Saint Francis
Today, of course, is the Feast of Saint Francis and my children are dutifully bringing stuffed animals to school this morning to be blessed. Contemporary hagiography often seems to reduce St. Francis to a lover of animals and friend of the natural world. At such times, we might do well to ponder some of his harder sayings, like this excerpt from his Letter to the Rulers of the Nations:
To all mayors and consuls, magistrates and rulers throughout the world, and to everyone who may receive these letters: Brother Francis, your little and despicable servant in the Lord God, sends his wishes of health and peace to all of you.
Pause and reflect, for the day of death is approaching. 1 beg you, therefore, with all possible respect, not to forget the Lord or turn away from His commandments by reason of the cares and preoccupations of this world, for all those who are oblivious of Him and turn away from His commands are cursed and will be totally forgotten by Him. And when the day of death does come, everything which they think they have will be taken from them. And the wiser and more powerful they may have been in this world, so much greater will be the punishments they will endure in hell.
Therefore, I firmly advise you, my lords, to put aside all care and preoccupation and receive with joy the most holy Body and the most holy Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ in holy remembrance of Him.
St. Francis makes me think of the animals too -sorry about that
Remember “Marley and Me.” A book by a catholic who finds lessons about unconditional love, family and children and yes, even handling suffering and death from his “world’s worst dog.”
In our setting, where money rules all, Francis’s profound poverty seems too far away. The Church and the various charities around us seem far too concerned with assets and power.
It strikes me that it’s getting harder to hear the voices of the great saints in our Churches these days.
It seems to me that whenever there is a hard saying, or even several, in the Gospel for the day, the homilist neatly changes the subject. Has anyone else noticed this phenomenon?
Joseph, no.
“all those who are oblivious of Him and turn away from His commands are cursed and will be totally forgotten by Him”
I propose a paraphrase:
“all those who are oblivious of Him and turn away from His commands are neither blessed nor even rememembered by Him.”
I am suggesting that from reading Scripture Francis has picked up the habit of talking in terms of polar opposites. And of course God does not literally forget or remember anything, nor, I think, does he literally curse anyone. As to whether he literally blesses anyone, I suspect that is also a metaphor. Viderint theologi, ut aiunt.
Joseph, what you way about opposites is interesting. St. Francis’ prayer, “Make me an instrument of thy peace,” is full of these opposites, even ironies, e.g., “It is in dying that we are born to eternal life.”
But if “blessing” means that we reflect and reap the fruits of God’s love, and “cursed” means that we set ourselves apart from that love, then I think the passage above can be read fairly literally.
That is, public officials who seek to reflect the love of God in their work are blessed and bless those they govern.
Those who set themselves apart from God’s love are cursed in that their work will bear no such fruit and it will be tempted into opportunities for self-aggrandizement and temporal gain.
How politicians should act out God’s love, of course, is an area where Catholics are somewhat divided as “mlj” and Sean vs. Commonweal illustrates.
May I offer an observation about hell, which seems to be relevant here since hell is where we are eternally cursed?
Protestants, especially fundamentalists, like to talk about hell as a place of eternal, physical torment, and these images largely come from Revelation and Milton. People who talk about this kind of hell and dwell lovingly on the torments God has devised for the people He sends there (i.e., my fundamentalist in-laws) sound like self-righteous sadists.
Perhaps this is why Catholics don’t talk about hell as much as they might.
I propose that Catholics “take back” hell from the literalists and correct some common Protestant errors about it.
In the first place, God doesn’t send anybody to hell; we send ourselves there. God is always trying to keep us from going to hell. So St. Francis’ exhortation is a loving reminder to political leaders to listen to God and not send themselves to perdition.
In the second place, we don’t know what kind of place hell is, but it is the utter absence of God, a place where there is no love, where opportunism, hatred and revenge operate.
In the third place, the Catholic church does not teach that an specific individual is in hell. We can’t know, because we believe that at the moment of death, if there is the briefest flicker of true repentence, God will save us.
And Robert, why should we feel bad about associating the animals with St. Francis? If there is any more eloquent prayer of thanksgiving than a cat rolling around in the warmth of a sunbeam, I’d like to see it. “Marley and Me” is a great book!
Jean,
I agree generally with what you say. As for cursing, I take it to mean “wishing that evil befall someone”. I do not think God would ever do that. If sinners are “cursed” that can only mean that they have willingly brought evil on themselves by rejecting God’s love, and then God would have allowed them to do this, but I don’t know that this amounts to God’s cursing them. If blessing mean “willing that good befall someone” then God certainly blesses us all and I see now that that is appropriate language.
Yes, thanks for underscoring that, Joseph. God doesn’t ever curse anyone. God blesses us all, but whether we accept the blessing and change our lives accordingly is up to us.
We curse ourselves when we reject the blessing entirely.
I wonder if we could also say that we don’t fully accept the blessing if we fail to change our lives accordingly (“faith without works is dead,” as the Episcopal Church teaches).
Possibly few of us acept that blessing fully; we’re always making concessions to “practicality” and hedging our bets in favor of our own comfort.
Which is where St. Francis comes back in. He didn’t make concessions, he simply embraced the blessing fully. And a lot of people thought he was a nut case.
Jean,
If a St.Francis were to appear here, many of us would now also think he was a nut case. This worries me.
Just blundered onto this quote from St. Francis, which seems relevant to the longer extract above:
“Sanctify yourself and you will sanctify society.”
I think I met St. Francis at the vet’s office many years ago. Fit the description of a guy who looked a bit seedy, didn’t talk much, worked with the elderly, took in stray cats and drove a second-hand Datsun.
Yes, everyone thought he was nutty, but people recognize holy nuttiness when they see it. The vet told me I wasn’t the only person who used to kick in a few bucks to his vet bill everytime they came in.