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Francis and the Animals: Weekly Summary

Francis and the Animals

Saturday, October 9, 2021

Week Forty Summary and Practice

Sunday, October 3—Friday, October 8, 2021

Sunday
Each and every creature is a unique word of God, with its own message, its own metaphor, its own energetic style, its own way of showing forth goodness, beauty, and participation in the Great Mystery. —Richard Rohr

Monday
Francis of Assisi knew that the finite manifests the infinite, and the physical is the doorway to the spiritual. If we can accept this foundational principle we call “incarnation,” then all we need is right here and right now—in this world. —Richard Rohr

Tuesday
I made an effort to make the animals understand that I was a friend. At first they were astounded and incredulous. But then they believed. —Carlo Carretto

Wednesday
Francis grants all of reality, even elements and animals, an intimate I-Thou relationship. This could be a definition of what it means to be a contemplative, which is to look at reality with much wider eyes than mere usability, functionality, or self-interest—with inherent enjoyment for a thing in itself as itself. —Richard Rohr

Thursday
Every creature is born out of the love of God, sustained in love, and transformed in love. Every sparrow that falls to the ground is known and loved by God (Matthew 10:29). —Ilia Delio

Friday
In telling the stories of their saints, Celtic hagiographers sought to teach lessons, reinforcing a perspective that humans and animals are all related to one another, and that we are meant to enjoy each other’s company as well as alleviate each other’s pain. —Edward Sellner

 

Blessing the Animals

On the Feast of St. Francis, “Blessing the Animals” events take place throughout the world. We invite you to take the time to sit with this poem by Galway Kinnell (1927–2014).

Saint Francis and the Sow

The bud
stands for all things,
even for those things that don’t flower,
for everything flowers, from within, of self-blessing;
though sometimes it is necessary
to reteach a thing its loveliness,
to put a hand on the brow
of the flower
and retell it in words and in touch
it is lovely
until it flowers again from within, of self-blessing;
as Saint Francis
put his hand on the creased forehead
of the sow, and told her in words and in touch
blessings of the earth on the sow, and the sow
began remembering all down her thick length,
from the earthen snout all the way
through the fodder and slops to the spiritual curl of the tail,
from the hard spininess spiked out from the spine
down through the great broken heart
to the blue milken dreaminess spurting and shuddering
from the fourteen teats into the fourteen mouths sucking and blowing
beneath them:
the long, perfect loveliness of sow.

If you have a pet, “retell it in words and in touch it is lovely until it flowers again from within, of self-blessing.” Or perhaps you could volunteer at an animal shelter where abandoned or abused animals need to be reminded of their loveliness.

Experience a version of this practice through video and sound.

Reference:
“Saint Francis and the Sow,” from Mortal Acts, Mortal Words by Galway Kinnell. Copyright © 1980, renewed 2008 by Galway Kinnell. Reprinted by permission of Mariner Books, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers. All rights reserved.

Learn more about the Daily Meditations Editorial Team.

Image credit: Barbara Holmes, Untitled 10 (detail), 2021, photograph, United States.
The creative team at CAC sent a single-use camera to “Dr. B” as part of an exploration into contemplative photography and she returned this wonderful photo.
Image Inspiration: The simple scene of a cow grazing is easy to pass by without a thought – but it is also a holy moment. Sacred and mundane are found together in the form of an ordinary creature.

A Loving Partnership

Francis and the Animals

A Loving Partnership
Friday, October 8, 2021

If you wish to know the Creator, come to know his creatures. —St. Columban, Sermon 1

Scholar Edward Sellner has traced the influence of early Celtic spirituality to places throughout the world, including Francis of Assisi’s area of Italy.  

This sense of kinship [with animals] was an intrinsic aspect of Celtic Christian spirituality that affected not only those living in Celtic lands, but also significantly influenced later saints who were raised in geographical areas on the Continent, ministered to by Irish missionaries. . . . The numerous animal stories associated with Francis and his attitude of compassion toward animals and birds as “sisters” and “brothers” reflect the spirituality of the Celtic saints. . . .

