the entire Umma. I realize some might challenge this reading of the Damietta encounter. Perhaps yet one more note is added to the composition of a Canticle that God will sing into being through Francis. 

Woundedness and the New Creation

One final life-changing event that, I believe, prepared Francis to receive from God additional notes to be included in the yet-to-be-sung Canticle, can be found in the events surrounding Francis’ reception of the stigmata at La Verna, sometime around September 14, 1224, the Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross. We know that Francis went to La Verna for his annual St. Michael’s feast retreat. Andre’ Vauchez argues Francis went to La Verna “assailed by pessimism and even great temptation” (St. Francis of Assisi, 2012:122). Forced to transfer the reins of the movement to a vicar, Br. Peter Catani, and, soon thereafter, to Br. Elias, Francis no longer was able to control the gift of the fraternity – the brothers - received from the Most High, all-powerful, all good Lord. One can glean from the early biographers – and contemporary Franciscan scholars – a sense of growing discomfort, provoked by the entry of brothers with different ideas about how to live the gospel life. 

In addition to internal doubts and challenges confronting Francis, he also faced increasing physical dis-ease. By September 2024, his infirmities included: trachoma, a painful and blinding eye infection; chronic malaria; a form of throat cancer that made it painful to swallow; various internal and external ulcers, most likely cancerous; and a form of tuberculoid leprosy, to name a few. It was during this “dark night of the soul” that Francis experienced, according to his biographers, the event of the stigmata. We know very little about Francis’ experience or thinking about the stigmata. He never talked about it and forbade the brothers from talking about it or making it public. In the Assisi Compilation, there is an account where three of his closest companions – Leo, Angelo, and Rufino – knew about the wounds in his body. Rufino is said to have touched – perhaps cared for the wounds – and that he even encouraged Francis to allow the wounds to be known, so that all might give glory to God. Elias also speaks about these wounds in his letter to the Order following the death of Francis. But Francis? What were his thoughts? Silence! One thing, I believe, we can conclude from the experience of the stigmata, namely, that out of suffering, those who believe in Jesus are offered an opportunity to witness the dawn of a new hope. This new hope, which, I suggest, dawned in the heart and spirit of Francis, opened him further to new creation thinking along the lines of St. Paul in his letter to the Corinthians (3:1-6:2) and Galatians (5:1-6:18). Without succumbing to anachronism, I suggest a parallel to new creation thinking that found a home both in the Canticle and, in our times, in Pope Francis’ letter to the world, Laudato Si’. In both, we hear notes of a song pointing us to recognize “cry of the earth and the cry of the poor” (cf. Laudato Si’:49). **

Commenting on the event of the stigmata, Brother Cesare Vaiani, theologian and General Definitor of the OFM Franciscans, writes: 

"We believe it is possible to see in this experience [of the stigmata] of Francis a reflection of that fundamental reality of Christian life that is the Easter of Christ, in which death and life, joy and sadness, love and sorrow, are found present in mystery. It is, therefore, an ‘Easter’ experience, and not exclusively sorrowful and painful reality: the cross, which in the Christian’s consideration is never only sorrow, marks Francis’ body with the signs of Easter. When reference is made to the stigmata, one cannot forget in fact that they are, in the Gospels, the signs of recognition of the Risen One, who presents Himself to His own by offering to their gaze precisely the wounds now glorified, a sign at once of death and new life” (Storia e teologia dell’esperienza spirituale di San Francesco, Milano, 2013:326). 

Fraternity Goes ‘Wild’

The Compilation of Assisi speaks about the amazing participation of the creaturely world in the event of the stigmata, as if the natural world was accompanying and supporting Francis in his moment of tremendous suffering. 

In the early morning at dawn, while he stood in prayer, birds of various kinds came over the cell where he was staying [in La Verna]. They did not come altogether, but first one would come and sing its several verses, and then go away, and another one would come and sing and go away. They all did the same thing. Blessed Francis was very happy at this and received great consolation from it. But then he began to meditate on what this might be, the Lord told him in spirit: “This is a sign that the Lord will do good for you in this cell and give you many consolations.”  This was really true…And it happened that while his companions brought him food that day, he told them everything that happened to him” (Assisi Compilation, FAED, II:227). 

