(OSV News) — St. Francis of Assisi was declared a saint nearly 800 years ago, just two years after his death. Not until much more recently — about 50 years ago — was the beloved 13th-century Italian friar called the patron of ecology.
“John Paul II makes that proclamation in 1979,” explained Joshua C. Benson, associate professor of historical and systematic theology at The Catholic University of America in Washington. “Part of what’s happening there is that there’s greater ecological awareness on the part of people — and in looking for a patron for that, Francis became an obvious choice.”
Benson and other experts spoke with OSV News about how the founder of the Franciscan order became the patron saint of ecology, amid the Jubilee Year of St. Francis marking the 800th anniversary of his death. Like St. John Paul II’s proclamation, these experts recognized St. Francis’ special approach to creation. In particular, they pointed to his poem “The Canticle of the Creatures,” where he used language such as “Brother Sun” and “Sister Moon” to refer to creation.
“When you look at St. Francis’ life, he shows a very deep and real care for creation,” said Father Jonathan St. Andre, a Third Order Regular Franciscan friar and vice president for Franciscan life at Franciscan University of Steubenville in Ohio. “We see that in his writings, particularly in a beautiful writing called ‘The Canticle of the Creatures’ … he talks about how all of creation praises God.”
Capuchin Franciscan Father Robert Barbato, rector of the National Shrine of St. Francis of Assisi in San Francisco, said St. Francis wrote the canticle at the end of his life. It draws from the saint’s recognition that “we all come from the same creator and need to care for one another.”
While St. Francis’ approach to creation was not unusual in the spirituality of his time, he gave it “popular and accessible words” in his canticle, said Franciscan Father Joseph Chinnici, president emeritus and professor of history at the Franciscan School of Theology at the University of San Diego.
“His spirituality emphasized the communion between God and creatures in Jesus Christ,” he said. “Created through the Word of God, all things bore the stamp of the Word. His vision emphasized not so much being the ‘steward of creation’ as a companion or kin with other creatures, gifts from a most generous God.”
Father St. Andre added that St. Francis “loves creation at a deeper level, because creation is Christic — it reflects Christ.”
St. John Paul II’s 1979 declaration belongs to a larger focus, Father Chinnici said.
“This focus on the need to be responsible for the environment has been a major theme of Church teaching, culminating in the encyclical letter of Pope Francis, “‘Laudato Si’, On Care for Our Common Home,'” he said of the 2015 papal document that takes its name from St. Francis’ canticle.
With this letter, the late pope “shows how this spiritual experience of Francis was one with his concern for nature, justice for the poor, commitment to society and interior peace,” Father Chinnici said. “Today, this timely ‘integral ecology’ of Francis represents a path for the believer partially to heal a suffering world.”
Benson called St. Francis the obvious choice as patron of ecology because of his tendency to call everything “brother” or “sister,” his interactions with creatures, and his “sacramental vision of reality” embedded in his canticle.
“The liturgy shows us that the created gifts we bring of bread and wine can be transformed by the power of the word and the Holy Spirit into Christ himself,” Benson said. “For Francis then, all of creation kind of becomes sacramental in a way, in as much as the temporal and the physical becomes a gateway or a window to those things that are eternal and spiritual to God himself.”
Benson said this is connected with St. Francis’ love for creation, and the saint was especially concerned with creatures with a biblical connection to Christ. St. Francis saw the worm in light of the Scripture passage, “I am a worm and no man” (Ps 22:6), referring to Christ and his suffering. He saw Christ as the Lamb of God, a title proclaimed by St. John the Baptist (Jn 1:29).
So, when St. Francis saw a worm on his path, he picked it up. When he saw a lamb about to be butchered, he rescued it.
Franciscan Father Jerome Wolbert at the Franciscan Monastery of the Holy Land in America noted the stories of St. Francis preaching to the birds and negotiating a truce with a “Brother Wolf,” while, at the same time, disliking when mice ran over him. Like Benson, he said St. Francis rescued lambs because of their connection to Christ.
“There is also the telling of how when one year Christmas fell on a Friday, and the brothers were arguing over whether they had to keep the Friday fast,” he said. “St. Francis went into the kitchen and picked up a piece of meat, smearing it on the wall as he said, ‘It’s Christmas! Even the walls should eat meat!'”
While celebrating St. Francis as the patron of ecology, Father St. Andre hopes people get to know the saint more fully.
“He was a lover of Jesus Christ,” he said. “He was a lover of the incarnate Christ in the crib, a lover of the Christ in the Eucharist, Christ in the cross — and out of that love, he came to love creation and the leper and the people around him.”
