L'Italo-Americano

LIFE PEOPLE REVIEWS ADVICE TRADITIONS T here are no birds in Saint Fran- c i s ' s C a n t i c l e o f t h e C r e a - t u r e s , a n d n o wolf either, which may sur- prise anyone who knows him from the many statues where a small animal keeps him company. But Francis does not leave animals outside his vision of creation, quite the opposite. His famous poem opens by praising God "with all your creatures" – cum tucte le tue creature – and the sun and moon, wind and water, fire and the earth that feeds us are the examples he chooses to name within that larger family. As the prayer continues, he also finds room f o r t h o s e w h o s u f f e r a n d , eventually, for death itself. Reading il Cantico before his feast on October 4, in the year marking eight centuries since his death, we meet a Francis whose idea of family extended to the whole cre- ated world. H e h a d , o f c o u r s e , belonged to a family with quite different expectations for him: born in Assisi in 1181 or 1182, Francis was the son of Pietro di Bernar- done , a prosperous cloth merchant, and grew up with the advantages that money could buy in a medieval town w h e r e c o m m e r c e o f f e r e d plenty of opportunities for advancement. His father had reason to expect he would take his place in that world, and Francis himself dreamed of military distinction. How- ever, his participation in the war against nearby Perugia brought him imprisonment, an experience far removed from the glory he imagined a military career would give. His conversion developed gradually and, in his own Testament, Francis looked back on his care for people w i t h l e p r o s y a s o n e o f i t s decisive moments: what had once filled him with revul- s i o n , h e w r o t e , b e c a m e a s o u r c e o f s w e e t n e s s . H i s embrace of poverty eventual- l y l e d t o a p u b l i c r u p t u r e with his father, remembered in the scene where he surren- dered even his clothes before the bishop of Assisi. Becom- ing the Poverello, the "little p o o r m a n , " w a s f a r f r o m being a gentle withdrawal from ordinary life, it was a choice with consequences, and his family bore some of them, too. Animals enter the early accounts of Francis' life as part of his Christian under- standing of kinship, as we find out through the words of Thomas of Celano, who wrote Francis' first biogra- phy soon after the saint's death. Thomas tells of an encounter Francis had with b i r d s n e a r B e v a g n a , i n U m b r i a , w h e r e t h e s a i n t approached them and urged them to praise their Creator, reminding them that they had been given feathers for clothing and wings for flight. I n t h e s t o r y , t h e b i r d s remain to hear him, and he goes away reproaching him- s e l f f o r n e v e r h a v i n g preached to them before. Celano also describes a rab- b i t c a u g h t i n a t r a p a n d b r o u g h t t o F r a n c i s , w h o called it brother and tried to release it, only for the ani- mal to keep returning to his lap. Stories like this, togeth- er with the sermon to the birds and the later tale of the wolf of Gubbio, explain why Francis came to be remem- b e r e d s o s t r o n g l y a s t h e saint of animals. What counts in them is not simply that he liked animals, but that he placed them inside the same language of kinship he used elsewhere: birds, rabbits and wolves could all be addressed as fellow crea- tures of the same creator. T h i s i d e a s u r v i v e d f a r beyond the medieval stories themselves, and it is still vis- i b l e t o d a y w h e n f a m i l i e s bring their pets to churches for blessings around October 4. Centuries later, in 1979, John Paul II formally pro- claimed Francis patron of those who cultivate the sci- ence of ecology. With the wolf of Gub- bio, the story asks more of the human beings involved; in the Fioretti, the collection of Franciscan stories that circulated in Italian in the fourteenth century, a wolf has made the countryside so dangerous that the towns- people are afraid to venture out. Francis goes to meet it, addresses it as "brother," and secures its promise to stop attacking. He also rec- ognizes its hunger, and the agreement requires the peo- ple of Gubbio to provide its food for the rest of its life. According to the tale, the w o l f l i v e d i n G u b b i o f o r a n o t h e r t w o y e a r s , g o i n g from door to door to be fed, a n d t h e t o w n s p e o p l e mourned when it died. It is true: the Fioretti were com- piled long after Francis's lifetime, and they were devo- tional stories, yet they pre- serve the way later genera- tions remembered him. However, it's the Canti- cle that brings us closer to Francis's own voice, and to an achievement that belongs not only to spirituality but also to literary history. Com- posed in Umbrian vernacu- lar, it is among the founda- tional works of Italian poetry; Francis gave the language spoken around him t h e r e a c h o f a s u s t a i n e d poem of praise, drawing on S c r i p t u r e a n d t h e l i t u r g y while using words that lis- teners could recognize as their own. Today, even read- ers whose Italian is limited can follow some of its family vocabulary, like frate for brother, sora for sister; then we have the sun, which gives light, water sustaining life, a n d t h e e a r t h p r o d u c i n g fruit and flowers. Each of these details explains why the created world deserves gratitude, while the repeated relationships place the per- son offering that gratitude within it. At San Damiano, where tradition places the beginning of the Canticle's composition in 1225, Francis was already ill: his verses e m b r a c i n g " S i s t e r B o d i l y D e a t h " b e c o m e a l m o s t prophetic. He would leave this Earth only a year later, on October 3, 1226. We cele- brate his feast the following day. Italy would formally place itself under his patronage on June 18, 1939, when Pius X I I n a m e d F r a n c i s a n d Catherine of Siena its princi- pal patron saints, respond- ing to a request from the Italian bishops. The procla- m a t i o n e m p h a s i z e d h i s example of Gospel living and the spiritual renewal that g r e w f r o m h i s w o r k . H i s place in the country's life had already been established through centuries of devo- tion, churches, stories, and through a poem that Italian schoolchildren still learn today. Eight centuries later, what r e m a i n s s t r i k i n g i s t h e breadth of Francis's idea of kinship: he could call the sun a brother, water a sister, animals fellow creatures, and even death part of the same family: a much larger v i s i o n t h a n t h e f a m i l i a r image of a gentle saint sur- rounded by birds. T h e l a n g u a g e w a s r e l i - g i o u s , c e r t a i n l y , b u t t h e habit of looking at the world as something we belong to, rather than simply possess, l a s t e d w e l l b e y o n d t h e m e d i e v a l w o r l d t h a t p r o - duced it. CHIARA D'ALESSIO The world Saint Francis called family Saint Francis is remembered for extending the idea of kinship beyond people to the whole created world, addressing animals and the elements as members of the same family (Original image created for L'Italo-Americano with the assistance of AI) THURSDAY, OCTOBER 1, 2026 www.italoamericano.org 32 L'Italo-Americano

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