As the Irish scholar John Scotus Eriugena (c. 810–877 CE) states, “Every visible and invisible creature can be called a theophany, that is, an appearance of the divine”. . . . Celts, both ancient and Christian, experienced an outright mystical connection with nature. This sense of spiritual kinship is reflected in their profound respect for the earth and the natural rhythms of body and soul, precisely because they did not see themselves as “lords” over creation, but spiritually, emotionally, and intellectually connected with it. . . .

Animals are portrayed as fellow-creatures of the earth, and once befriended, they become helpers to the saints. . . .

In telling the stories of their saints, [Celtic hagiographers] sought to teach lessons, reinforcing a perspective that humans and animals are all related to one another, and that we are meant to enjoy each other’s company as well as alleviate each other’s pain. . . .

Ciaran of Clonmacnoise had a fox who acted as a sort of mail carrier between him and another monk. . . . Ciaran of Saighir . . . had his monastery built with the help of animals “as if they had been his monks” . . . St. Colman’s monastic inhabitants—a rooster, a mouse, and a fly—ministered to him. . . . Otters ministered to Cuthbert when he spent a night in the cold ocean waters praying, by warming his cold feet with their breath, even drying them with their fur. A bear helped Gall build a fire when the saint had twisted his ankle in a fall; a white bird guided Brendan on his voyage to the Promised Land, and the whale, Jasconius, provided his back for Brendan’s boat to rest on. . . .

Kindness, compassion, loving respect on the part of the saints elicits from their creature-partners trust, caring, and love—which, in turn, increases the happiness of everyone. . . .

Above all, the stories show how much our fellow-creatures can contribute to our own lives without having to give up theirs, so that we can all experience, like Columban, the shared joy of partnership.

[Richard: Whether we read these stories literally or symbolically, the important question is only this: “What allowed story tellers or writers to think this way?”]

Reference:
Edward C. Sellner, Celtic Saints and Animal Stories: A Spiritual Kinship (Paulist Press: 2020), 93, 94, 6, 7, 93, 95–96, 98.

Story from Our Community:
If all the plants and animals were no longer on Earth, humans could not survive. However, if humans were no longer on Earth, the animals and plants would thrive. Therefore, who needs who? I pray for all of God’s creation to live within their means and take no more than what they need. We are all connected and God has created us with purpose—to purposefully love. We don’t really need that much. Our lives could be simple and all the more beautiful because of it. —Colleen D.

Learn more about the Daily Meditations Editorial Team.

Image credit: Barbara Holmes, Untitled 10 (detail), 2021, photograph, United States.
The creative team at CAC sent a single-use camera to “Dr. B” as part of an exploration into contemplative photography and she returned this wonderful photo.
Image Inspiration: The simple scene of a cow grazing is easy to pass by without a thought – but it is also a holy moment. Sacred and mundane are found together in the form of an ordinary creature.

“Ensouled” Animals

Francis and the Animals

“Ensouled” Animals
Thursday, October 7, 2021

Readers of the Daily Meditations may be familiar with the theological and scientific work of Ilia Delio. Today we share a reflection that honors both her Franciscan theology and her personal relationship with a beloved pet.

It is almost a week since our beloved cat, Mango, was put to sleep. . . .

We had rescued Mango a little more than eight years earlier. . . . He liked to sleep in the chapel and often joined us for prayer in the evening. Mango was real presence. And it is his presence that was sorely missed.

Recent questions in ecology and theology have focused on animal life. Do animals have souls? Do animals go to heaven? Without becoming entangled in theological discourse, I want to say quite clearly that Mango was ensouled. His soul was a core constitutive beingness, a particularity of life that was completely unique, with his own personality and mannerisms. To use the language of [Franciscan philosopher] Duns Scotus, Mango revealed a haecceitas, his own “thisness.” Scotus placed a great emphasis on the inherent dignity of each and every thing that exists. . . .

Each living being gives glory to God by its unique, core constitutive being. . . . To be a creature of God is to be brought into relationship in such a way that the divine mystery is expressed in each concrete existence. Soul is the mirror of creaturely relatedness that reflects the vitality of divine Love.

