Ode to St. Francis
Father
of feasting, fasting
and fun: your ecstatic love of God still
feeds us with inspiration, devotion,
commotion, communion, so we
gather up sticks and play
violins. we kneel
in the dirt praying
praising, remembering our mother earth,
our sister water, the fox our
brother Jesus a babe, born so simple
in a barn, poor- you
understood, the challenge of following
Love beyond limits, to great
extremes: mountain tops, battle
fields where we learn from lilies how to
just trust that God shall
provide. blessed are they
blessed are you
our father
our friend
our founder
Francesco!
Happy St. Francis Day everyone!!
We’re rejoicing in the goodness of God today and hope you’ll join us on this special day. May you be blessed with an abundance of joy and communion with God.
Peace and All Good, Sister Julia
Love it!
My favorite lines/ section:
the fox our
brother Jesus a babe, born so simple
in a barn, poor- you
understood, the challenge of following
Love beyond limits,
AMEN.
Happy Feast Day!
My grandfather, Francis Liewer, passed away one year ago today….I know these two Francises are in Heaven experiencing “Love beyond limits.”
Peace,
Melissa
thank you for sharing your beautiful St. Francis poem. We had a grand celebration at St. Rose – wish you could have been here but know you were missed and prayed for.
Rita
I was blessed to participate last evening in a moving, beautiful, simple Transitus ritual at the Franciscan School of Theology, Berkeley, CA. I came away from the ritual itself and the spirited, joyful reception following it — with the feeling that Francis Business just might be even messier than Jesus Business; or as Sister Julia’s students at Hales Franciscan might say: Even Messier Francis ‘Bidness.’
Francis, holy and Jesus-like, was oh, so human, even unto a somewhat messy, though peaceful, death in the arms of his beloved “Brother-Lady Jacoba.” Like Mary who held the body of her son Jesus in her arms, Pieta-style, so Jacoba embraced the lifeless body of her — and our — Holy Father and Brother Francis; he who had taught her the ways of the Gospel like no other, save Jesus himself.
The tears both of Mary and Jacoba were an odd mix, I suspect, of the messiness of tears of deep sorrow alternating and combined with those of even deeper joy.
I once read somewhere that the Resurrection of Jesus was God’s response to the evil of capital punishment perpetrated on Good Friday. While Francis did not and most of us will never experience the death penalty at the hands of a government, he and we must wait until the Last Day to experience the New Life to which God raised Jesus after a mere three days! What we do with the time and grace between now and then will make all the difference….
Happy Feast of Saint Francis of Assisi to one and all!