A SURPRISE AT EVERY TURN

My call to the Franciscan life in 2013 was completely unexpected, and since then it has been one surprise after another. In fact, Franciscanism does more than surprise me; it often turns my typical and conventional thinking on its head. The more I dive into the example and teachings of St. Francis and Clare, the more such challenges—sometimes unsettling, often delightful—I find.

Last year during Advent I spent some time each day reading St. Francis’ Admonitions, a set of 28 teachings from the saint collected by the early Franciscan movement. This passage stopped me in my tracks:

Consider, O human being, in what great excellence the Lord God has placed you, for He created and formed you to the image of His beloved Son according to the body and to His likeness according to the Spirit. And all creatures under heaven serve, know, and obey their Creator, each according to its own nature, better than you. (St. Francis of Assisi, Admonitions V)

The first part of this Admonition is beautiful and reassuring: God has honored me as a human being by giving me a spirit that is like His own and a body that has much in common with that of Jesus Christ (any two human beings share 99.6% of their DNA!).

The second part, however, is surprising: all other creatures serve, know, and obey God better than I do. That’s right: the cat who settles on my lap during my morning prayer time, giving herself an elaborate bath, is serving God better than I am. This idea turns conventional thinking upside down: other creatures are not lower than humans; in some ways they are higher. And why? Because they behave “each according to its own nature.” Just by being themselves, doing what God created them to do, other creatures are perfectly in tune with God’s will. As a human being, on the other hand, too often I betray my true self—the self that shares in God’s divine nature and the physical body of Christ—to go off in directions not in harmony with God’s will.

Thank you, St. Francis, for this reminder, which is at once startling, humbling, and encouraging---so very Franciscan.

Michele Dunne OFS

Michele Dunne is a Secular Franciscan and executive director of Franciscan Action Network.

Sources:

Francis of Assisi: Early Documents, Vol I, Regis J. Armstrong et al editors, New York: New City Press, 1999, p. 131

National Institutes of Health: Genetics by the Numbers, https://nigms.nih.gov/education/Inside-Life-Science/Pages/Genetics-by-the-Numbers.aspx#:~:text=99.6,changes%20lie%20in%20key%20genes.

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