I did not have to wonder whether or not Mango had a soul. I knew it implicitly by the way he listened to me talking or thinking aloud, the way he sat on my office chair waiting for me to finish writing so he could eat, or simply the way he looked at me—eye to eye—in the early morning, at the start of a new day. Soul existence is expressed in the language of love. . . .

Love makes us something; it makes us alive and draws us in to the dynamism of life, sustaining life’s flow despite many layers of sufferings and disappointments. . . . If God is love, then the vitality of love, even the love of a furry creature, is the dynamic presence of God. . . .

Every creature is born out of the love of God, sustained in love, and transformed in love. Every sparrow that falls to the ground is known and loved by God (cf. Matthew 10:29); the Spirit of God is present in love to each creature here and now so that all creaturely life shares in cosmic communion. . . .

As I reflect on Mango’s death, his haecceitas, and the mystery of love, I have no doubt that his core love-energy will endure. His life has been inscribed on mine; the memory of his life is entangled with my own. My heart grieves for Brother Mango, my faithful companion, but I believe we shall be reunited in God’s eternal embrace.

Reference:
Ilia Delio, The Hours of the Universe: Reflections on God, Science, and the Human Journey (Orbis Books: 2021), 235, 236, 237–238.

Story from Our Community:
If all the plants and animals were no longer on Earth, humans could not survive. However, if humans were no longer on Earth, the animals and plants would thrive. Therefore, who needs who? I pray for all of God’s creation to live within their means and take no more than what they need. We are all connected and God has created us with purpose—to purposefully love. We don’t really need that much. Our lives could be simple and all the more beautiful because of it. —Colleen D.

Learn more about the Daily Meditations Editorial Team.

Image credit: Barbara Holmes, Untitled 10 (detail), 2021, photograph, United States.
The creative team at CAC sent a single-use camera to “Dr. B” as part of an exploration into contemplative photography and she returned this wonderful photo.
Image Inspiration: The simple scene of a cow grazing is easy to pass by without a thought – but it is also a holy moment. Sacred and mundane are found together in the form of an ordinary creature.

A Sacramental Universe

Francis and the Animals

A Sacramental Universe
Wednesday, October 6, 2021

Richard shares how Francis responded to the rising tide of “consumer” culture, which Francis’ father was fully engaged in as a wealthy merchant.

Francis refused to be a “user” of reality—buying and selling it to personal advantage (the I-it relationship). In fact, that is what he vigorously reacted against, and why he granted personal subjectivity to sun, moon, wind, animals, and even death, by addressing them as brother, sister, friend, and mother. Maybe his seeing, which was both personal and contemplative, is what forced him out and beyond the production-consumption economy where most people find themselves trapped today. Francis grants all of reality, even elements and animals, an intimate I-Thou relationship. This could be a definition of what it means to be a contemplative, which is to look at reality with much wider eyes than mere usability, functionality, or self-interest—with inherent enjoyment for a thing in itself as itself. Remember, as soon as any giving wants or needs a reward in return, we have backed away from love, which is why even our common notion of “heaven” can keep us from the pure love of God or neighbor! A pure act of love is its own reward and needs nothing in return.

Scholars say that the Franciscan movement following St. Francis himself was not really known for any deep connection with the sacramentality of nature, except for some of the stories and sayings surrounding Anthony of Padua (1195–1231) and Giles of Assisi (1190–1262). The first, short-lived generation of Franciscans dwelt in caves (carceri) and hermitages apart from the city, in nature, but we soon became gentrified and proper. I can remember my novice master telling us we should not waste or consume or kill unnecessarily; but such teachings were about private virtue and not presented as a social value or a necessity for the good of others and the planet. This was still 1961. I never heard any direct teaching on sustainability or the sacramentality of nature itself in any of my thirteen years in formation. We were trying to be Franciscans in the most developed, capitalized, and industrialized country in the world. “Sacraments” happened in church buildings, but not in the garden or the woods. Once we lost regular contact with primal creation, I believe the Franciscan enterprise largely started to reflect whatever ethnic culture it inhabited, and that was no longer nature or the universe.