Immediately following the visitation by the birds, Francis received and put into poetic lyrics one of his prayers, the Praises of God,” underscoring the ineffable goodness of God. If God is good, it follows that everything God has made, is making, and will make – the ongoing unfolding of the cosmos - is fundamentally good. Goodness, present in all of creation, is one of the central pillars informing the Francis spiritual and intellectual tradition. In his Second Version of the Letter to the Faithful (To the Brothers and Sisters of Penance), written sometime around 1220, Francis appeals to all creatures to join in a cosmic liturgy of praise of God:
 
Every creature in heaven, on earth, in the sea and the depths [is invited to] give praise, glory, honor, and blessings to Him Who suffered so much…for he is our power and strength, Who alone is good, Who alone is mighty. 

All of creation is, in Francis’ mind, drenched in originating goodness – me’od/tov me’od – the goodness and wholeness of the Edenic state of the garden described in Genesis, chapters 1 and 2. All of creation actively joins with God, with Christ, with the Spirit in giving praise, a divine-cosmic liturgy. All of creation receives a mission, a vocation, a responsibility to help one another become who it is we are being called and drawn by Christ to become: the very goodness of God! 

There is a wonderful book by Sr. Elizabeth Johnson, Come, Have Breakfast, the title, a reference to the post-resurrection encounter of Jesus with his disciples on the beach where Jesus cooks them breakfast (Jn. 21:12). Commenting on Chapter 1 of the Book of Genesis, Johnson writes:

As God’s good creation, the world becomes a free partner: its own beginning while the Creator enables its existence at every moment. To put this succinctly, God creates the world by empowering the world to make itself. Far from compelling the world to develop according to a pre-destined plan, the Spirit continually calls it forth to a fresh and unexpected future…It is as if the Creator gave the world a push saying: “Go, have an adventure, see what you can become. And I will be with you every step of the way…no contradiction exists between recognizing God as Creator of all things and seeing that the Creator invests the earth with the active power to bring forth life” (2004:21-23). 

Francis came to recognize creatures as members of the one family, one fraternity of God. I believe in some way he came to view them as active agents and participants in the plan of God’s unfolding universe, giving praise to the Creator according to their individual capacities and uniqueness (haeceitas, according to Scotus), expressing the intrinsic vocation received from God.  Sr. Ilia Delio writes: 

Francis praises God  through (per) the elements of creation…[recognizing] nature as a sacramental expression of God’s generous love. This love binds us together in a family of relationships, “brother,” and “sister”…Through his love of Christ crucified, he came to see that nothing exists autonomously and independently: rather everything is related to everything (Delio, “A Franciscan View of Creation: Learning to Live in a Sacramental World,” CFIT/ESD-OFM, 2003:3). 

There is another Francis, the Bergoglio from Buenos Aires, who wrote in a similar manner in Laudato Si’:

Everything is related, and we human beings are united as brothers and sisters on a wonderful pilgrimage, woven together by the love God has for each of his creatures and which also unites us in fond affection with brother sun, sister moon, brother river and mother earth (92). 

A New Springtime Brought into the Universe

Francis brought a new springtime into the universe (I Cel. 6) 

Let us turn our attention, briefly, to the composition of the Canticle of Brother Sun. The first nine verses of the Canticle were composed and ‘performed’ – written to be performed through song - in the Spring of 1225, following the events of the stigmata at La Verna in September 1224. Francis was recovering in a hut constructed at San Damiano, in the place previously occupied by the priest who befriended him at the beginning of his conversion process (cf. Arnaldo Fortini: 562). It was at San Damiano, now occupied by St. Clare and her companions since 1211, where, in 1205, Francis encountered the crucified and glorified Christ on the Cross at San Damiano and heard the clarion call to “Go, rebuild my church.” 

According to several biographers, immediately prior to beginning the composition of the Canticle, Francis was once again feeling a sense of great spiritual abandonment. In his anguish, he cried out to God for assistance. Comforted by a nocturnal spiritual vision, Francis awoke the following day, shared his experience with his brothers, something he always did prior to acting on his impulses and intuitions, and then began to compose a prayer-poem-hymn of praise to the Creator for the blessings of creation. It was in this process of composing that Francis came to a deeper understanding and appreciation for a series of life-changing events. What, I believe, emerged was a deep sense of the unity and interconnectedness of all of creation, that all creatures are members of the one family of God, the one fraternity of creation. Consequently, Francis understood our creatureliness as the defining quality and ultimate vocation of human beings. It was as if he finally grasped the meaning and ‘logic’ of a major series of events experienced in his lifetime: experiences of pain, of destruction but also of goodness and blessing. 

