Francis loved to sing. It freed his spirit and turned the human voice, so often an organ of selfishness and sin, into an instrument of celebration. He was simply giving voice to the joy within him and to the beauty he saw all around him. Whenever he felt his heart constricting again, he would break into a song of joy and praise.… Francis loved that image of himself as a lute strung for rapture. He wanted to stand in the wind of April afternoons and let the Holy Spirit play upon him for all the world to hear the beauty of his music.
And in every season he tried to be strung and tuned for the hand of Jesus to play upon His poor little instrument, made perfect and resonant by the skill of Jesus Himself.
—from the book Francis: The Journey and the Dream
by Murray Bodo, OFM
