This is the Jubilee Year of Saint Francis of Assisi. It’s a time to remember and appreciate his life and message, as we face similar problems as when Francis lived, some 800 years ago. His was a time of internecine wars, horrible massacres, devastation and pillage.
(In my mind, I can’t call the destruction of that Iranian school with all those dead children anything but a massacre, and some would say antimony and uranium might be our pillage projects there.)
Pope Leo believes the message of Francis is needed now, more than ever. “In this age, marked by so many seemingly interminable wars, by internal and social divisions that create mistrust and fear, Francis continues to speak. Not because he offers technical solutions, but because his life points to the authentic source of peace. That peace is not limited to the relations between human beings, but extends to the entire family of creation. This insight resonates with particular urgency in our time, when our common home is threatened and cries out under exploitation.”
Whenever we see pictures of Francis, he will likely have a bird resting on his shoulder and one sitting in his hand. On the ground at his feet are all manner of animals, perhaps a rabbit and a deer, a dog and a beaver. What better inspiration in a time where more and more of God’s good creation is threatened by human excavation and exploitation; when all manner of creatures are threatened with extinction.
Louise Zwick also remembers Francis in a recent issue of the Houston Catholic Worker. She describes the social situation then. “Peace loving people were harassed and oppressed with impunity by the powerful. These men paraded their riches in a wild orgy of clothes, banquets, and feasts of every kind. They looked on poverty and the poor as something vile.”
That paragraph jumped out at me as I read her article. It seemed so relevant to our situation today, especially with the orgy of wealth displayed with cryptocurrency millionaires and majestic presidential ball-rooms. Then there’s the designation of certain other groups of people as undesirables, vile and “garbage,” (no millionaires included).
That garbage comment was issued by the President of the United States. He used the term to describe a member of the United States Congress, Ilhan Omar of Minnesota. She is one of 80,000 residents of that state from Somalia, all of whom the President has declared, “I don’t want them in our country. They do nothing but complain.” His speeches where he speaks about Ilhan and Somalia are simply despicable, so well described by Zwick, “They looked on poverty and the poor as something vile.”
Francis writes, “Make me an instrument of your peace. Where there is hatred let me sow your love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; where there is sadness, joy. O divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console, to be understood as to understand, to be loved as to love. For it is giving that we receive, it is in pardoning that we are pardoned, and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.”
This prayerful petition comes from one who suffered severe physical and emotional trauma in his life, including a year in prison and significant physical ailments. But his life also included an openness to, and willingness to follow, the interventions of Spirit. Francis dug deeper, looked more closely, felt more intensely, got behind surface reality to see and believe the Creator was still at work in the world and could enliven an individual soul. It’s why we call him a saint. It’s why we might learn his way to help make the world a better place.
It’s a Jubilee Year of St. Francis! Let’s rejoice in the reality we can still do the good work necessary in a time of war, inequality, and environmental destruction. Francis had lots of brothers and sisters emerging like little flowers in his time, crowding out the weeds of power and corruption.
It’s Spring. Let’s bloom. Let’s be the twenty first century little flowers of Francis.
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