Francis’ deep and abiding relationship with the crucified Jesus, which was nurtured by long periods of contemplation and study at La Verna, the Carcere, San Damiano, La Foresta, the Porziuncola and elsewhere - a long, contemplative view of the real - played a role in helping him to recognize these moments in their uniqueness but also to recognize an inner logic or unifying force – love – connecting each of these events to a narrative as old as the universe itself, and even older (cf. Gospel of John, Chapter 1, on the logos). It made sense that Francis would return to San Damiano where he would put pen to paper in the composition of the Canticle since it was here his gospel project was confirmed in 2005. Carl Jung, founder of the school of psychotherapy, clinician, and man of religious faith provides us with a description of the process of individuation, the journey of becoming a whole, unique, self-aware individual. He speaks not about a linear evolution or progress from one level to another but rather as a spiral, a continuous movement around the ‘self’, the center of the psyche. The spiral, according to Jung, with its winding path never truly repeats but, at the same time, always returns to a unifying point. In a similar way, I believe Francis’ return to San Damiano, a place holding deep spiritual significance, the place where his calling to do penance and do gospel living was revealed, signifies a human and spiritual maturation that enabled him to enter more deeply into the divine logic and to finally begin to sing a song God had begun to sing in him at a much earlier moment in his life.

Basic Structure of the Canticle of Brother Sun

Let us step back for a moment and examine the basic structure of the Canticle of Brother Sun, which, according to Jacques Delarun, can be broken into four main parts or Acts:
 
Part I (Act I, cf. Delarun): A call to give praise to the Creator – Vs. 1-2, 14; 
Part II (Act II): Individuation of cosmic creatures – Vs. 3-9, and reference to 
                         the vocation of peacebuilding/peacemaking in vs. 11;
Part III (Act III): A direct intervention in a specific situation of broken 
            relationships and critique of “guilty bystanders” - Vs.10; and
 Part IV (Act IV): Final reconciliation with human creatureliness, finitude, 
     Death, and the afterlife – Vs. 12-13. 

Brief Analysis and Commentary on the Verses of the Canticle of Brother Sun

In Act I of the Canticle, verses 1-2 and 14, Francis, employs standard liturgical and doxological language deploying it in the manner of a court jester/troubadour. He sings words of adulation and glory, heaping words of praise one upon the other:  Most High, all-powerful, good Lord, referring to the transcendent nature of the Creator God. Usually before insulting or making fun of their employers, troubadours oftentimes invented heroic stories about them, singing exaggerated praises and celebrating their unmatched intelligence, personality, and bravery. In a similar vein, Francis piles on words of praise, recognizing the absolute  powerfulness, majesty,  and utter transcendence of God. By referring to God as ‘good’, Francis also recognizes the proximity and closeness of God to all of creation, accompanying and encouraging the evolving cosmos. As St. Bonaventure will remind us, in the incarnation of Jesus, God “bends low”, assuming human form (cf. Letter to the Hebrews, Chapter 2), choosing to dwell in history – the history of the cosmos, the Earth community, and human beings, connecting with weak and wounded humanity and creation, opening all to new possibilities, all progressing together toward a common hope.  Pope Francis speaks in a similar manner in Laudato Si’: 

… all creatures are moving forward, with us and through us, towards a common point of arrival, which is God (83).

St. Francis is not naïve about one of God’s creatures: human beings. Humans appear in the Canticle in Vs. 2 where we are reminded of our unworthiness even to mention the name of Adonai. We do not reappear again until verses 10-13. In Chapter 23 of the 1221 Regula non bullata, Francis makes clear that because of our bad moral choices, we have separated ourselves not only from God but from all of creation, from one another, and from ourselves. In a certain sense, these verses of the Canticle dramatize the first 9 Chapters of the Book of Genesis where human beings repeatedly break the Covenant, even though God is always ready to welcome them back. Francis of Assisi and the other Francis of Buenos Aires both recognize the primary cause of the destruction of human life and creation lies within the human heart. Chapter 3 of Laudato Si’ spells this out in detail. In our drive to become “homo deus”, our refusal to accept our creatureliness, we have evolved into ungrateful, self-consumed, unworthy creatures, divorced from God, self, others, and creation, unworthy to speak honestly and truthfully about God and our place in the universe. In the 5th Admonition, St. Francis writes:

All creatures under heaven serve, know, and obey their Creator, each according to its own nature, better than you (human beings). And even the demons did not crucify Him, but you, together with them, have crucified Him and are still crucifying Him by delighting in vices and sins (FAED I:131). 