With the exception of Indigenous peoples, the sacramental meaning of the world was largely lost until its more recent rediscovery by seers and seekers like Teilhard de Chardin, Thomas Berry, Wendell Berry, Sallie McFague, Ilia Delio, Bill Plotkin, Mary Oliver, and Brian Swimme, to name a few luminaries. We Catholics ended up limiting “sacramentals” to things like religious medals, blessed candles, and holy water, instead of honoring the inherent holiness of the earth’s ores, beeswax, and H2O that actually formed them.

Reference:
Adapted from Richard Rohr, Eager to Love: The Alternative Way of Francis of Assisi (Franciscan Media: 2014), 242–243, 48–50.

Story from Our Community:
We all share God’s bounty in this wonderful creation we call Earth. Although I have always treated animals as gifts from God, it wasn’t until Father Richard’s course on the Franciscan Way that my eyes were open to seeing the trees and flowers as our brothers and sisters, as well as the pebble I still kick down the street and the slug in my bird fountain. I am truly blessed to be one of God’s children. —Russell C.

Learn more about the Daily Meditations Editorial Team.

Image credit: Barbara Holmes, Untitled 10 (detail), 2021, photograph, United States.
The creative team at CAC sent a single-use camera to “Dr. B” as part of an exploration into contemplative photography and she returned this wonderful photo.
Image Inspiration: The simple scene of a cow grazing is easy to pass by without a thought – but it is also a holy moment. Sacred and mundane are found together in the form of an ordinary creature.

The Emotional Intelligence of Animals

Francis and the Animals

The Emotional Intelligence of Animals
Tuesday, October 5, 2021

I wonder what I ought to tell you about the friendship there was between me and a falcon? —Carlo Carretto, I, Francis

Carlo Carretto (1910–1988) was a member of the Little Brothers of Jesus, a community of contemplatives inspired by the spirituality of priest and hermit Charles de Foucauld. In this meditation, Carretto speaks in Francis of Assisi’s voice, combining Francis’ biography with what he might say to us today.

I was in a certain hermitage, where I had withdrawn to pray in peace.

I noticed that very nearby there was a falcon, with its nest.

We became friends. . . .

Then the falcon undertook to rouse me from my rest at the hour of prayer—at midnight, and again at dawn for Lauds. . . .

He always performed his duty with precision.

Once he even went beyond the call of duty.

He had noticed that I was not feeling well—and so he did not awaken me in the night, but only in the morning for Lauds.

I think God was guiding me by the falcon.

You can go ahead and smile. . . . But it happened to me, and I took pleasure in it all, even going so far as to hold conversations with all manner of creatures, and preach various sermons to them. . . .

I made an effort to make them understand that I was a friend. At first they were astounded and incredulous. But then they believed.

And they drew near.

And they listened to me. . . .

It was as if the dimensions of the Kingdom had been enlarged for me. . . .

It was as if the number of my sisters and brothers had become measurelessly greater. [1]

Science is beginning to confirm the intuitions of mystics throughout the ages, including Francis—that we share kinship with animals. Consider the insights from the fascinating book When Elephants Weep, which explores the emotional lives of animals. Author Jeffrey Masson considers animal relationships that surely transcend mere survival and can even be called love:

Lionesses baby-sit for one another just as house cats sometimes do. . . . Elephants appear to make allowances for other members of their herd. One African herd always traveled slowly because one of its members had never fully recovered from a broken leg suffered as a calf. A park warden reported coming across a herd with a female carrying a small calf several days dead, which she placed on the ground whenever she ate or drank: she traveled very slowly and the rest of the elephants waited for her. . . . There appears to be so little survival value in the behavior of this herd, that perhaps one has to believe that they behaved this way just because they loved their grieving friend who loved her dead baby, and wanted to support her. [2]

[Richard: I think we know so little about our ensouled universe.]

References:
[1] Carlo Carretto, I, Francis, trans. Robert R. Barr (Orbis Books: 1982), 49–50.

[2] Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson and Susan McCarthy, When Elephants Weep: The Emotional Lives of Animals (Delta: 1995), 78.

Story from Our Community:
We all share God’s bounty in this wonderful creation we call Earth. Although I have always treated animals as gifts from God, it wasn’t until Father Richard’s course on the Franciscan Way that my eyes were open to seeing the trees and flowers as our brothers and sisters, as well as the pebble I still kick down the street and the slug in my bird fountain. I am truly blessed to be one of God’s children. —Russell C.

