Today is the feast day of Saint Francis. The story of Saint Francis is remarkable, but there is one thing that I’m constantly drawn to: he proclaimed the Gospel to animals, he sang of his brothers and sisters in creation, he had a relationship with the natural (and non-human) world.
Is this insanity? cuteness? eccentric taste? postmodern or modern relish?
No, it’s “just” the Gifts of the Holy Spirit reaching a certain, specific, particular concentration in one of the saints.
In particular, there are two Gifts that are especially relevant to Saint Francis’ story. The first is Knowledge, a contemplative Gift. The second is Piety, an active Gift.
When the Holy Spirit comes into a soul and gives it added initiatives in the realm of Knowledge, this concerns the relationship of God to creatures. What is a creature? Well, in the first place it is not God. We have a certain distaste for things that are not God, not because we would wrongly estimate them to be bad; but because we would rightly estimate them to be derivative, though good and existing in themselves. They are not the ultimate end, and in them we will find no ultimate end. Thus we must look at them from God’s point of view and skip, first, to God.
If the Gift of Knowledge were ever to exist on its own – but this is impossible, for the Spirit always pours all seven Gifts at once! – we would be in danger of despising creation altogether. The Gift of Piety, which actively orients us, says otherwise. Piety means that we see God as our father. He is not our father exactly like he is Jesus’ father; but he is our father, because we are created in his image and because we have been adopted as his children. We can look at him and cry, “Abba!” But… if God is our father, he is also the father of all created things. All created things are my sisters and brothers. This is exactly why, in a formula that I’ve taken from Saint Alphonsus, piety “contains humility and confidence”: God is our father!
What does all this talk about the Gifts of the Holy Spirit make of Saint Francis?
Quite a bit!
This experience of sanctifying grace and, beyond sanctification, the free initiatives of the Holy Spirit that we experience as Gifts, is the foundation of the mystery of Saint Francis: Brother Sun, Sister Moon, the wolf, the preaching to nature… Creation all comes from God! To live it means to live the Gifts of Knowledge and Piety. Everything that is created is created – created by my Father. My father! Have confidence; have humility!
There are many ways to capture this truth. For example, Saint Alphonsus summarizes this in saying,
Those who desire nothing from this world are masters of the whole world.
Alphonsus in fact is saying that those who live the Gift of Knowledge also live the Gift of Piety: those who know that a creature is only a creature also know that it was made by their father. The two truths come hand in hand. If we have one truth, we have the other. Sometimes, the saints give us part of the picture, like Alphonsus’ disciple Clement Hofbauer, who said,
All creatures were made for the will of humans; only human beings were made for the will of God.
Half the picture – but still true. ^^
Another way capture this truth is to listen to what Saint John of the Cross sang:
Mine are the heavens and mine is the earth. Mine are the nations, the just are mine, and mine the sinners. The angels are mine, and the Mother of God, and all things are mine; and God himself is mine and for me, because Christ is mine and all for me.
We’re looking at a truly evangelical, truly contemplative, non-antagonistic, reflective, gentle, upright relationship with the world, through love, first, and also through the Gifts of the Holy Spirit.
Some related posts:
Contemplative in the Mud 