Page 5 of 9Original Research
followed, consisting of laymen living out their profession and wanting to become part of the Franciscan lifestyle (Boff 1997:208). In 1228, 2 years after his death in 1226 (aged 45), he was canonised a saint by Pope Gregory IX (Warner 2011:116). His most recent posthumous honouring came in 1979 when Pope John Paul II declared him the Patron Saint of Ecology.
Francis’ exposure to nature during his contemplative retreats
obviously enhanced his love for nature as a whole and not
only for the organic forms of life. He also praised ‘Brother
Fire’ (see Canticle below) for its warmth during the cold
nights out in the open. Apart from his intuitive bond with
nature, he was inspired by nature as God’s book (Sorrell
1988:141), as the ‘lettering’ in which God communicated his
beneficent power, love and care for everything (Armstrong
1973:107). It became a sign or sacrament of God’s providence
(Hooper & Palmer 1992:78). Francis found God everywhere,
‘… whether human lepers or lowly worms’ (Warner
1994:228). Even though White (1967:1206–1207) portrayed
Francis as a maverick, a radical revolutionary in the church
of his time with his embracing of the natural world, this was
not true (Sorrell 1988:6). There were many before him who
aptly demonstrated their sense of being bonded with nature,
but with Francis, this became proprietary. He continued this
tradition, but in becoming a nature mystic, he was new and
innovative. Being overwhelmed by God’s presence in creation
and uniting all in kinship, his familial terms in addressing
natural elements (‘brother’ and ‘sister’) came as no surprise.
Many do not believe Francis to have been a sentimentalist
nature romantic (Hooper & Palmer 1992:78; Sorrell 1988:128)
but that he inclined to some limited version thereof cannot
be denied. Feelings cannot always be contained by the rule
of sobriety and rationality. It is time to take a closer look at
some demonstrations of Francis’ deeply felt cosmic kinship.
Some green acts of Francis exemplifying cosmic kinship
In what follows, a few anecdotes of some of the many green acts that Francis was known for are presented. Although not presented chronologically (except for the Sermon to the Birds and the Canticle of Creatures), they are representative of Francis’ encompassing love and empathy for all of creation, from God to soil and rocks and everything in between – starting with ‘lower’ life forms, the plants and ending with his magnum opus, the Canticle. The anecdotes fluctuate between fact and fiction (often even fable-like) as can be expected from hagiographical sources, but interestingly, there are only a few that contain mythological animals (e.g. the dragon – see Armstrong 1973:179). The golden thread that binds them all is Francis’ deeply felt intuition and conviction of our cosmic kinship, namely ‘… that all living things are brothers and sisters because they have the same genetic code’ (Boff 1997:211). The latter, including the evolution of earth into a living habitat (Habel’s first tenet of ecological consciousness above), was obviously not known to him as a child of his premodern time, but his intuition of the bond between everything was remarkably confirmed later by empirical science. His awakening to ecological consciousness was something that was known before (Sorrell 1988), but it reached new heights in him with the realisation that everything is part of God’s family, which is why he addressed them as brothers and sisters (Armstrong 1973:60).
Francis not only cared for cultivated plants but markedly
wild plants as well. He insisted that his fellow friars leave
a border around the community garden for wild grasses,
flowers and herbs to sprout. In similar vein, he forbade the
chopping down of a whole tree so that it could sprout again
(Warner 1994:227–228). His valuing of the intrinsic worth
of creation was taken a step further with his preaching to
plants. It was shortly after his (second) ‘conversion’, when
he preached his Sermon to the Birds (1213 AD), that he also
started preaching to flowers, cornfields, vineyards, et cetera.
He came to realise that this was his new calling rather than
contemplative meditation and prayer as part of the eremitic
lifestyle (Warner 2011:122–123). Plants should always praise
God for his continued sustenance and care – and serve
him. Thomas Celano, one of Francis’ early biographers,
emphasises just how strong his identification (see Habel’s
second step of ecological analysis above) with plant life was
pointing out that Francis spoke to the plants as if ‘… they
were endowed with reason’ (Sorrell 1988:68). Nature, in turn,
spoke to him of God with even the twigs in a hedge becoming
a sacrament or sign of the cross to him (Armstrong 1973:11),
easily putting him into an alternative state of rapture where
he met and were united with the Creator of all (see waterfowl
below). Other mystics like Douceline and Theresa of Avila
continued his nature mysticism by going into ecstasy by
simply looking at a flower, tree or water or listening to a
bird’s song (Armstrong 1973:16).
Celano tells of Francis picking up a worm on the pathway
along which he was walking and putting it in the soft
vegetation on the side, fearing that it would be crushed. A
medieval Christological interpretation of Psalm 22:6, ‘I am a
worm and no man’, probably inspired this action according to
Celano. Alternatively, by reading Job 24:20, Francis referred
to himself as ‘the vilest of worms’ to confess his sins. This
not only illustrates his sincere empathy for and bondedness
with such low life forms as worms, but it also confirms his
ascription to them of intrinsic dignity, even ‘rights’, derived
from the Divine. Francis believed that the incarnation
sanctified all life and that God reveals himself even in these
lowly creatures that shine with ‘Divine radiance’ (Armstrong
1973:143–144).
Bees impressed Francis with their diligence and foresight,
and he would often speak of them for a whole day (see the
Septuagint addition to Pr 6:6–8).[1] It was also told that bees
made a nest in one of Francis’ drinking beakers which he
left behind whilst retreating for prayer and contemplation
in a very remote cell in a mountain. This story inclines to
Franciscan romanticism or fantasy as bees would probably
not nest in such a small container. His biographers’ intentions
http://www.ve.org.zadoi:10.4102/ve.v35i1.1310
- ↑ Francis’ complete commitment to poverty and not assembling (unnecessary) earthly belongings, however, made him negative towards ants that diligently store their food in summer for the long winter (Pr 6:6–8; 30:24–25; Armstrong 1973:154).