Learn more about the Daily Meditations Editorial Team.

Image credit: Barbara Holmes, Untitled 10 (detail), 2021, photograph, United States.
The creative team at CAC sent a single-use camera to “Dr. B” as part of an exploration into contemplative photography and she returned this wonderful photo.
Image Inspiration: The simple scene of a cow grazing is easy to pass by without a thought – but it is also a holy moment. Sacred and mundane are found together in the form of an ordinary creature.

Seeing Things as They Truly Are

Francis and the Animals

Seeing Things as They Truly Are
Monday, October 4, 2021

Richard continues exploring Francis of Assisi’s insights, pointing us beyond the “bird bath” spirituality for which Francis is too often known.  

Francis of Assisi knew that the finite manifests the infinite, and the physical is the doorway to the spiritual. If we can accept this foundational principle we call “incarnation,” then all we need is right here and right now—in this world. This is the way to that! Heaven includes earth and earth includes heaven. There are not sacred and profane things, places, and moments. There are only sacred and desecrated things, places, and moments—and it is we alone who desecrate them by our lack of insight and reverence. It is one sacred universe, and we are all a part of it. In terms of a spiritual vision, we really cannot get any better or simpler than that.

Franciscan spirituality emphasizes a real equivalence and mutuality between the one who sees and what can be seen. What you see is what you are. There is a symbiosis between the mind and heart of the seer and what they pay attention to. Francis had a unique ability to call others—animals, plants, and elements—“brother” and “sister” because he himself was a little brother. He granted other beings and things mutuality, subjectivity, “personhood,” and dignity because he first honored his own dignity as a son of God. The world of things was a transparent two-way mirror for him, which some of us would call a fully “sacramental” universe.

As Franciscan sister Ilia Delio explains:

Francis came to realize that it is Christ who sanctifies creation and transforms it into the sacrament of God. The intimate link between creation and Incarnation revealed to Francis that the whole of creation is the place to encounter God. As his eyes opened to the holiness of creation, he came to see that there is nothing trivial or worthless. Rather, all created things point beyond themselves to their Creator. . . .

[The Franciscan scholar] Bonaventure [c. 1217‒1274] describes the contemplative vision of Francis as “contuition,” that is, seeing things for what they truly are in God. In his Major Legend, [Bonaventure] writes:

In beautiful things he [Francis] contuited Beauty itself and through the footprints impressed in things he followed his Beloved everywhere, out of them all making for himself a ladder through which he could climb up to lay hold of him who is utterly desirable. . . .  He savored in each and every creature—as in so many rivulets—that fontal Goodness, and . . . sweetly encouraged them to praise the Lord. [1]

These footprints of God impressed on the things of creation enabled Francis to find God wherever he went in the world, and finding God in the things of creation led him to the embrace of Jesus Christ, for Christ is the Word of God made visible in the world. [2]

References:
[1] Bonaventure, The Life of Blessed Francis, chap. 9, in Francis of Assisi: Early Documents, vol. 2, The Founder, eds. Regis J. Armstrong, J. A. Wayne Hellmann, and William J. Short (New City Press: 2000), 596–597.

[2] Ilia Delio, A Franciscan View of Creation: Learning to Live in a Sacramental World, The Franciscan Heritage Series, vol. 2 (The Franciscan Institute: 2003), 15–16.

Adapted from Richard Rohr, Eager to Love: The Alternative Way of Francis of Assisi (Franciscan Media: 2014), 6–8.

Story from Our Community:
In 2015 I was blessed to experience a miracle in Assisi, Italy. I have been a social worker for many years and an advocate of mindfulness—being present in the moment. My journey now is to increasingly gain confidence in incorporating ‘spirit’ into my work. Thank you so much, Fr. Richard and CAC, for giving me the confidence to know I am on the right journey. And of course, thank you Saint Francis for somehow choosing me! May I forever be humble. —Mark L.

Learn more about the Daily Meditations Editorial Team.

