Fr Cronin: why message of St Francis matters more than ever

Fr Kieran Cronin, OFM, spoke about why the message of St Francis matters more than ever in his homily for the Mass broadcast live from Multyfarnham Franciscan Friary on RTÉ this morning.

Fr Cronin was joined by Fr Joe Walsh, OFM, for the Mass, and there was music from the Multyfarnham singers and musicians from Comhaltas Ceoltóirí Éireann, Mullingar.

The Mass marked the 800-year anniversary of the death of St Francis of Assisi, and previous to it, Fr Cronin said: “We Franciscans are privileged to be in this place for over 750 years, so it’s appropriate that we should celebrate Mass from this historic church.”

In his homily this morning, Fr Cronin said:

Imagine a scene in heaven as three saints meet waiting for the election of a pope. One is St Benedict, another St Leo and finally St Francis. As a Jesuit cardinal from Argentina is elected the saints wonder what name he will take. Maybe it will be another Benedict, of which there were 16 pontiffs, most recently a man by the name of Ratzinger? Or maybe another Leo, of which there have been 13 so far? But, no, surprise, surprise, this pope is going to be original. He will call himself Francis. Not Francis Xavier, the great Jesuit missionary, patron saint of the missions but Francis of Assisi. I can imagine the two other saints slapping Francis on the back, saying, ‘Congratulations, it’s about time you were recognised in Rome after nearly 800 years!’

Pope Francis chose as his patron the little poor man of Assisi, not just because he is the patron saint of Italy, but because he was inspired by his life and spirituality. I can also imagine St Francis smiling from his heavenly home when his namesake wrote an important letter to the Church and the world about the challenge to care for what he called our “common home”, a home we humans share with a multitude of other creatures.

St Francis must have been positively beaming on hearing the opening words of that letter: Laudato Si, mi Signore, Praise be to you, my Lord – those very words he composed the year before he died in praise of God’s Creation, the so-called Canticle of the Creatures.

Praise be you, my Lord, with all your creatures, especially Sir Brother Sun, who is the day and through whom you give us light. And he is beautiful and radiant with great splendour; and bears a likeness of you Most High One.

What I find interesting in this introduction to the Pope’s letter is the fact that this addition to the social teaching of the Church begins with a focus on the prayer of praise and thanks. How does praising God make any difference to our ethical responsibilities towards creation?

The answer lies in the concept of appreciation or better appreciative love. All true love begins with the appreciation of the value of something or someone. Too often we associate love with action, doing good, helping. But that can easily misfire if we don’t spend time and effort in being attentive to the unique reality of object of our care. It can even lead in extreme cases to the crime of coercive control.

In his hymn praising God for creation, St Francis expresses his appreciative love of creatures beginning with the sun. Note the qualities of light our saint underlines: beautiful and radiant and great splendour.

This deep appreciation of the sun’s light goes deeper when Francis understands that light as an emanation of the ultimate light that is God’s own self. The sun is made in the likeness of God, but then for the saint all creatures are to some extent ‘like’ the God who made them.

St Francis is ploughing new ground here theologically, since the tradition up to this made a strong distinction between humans made in the image and likeness of God and the rest of creation only reflecting God in a lesser way, often using words such as “vestige” or “trace”. No wonder, then, that humankind could be tempted to use and abuse creation in a dramatic failure of appreciative love.

But one more step needs to be taken to appreciate creation, and it has to do with relationship. If the creator is like a father, then everything created is a brother or sister or mother. Creation is one family. And where does the family live – at home – in this common home of our sister, mother earth.

Pope Francis, in the opening section of his letter laments that: “This sister now cries out to us because of the harm we have inflicted on her by our irresponsible use and abuse of the goods with which God has endowed her.” Christians have been told endlessly to heed the cries of the poor but now it is time to listen attentively to the cries of the earth and to experience an ecological conversion so that by our actions we will be able to praise God with and for his creatures with full sincerity.

We have waited nearly 800 years for a first pope to call himself Francis and to put his spirituality of creation to the forefront of Church teaching. Please God we will not have to wait much longer for all people of good will to take the message of St Francis to heart, to really appreciate the family of creation and our shared home.