Reverence for Everything

Crossing borders and overcoming barriers, if done with love, also brings a new vision of reality that enables us to have reverence for everything that is. Francis’s early followers used to say that he used to spare lamps, lights, and candles because of the Eternal Light they brought to mind. That is a bit over the top, but that is also who St. Francis was, someone a bit over the top because of how and what he had come to see. His vision was changed so that he could see the light of God radiating from God’s creatures, even though he himself, during his last years, was for all practical purposes blind as a result of disease he contracted in Egypt where he went during the Fifth Crusade to try to bring peace and reconciliation between Christians and Muslims. Francis went to Damietta, not as a Crusade preacher to cheer on the Crusaders and their supporters, but to preach the Gospel of peace to the Crusader Cardinal Pelagius and to the Sultan, Malik al-Kamil. Then when the Crusaders dismissed him, al-Kamil received him into his camp and spoke with Francis for over two weeks, from September first to the twenty-sixth. The two men recognized in each other a desire for peace and a devotion to their mutual sacred texts, the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the Q’uran. Al-kamil was a devout Suni Muslim, and Francis was, of course, a devout Christian.

—from the book Surrounded by Love: Seven Teachings from Saint Francis
by Murray Bodo, OFM