Image credit: Barbara Holmes, Untitled 10 (detail), 2021, photograph, United States.
The creative team at CAC sent a single-use camera to “Dr. B” as part of an exploration into contemplative photography and she returned this wonderful photo.
Image Inspiration: The simple scene of a cow grazing is easy to pass by without a thought – but it is also a holy moment. Sacred and mundane are found together in the form of an ordinary creature.

Every Creature Is an Epiphany

Francis and the Animals

Every Creature Is an Epiphany
Sunday, October 3, 2021

A person who knew nothing but creatures would never need to attend to any sermons, for every creature is full of God and is a book. —Meister Eckhart, Sermon on Sirach 50:6–7 [1]

In honor of tomorrow’s feast of St. Francis of Assisi (1182–1226), this week the Daily Meditations team is sharing reflections on Francis’ affinity for the natural world and the animals who inhabit it. Fr. Richard reflects on the legacy of his spiritual father:  

Each and every creature is a unique word of God, with its own message, its own metaphor, its own energetic style, its own way of showing forth goodness, beauty, and participation in the Great Mystery. Each creature has its own glow and its own unique glory. To be a contemplative is to be able to see each epiphany, to enjoy it, protect it, and draw upon it for the common good.

Living close to nature as he did, Francis could see Christ in every animal he encountered. He is quoted as talking to or about rabbits, bees, larks, falcons, lambs, pigs, fish, cicadas, waterfowl, doves, and the famous wolf of Gubbio, to name just a few. Those of you who love dogs know that each one is uniquely gifted by God and blesses our lives in special ways. Their unconditional love, forgiveness, and loyalty show us what God is like. My successive dogs, Peanut Butter, Gubbio, Venus, and now Opie, have enriched my life in many ways.

I really think human beings need someone to love, someone to awaken us to the flow of love and to keep that flow going. I can understand why so many people have adopted pets to ease their isolation during the pandemic! I often wonder if there doesn’t have to be an object (which then becomes a subject) whose goodness, truth, and beauty draw us out of ourselves. That someone doesn’t even have to be human; it can be an animal to whom we give ourselves and through whom we feel ourselves given back. Remember, our English word animal comes from the Latin word for “soul” or anima. Animals are ensouled ones!

I will never forget Venus’ amazing ability to make eye contact with me. She’d come to my bed around 5:30 in the morning, put her head on the side of the bed, and just look at me. And I’d roll over and try to get my eyes open and look back at her. Humans can’t seem to sustain eye contact for long. But dogs just keep gazing at us with their very “soulful” eyes. And I’d wonder: What did she see? What was she thinking? What was it that she genuinely seemed to like in me? They say the eyes are the windows to the soul. I’m convinced these beings that we thought lived at a rudimentary level of consciousness can see the one thing necessary: love! They don’t get lost in labeling and categorizing. Maybe that’s why they can maintain the flow of love—often unconditionally.

References:
[1] This apocryphal book is included in Catholic but not Protestant Bibles.

Adapted from Richard Rohr, “Every Creature Is a Word of God,” Radical Grace 24, no. 2 (Spring 2011): 3;

Eager to Love: The Alternative Way of Francis of Assisi (Franciscan Media: 2014), 46; and

Richard Rohr: Essential Teachings on Love, selected by Joelle Chase and Judy Traeger (Orbis Books: 2018), 229–230.

Story from Our Community:
In 2015 I was blessed to experience a miracle in Assisi, Italy. I have been a social worker for many years and an advocate of mindfulness—being present in the moment. My journey now is to increasingly gain confidence in incorporating ‘spirit’ into my work. Thank you so much, Fr. Richard and CAC, for giving me the confidence to know I am on the right journey. And of course, thank you Saint Francis for somehow choosing me! May I forever be humble. —Mark L.

Learn more about the Daily Meditations Editorial Team.

Image credit: Barbara Holmes, Untitled 10 (detail), 2021, photograph, United States.
The creative team at CAC sent a single-use camera to “Dr. B” as part of an exploration into contemplative photography and she returned this wonderful photo.
Image Inspiration: The simple scene of a cow grazing is easy to pass by without a thought – but it is also a holy moment. Sacred and mundane are found together in the form of an ordinary creature.
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