In a footnote commenting on the first nine verses of the Canticle, Armstrong, Hellman, and Short make the following observation:

It would seem that…Francis envisioned this as a song of God’s creation, in which human beings, because of sin, had no part…[the] second part [of verse 2] is quite clear in denying any role [of giving praise to God] to a human being (FAED I:113, footnote ‘d’).  

One other important observation regarding creatures capable of giving praise and thanks to God in fulfillment of their originating vocation: there is no mention of the very animals that played a key role in Francis’ life – birds, a wolf, worms, bees, pigs, lambs to name but a few – in the Canticle. I leave to those brighter and wiser than I to explain specific mention of these creatures  in the Canticle.

The Role of Light in the Canticle

In verse 3, Francis recognizes the special role that non-human creatures play in glorifying the God of the universe, joining Christ in an act of cosmic liturgical celebration. Of special place among all the creatures is Sir Brother Sun because he resembles and reflects the other Son, Jesus, who, according to the gospel of St. John, brings light into the world (Jn 1:9). Despite the pain that even the slightest amount of light caused Francis due to trachoma, he recognized the intrinsic goodness of Sir Brother Sun, both good and useful, qualities other creatures possess. The three celestial lights – Sir Brother Sun, Sister Moon, Sister Stars – fulfil their divine vocation of giving praise through their humble service, a reflection of the Triune God (Cf. Delarun, Il Cantico:49). These same creatures enlighten the darkness and, thus, enable us to recognize one another and to recognize the signs or vestiges of the Creator in all of creation. But these creatures are not simply inanimate things having no direct relationship to other creatures, to human beings, or to God. They are brothers, our sisters, members of a fraternal constellation pointing to one and the same source of life, the Creator God. More about this presently.

Enter the Four Elements: Wind, Water, Fire, and Earth

In the next part of the Canticle enter the four elements: Brother Wind, Sister Water, Brother Fire, Sister Mother Earth. In each of these elements, we perceive Francis’ understanding – theologically, spiritually, socially, practically – of the role each of these creatures play in the ongoing unfolding of the universe. All play a particular role in the sustaining of conditions necessary for life and well-being. But it is the mission of Sister Mother Earth not only to sustains life; she also governs life. According to Christiana Garzena, “The Franciscan revolution consists in the affirmation that the earth sustains and governs. [Biblical] exegesis,” [and I would add most of Christian theology] “prior to Francis argued that human beings must dominate the earth and make it productive. He is the first person to challenge this” (cited in Delarun, Il Cantico di Frate Sole: 55). St. Francis’ revolution: that the invitation to nourish, sustain, and govern is a shared vocation. Earth, all creatures including human beings are invited into a partnership with God; they are co-responsible co-creators. This same sense of shared responsibility is expressed by St. Francis in his Regula non bullata IX:11, and in the Rule of the Hermitages. In both, the friars are called to love and care for all the brothers and, by extension, for all of creation, nurturing all of life as a mother loves and cares for her children. 

Another innovation in Christian thinking in Western Europe: the four elements are referred to as Brother, Sister, and Mother. We know from the study of indigenous cultures in different parts of the world, the relationship between the human community and the natural world was – and is - perceived in personalistic terms. Creation narratives and other myths, and initiation and other rituals, speak of the relationship between celestial and earthly creatures – humans included – in familiar terms. North American and Andean indigenous cultures speak about Mother Earth or Pachamama. Other traditional cultures speak about plants, animals, and natural elements in brotherly or sisterly terms (brother tree, sister plant, etc.). Francis of Assisi is recognized as the first saint in the Western Christian world to explicitly recognize personality and agency endowed by God upon all creatures, what Boff and others call an ‘Edenic’ cosmology (Garden of Eden from Genesis 1-2). Francis of Assisi also recognized the disruptive role human beings played, driving a great chasm between humans and the natural world. This chasm was further deepened with the dawn of the enlightenment (Descartes) and rise of the industrial revolution, leading to unparalleled destructive exploitation of Mother Earth, which Pope Francis graphically details in Chapter 1 of Laudato Si’.

