Throughout this canticle, we have seen how Francis saw God’s goodness, radiance and beauty in all creatures. He saw them indeed as benevolent friends, as brothers and sisters—as family. And now even the reality of death itself becomes “Sister Death” for Francis, and thus takes on friendly and even “sisterly” aspects. For who of us is afraid of our sister? Indeed, under usual circumstances we are not afraid of our sister. And so, neither does Francis see this sister as threatening to him. In fact, according to Thomas of Celano, the first biographer of the saint, Francis went “joyfully to meet [death]” and “invited it to make its lodging with him. ‘Welcome,’ he said, ‘my sister death!’”
We all owe a great debt to St. Francis of Assisi and to his Canticle of the Creatures for leading us to the conviction that all brother and sister creatures make up one family under God’s loving care. May all these wonderful creatures continue to lift our hearts upward to God in this glorious prayer of praise.
—from St. Anthony Messenger‘s “St. Francis and His Canticle of the Creatures“
by Jack Wintz, OFM
