Brother Sun, Sister Moon
Francis and creation
Francis is nearly blind and in severe pain from the stigmata — the wounds of Christ that appeared on his body in 1224 at La Verna — and he is sheltering in a small hut behind the Poor Clares' convent of San Damiano when he dictates the Canticle of the Creatures.
It is probably the first great poem in the Italian language. It is certainly one of the most joyful pieces of literature ever written by someone who is suffering.
Be praised, my Lord, through all your creatures, especially through my lord Brother Sun, who brings the day; and you give light through him. And he is beautiful and radiant in all his splendor! Of you, Most High, he bears the likeness.
Be praised, my Lord, through Sister Moon and the stars; in the heavens you have made them bright, precious and beautiful.
Be praised, my Lord, through Brothers Wind and Air — through Sister Water, who is very useful, and humble, and precious, and pure — through Brother Fire, through our sister Mother Earth, who feeds us and rules us.
Francis is nearly blind and cannot see the sun he praises. He is in pain and writes of joy. He is dying and sings of the creatures who will outlive him.
The Canticle ends with a stanza added later, after Francis mediates a dispute between the mayor and bishop of Assisi: Be praised, my Lord, through those who forgive for love of you, and endure sickness and trial.
The last stanza is about himself. He does not say so.
“Be praised, my Lord, through all your creatures, especially through my lord Brother Sun, who brings the day; and you give light through him.”
— Francis of Assisi, Canticle of the Creatures, c. 1224 AD
“Praise him, sun and moon! Praise him, all you shining stars! Praise him, you heavens of heavens, You waters that are above the heavens.”
Francis wrote his greatest poem while nearly blind and in physical agony.
The joy in it is not the joy of someone who has been spared suffering. It is the joy of someone who has gone through enough suffering to find something on the other side of it — a gratitude so deep and so rooted that the sun and moon and wind and water all point toward the one who made them, and the pointing is itself a form of praise.
Brother Sun. Sister Moon. Sister Water. The intimacy of the naming — as if creation is family, not real estate — is the theological statement underneath the poetry. The world is not a resource to be managed. It is a community of creatures all praising the same maker.
When did you last find genuine joy in something as simple as sunlight or rain?