One might be tempted to conclude that St. Francis saw no difference between human beings and the rest of the created order. In the Canticle and elsewhere, St. Francis recognizes that humans hold a special place in God’s act of creation. The special vocation God has given to human beings within the evolving universe, our special responsibility, is defined by equality, kinship, and care, and the responsibility to safeguard all of life. For Francis, this was to be done not by placing ourselves above and naming ourselves superior to all other creatures, a course we have relentlessly pursued, resulting in a form of destructive domination and exploitation, of nature and human beings. In Chapter 1 of Laudato Si’, the late Pope Francis describes what happens when human beings place themselves in a role reserved only to the Creator: we progressively destroy the natural order, and, by consequence, the human-social order as well. 

The Canticle of Brother Sun serves as a permanent invitation to embrace the way of divine wisdom revealed in creation, recognizing our place as one among all other creatures, making ourselves subject to and servants of all (see Chapters 16 and 12 of St. Francis’ Regula non bullata and Regula bullata, respectfully). The Canticle offers us a path forward by leading us out of an ideology of domination, inviting us to embrace a relational model formed in true kinship, mutual responsibility, and loving care, a step far beyond and much deeper than simply one of stewardship, which fails to escape the trap of domination ideology. 

It is worth noting that the relational concepts of kinship and care have emerged as two key themes related to the environment, climate change, and to a wide body of literature focused on integral ecologies. The Canticle of Brother Sun challenges us to pause and take stock of a very different type of relationship we are to enjoy with all of creation, one guided by principles promoting a more integrated, holistic, harmonious, and responsible understanding of our place in the world as co-creatures, sojourners, brother/sister/mother celebrating our common origins, identities, and destiny, which, for Francis, is already unfolding throughout the universe. When we recognize each creature as brother and sister, we open ourselves to the reality of their lives: their sufferings, hopes, and dreams (Cf. Paolazzi, Il Cantico di Frati Sole and the Book of Ecclesiastes 42:23, 25-260).  We recognize that all of God’s creatures are endowed with identity, value, agency, all are called to cooperate and collaborate. If we follow the logic of integral ecology contained in the Canticle, we will find ourselves in the sacred presence of one great cry experienced deep within the entire Earth community: the “cry of the earth and the cry of the poor” (Laudato Si’:46). 

Throughout the entire poetic development of verses 3-9 we discover a complementarity built into the nucleus of the Canticle. All creatures that are listed are presented in pairs, a testimony to the complementarity present in creation, each in service to the other, each helping the other to grow towards completion. It is quite possible that Francis modeled this reflection on complementarity on a passage from the Book of Ecclesiastes (42:23, 25-26), and/or the 9th Chapter of the Book of Genesis where all creatures returning to the world from the experience of the great flood do so two by two. More to our point, each of God’s creatures are invited to live the same Covenant promise as human beings (Genesis 9:9-10). One Franciscan scholar states this in a theologically elegant manner:
 
Everything comes from God, through the creature, and all is returning to God, through the creatures, a movement of exodus from God and return in God that corresponds with the entire trajectory of the Franciscan spiritual tradition” (Vaiani, Storie e teologia: 377). 

In Chapters 2 of Laudato Si’, Pope Francis draws this same conclusion, namely, that “all creatures are moving forward, with us and through us, towards a common point of arrival, which is God” (83). Where is Teilhard de Chardin when you need him? What emerges from an analysis of the Canticle is a unified vision of reality, bearing the wounds of God (Jesus), humanity, and all of creation. But the Canticle also bears the hope of the Resurrection, beckoning us to move forward together with God and all of creation towards a unified, integral vision of life (cf. C. Vaiani, Storia e teologia:378).

Act III: A Call to Become Agents of Peace and Reconciliation 

In verses 10-11 of the Canticle, we are brought home to our human reality, reflective of a profound lack of harmony, unity, and peace simultaneously personal, interpersonal, ecological, and spiritual. The text reads:

Blessed are those who [will] endure in peace and bear infirmity and tribulation. For by You, Most High, shall they be crowned. 
Praise be You, my Lord, through those who give pardon for your love. 

