Creation
It is nearly impossible to overstate the role that Creation played in the spiritual life of St. Francis. He viewed Creation itself as the “first book” to make God known, a book spoken by the very mouth of its Creator. Creation, in Francis’ spirituality, is the primal act of salvation, an act culminating in the Incarnation of Jesus Christ.
In her text for “Will the Circle Be Unbroken (Canticle of the Creatures),” author Amy Sens incorporates words from St. Francis with nature imagery flowing from indigenous persons of the U.S. to provide a song that conveys the good saint’s deep love of all created things.
Incarnation
When I was writing my strophic hymn version of the “Prayer of St. Francis” (which is in no way an actual text from the saint), I noted that the text begins in a genuinely Franciscan way, calling upon God to act in the role of Creator: “Make Me, O Lord, an Instrument.” The pinnacle of the divine goodness found in all creatures was, for Francis, the full fusing of uncreated divinity with created human nature in Christ. Though the St. Francis prayer never explicitly names Christ, the characteristics and actions for which it petitions God all have true resonance throughout the Gospel, and in the lives that disciples are called to live.
Inventing Christmas
For the past several years, some churches have displayed the Holy Family in a chain link cage, same as many immigrant families. The scandal that this caused among some Christians likely resembled the initial shock when St. Francis first displayed the Christ child born in a barn, surrounded by animals. Though a common part of our popular piety today, Francis did something that went against the piety of his day, when Christ was more commonly depicted in fine art being born in clean and comfortable (if not downright royal) surroundings. In “God of Creation Who Slept in the Straw” (paired here with SLANE and here with a new tune by Randall Sensmeier), Jacque B. Jones expresses the wide range of places and persons in which God’s presence has been—and continues to be—found.
Alan Hommerding is a prolific hymn writer, composer, and editor.