There is broad consensus that verse 11 was written by St. Francis during his stay in Siena in the fall of 1225. He learned of a major conflict between Bishop Guido II, his spiritual mentor, and Oportulo, a friend and mayor of Assisi. They were caught up in papal and imperial geopolitics, resulting in public acts of condemnation and exclusion – from the Church (the excommunication of the mayor) or from the markets (the bishop was banned from participation in economic exchanges in the city). In the Assisi Compilation, we discover how deeply troubled Francis was not only because of the scandalous behavior of these two leaders; he was, perhaps, more disturbed by the unwillingness of the guilty bystanders – those who knew what was happening but were unwilling or afraid to seek to resolve the conflict (FAED II:187-88). Francis, almost completely blind and confined to bed, decided to intervene by sending emissaries – the brothers, two by two – inviting the conflictual parties to assemble at the residence of the bishop. Francis then instructed several other brothers to preach a message of peace and to sing the Canticle of Brother Sun to which the troubadour Francis added verse 11 with its reference to the specific conflict, and to call to bishop and mayor to enter a process of forgiveness, reconciliation, and healing. 

Delarun suggests that verse 10 stands apart from the flow of the Canticle, serving a different purpose: a reminder of the Paulinian call for us to embrace our proper identity as ambassadors of peace and reconciliation. Delarun underscores the special vocation of Francis to become the very peace of God spoken of in Matthew, Chapter 5, a peacemaker in the spirit of the Beatitudes. But this will require of Francis an interior movement of conversion, involving an exodus from a culture of violence and warfare condoned and promoted by empire and church alike in his times.  and an entering into a radically different culture defined by non-violence, forgiveness, peace and reconciliation. Celano appears to have a similar understanding of the role this radically different culture of peace played in St. Francis’ life. The first biographer recounts that everywhere Francis went, prior to preaching or performing other spiritual or charitable acts, he offered those whom he encountered the blessing of peace (cf. Number 6:4), “May the Lord give you peace.” For Francis, peace was understood and experienced as a gift from God that comes from the future. In the context of verse 10, Francis uses the future tense of two verbs associated with the experience of peace: “Beati quelli che le sopporteranno in pace perchè da te saranno incoronati – “Blessed those who will endure in peace, because they will be crowned (rewarded) by You (God).” Francis understood that God alone is the source of peace, shalom, salaam. To ‘endure in peace’ suggests Christian disciples are to undertake a lifelong journey seeking the way of the Beatitudes (Matthew 5), practicing our way into right relationships with God, with all of creation, with one another and with ourselves. 

By performing or doing the gospel life, which involved coming to terms with our place in the order of the universe, involving a lifelong process of reconciliation  and conversion – an ‘ecological’ conversion – Francis and the brothers were led along a path towards authentic freedom, peace, shalom. This is the liberating power of the Canticle that Francis progressively lived his way into, something he wanted to share with the world. 

Act IV: Making Peace with Creatureliness, with Death

Verses 13-14 of the Canticle were composed in Assisi within a very short time prior to the death of St. Francis, which occurred the night of October 3-4, 1226. Following a conversation with his doctor, he asked two of his closest companions, Brothers Angelo and Leo, to sing the Canticle of Brother Sun to which he added two new verses. 

Praise be You, my Lord, through our Sister Bodily Death, from whom no one living can escape. Woe to those who die in mortal sin. Blessed are those whom death will find in Your most holy will, for the second death shall do them no harm. 

According to Andre’ Vauchez, “Before Francis, no one had ever had the idea of speaking about death as a “sister” for human beings” (St. Francis of Assisi, 2012:280). Portuguese theologian Isidro Pereira Lamelas suggests that Francis’ vision of an eschatological fraternity enabled him to embrace “all dimensions of life, including death, which ceases to be a ‘monster’ and taboo and returns to being the twin ‘sister’ of life (Lamelas, “The Canticle of Creatures,” p. 14). In the logic of the Canticle, death serves a specific role, helping living creatures to experience the completion of a process of reconciliation with all dimensions of life: with God (superior), with self (interior), with the entire created world of which he was part (ecological).  Franciscan scholar Leonardo Boff calls this process of reconciliation ‘confraternization’, a way of describing the interconnectedness and solidarity uniting all beings, all aspects, all times and spaces of existence (Boff, Francis of Assisi: A Reconciled Life, Maryknoll, Orbis, 1982:40). What is clear is that death no longer was an obstacle to continued growth in freedom, love, and hope but rather the doorway leading to the completion of our earthly Canticle journey in Christ. 

Why No Explicit Reference to Christ in the Canticle

Franciscan scholars, reflecting on the centrality of the Christian understanding of God as Triune, and the vital role of the crucified and risen Lord Jesus in the life of St. Francis and his movement, note the absence of any explicit reference to Christ in the Canticle. Did Francis forget to put it in? Was he, perhaps, thinking ahead to a time when the Canticle of praise to the Triune God might serve as an instrument for building bridges between Christianity and other religious traditions? Not likely! In fact, the entire poem/hymn/prayer develops through, with, and in Christ. This helps resolve the perpetual debate as to the exact meaning of the word in Umbrian Italian dialect, per: with, in, through. For Francis, it is Christ who is praying on behalf of all of creation, giving praise to the creator in a way only he can do. I call your attention to the number of strophes in the Canticle, thirty-three (33), pointing to the conventionally accepted age of Jesus at the time of his crucifixion and death. As the Canticle reveals, it is Christ who planted this cosmic hymn celebrating the unfolding revelation of God in all of Creation, and most especially through Christ’s Incarnation, in Francis’ mind and heart. The Canticle is a love poem/hymn/song that reveals, even as it accompanies, the ongoing evolution of the universe, which is being directed towards and drawn into the oneness of God who is the Alpha and the Omega.

The presence of the Triune God is revealed in other ways in the Canticle. We have only to note the pairing of the three cosmic creatures – Brother Sun, Sister Moon, Sister Stars - which points to the three persons of the Christian Trinity: Father, Son, Spirit. The four basic elements -  –Brother Wind, Sister Water, Brother Fire, and Sister/Mother Earth, number 4, which, when added to the number of celestial beings, three, yields the number is the 7, symbolizing completion, wholeness, harmony, peace, shalom that can only be realized in and through and with Christ.  The closeness of Christ is driven home through Francis’ repeated use of the possessive, “my Lord,” (9x in Canticle). In this expression, it is not Francis who possesses God/Jesus/Spirit. Rather, it is Francis and all creatures who are possessed by the indwelling God/Jesus/Spirit. In the Canticle of Brother Sun, the entire story of salvation is present in all dimensions of existence – time and space – revealed through the sacred scriptures, and dramatically celebrated and performed by all of God’s creatures.

Enter Integral Ecology

The Canticle of Brother Sun has, I believe, set the stage not only for Pope Francis’ encyclical Laudato Si’; it provides us with a Franciscan theological and philosophical framework that points us in the direction of an integral ecology. Time does not permit to explore the complex historical developments and wide range of theories and practices associated with what are called integral ecologies. If we take seriously the deeper meaning of the Canticle as I have developed it – my take on this cosmic hymn of gratitude and praise – together as members of the Association of Franciscan Colleges and Universities, we might wish to consider initiating an exploration of the Canticle of Brother Sun and potential connections with contemporary understandings of integral ecology(-ies). I believe this collective exploration could help bring us closer together, help establish theoretical and practical means for allowing the richness of our Franciscan spiritual and intellectual tradition to speak to the existential threat of climate change, holds much promise for Franciscan researchers, engaging our energies to deepen a commitment on the part of our Franciscan institutions of higher ed to respond in justice and love to the ‘cry of the earth and the cry of the poor’ as outlined in Pope Francis’ encyclical Laudato Si’.

Several years ago, I invited the members of the AFCU to explore possible ways to enter into the type of ‘ecological conversion’ proposed by successive popes beginning with John Paul II, Benedict XVI, Francis, and now, Leo, with the potential to give birth to an ecological university. After further reflection, I believe the Canticle of Brother Sun and Pope Francis’ encyclical Laudato Si’ provide us with a mandate and a blueprint for moving forward. What would it look like if we were to conduct an AFCU-wide strategic process, inspired by our Franciscan sources, and, most directly by the Canticle of Brother Sun, and organized along the principles of integral ecology proposed in Laudato Si’? I have no answer currently. I believe, however, that it might revolutionize the spiritual vision of our academic institutions and capture the imagination and good will of our students, and all associated with our institutions. It also could energize the Franciscan spiritual and intellectual life, and place us on a prophetic trajectory, one that could lead to the transformation of our world and to the fulfillment of our vocation of giving praise to the Creator through the just reordering of our relationships with the Earth community, taking the form of a kinship of care.  May our Canticle journey continue.

Laudato Si’, O Mi Signore!