St. Francis of Assisi
With each new season of the church year we choose a saint to inspire and guide our youth group. Throughout the summer and early fall St. Francis will be our guide.
St. Francis of Assisi (1182–1226) Italian mystic and church reformer who sang God’s work in all of nature—sun, moon, plants, animals, life, and death— and in the passion of Christ. His vernacular hymns, popular processions, and the first Christmas crèche (Nativity scene) were among his sensual and intuitive church reforms that appealed to people’s imagination, hope, and delight. Following one story of his peacemaking with animals, Francis is painted with a wolf. (October 4)
Francis loved all creatures, and creation readily sensed it. He liked preaching to birds, who flocked to him unafraid. At Gubbio, a prowling she-wolf was devouring the farm animals and terrifying the townsfolk, so Francis went into the forest to talk with her. After their conversation the wolf abandoned Gubbio’s environs to hunt elsewhere, leaving the people of the area in peace. Once a child at St Gregory’s asked rector Rick Fabian why the animals have no halos, like the human saints. Rick explained: “Animals are perfect, just as they are; they don’t need halos.”
Francis and three other saints portrayed with animals in St. Gregory's Dancing Saints Mural— Seraphim, Lady Godiva, and Sadi—remind us that God’s work of creation extends to all creatures, and that some have known God in companionship with animals or through imaginative and compassionate reflection on the stories of animals.
Francis loved all creatures, and creation readily sensed it. He liked preaching to birds, who flocked to him unafraid. At Gubbio, a prowling she-wolf was devouring the farm animals and terrifying the townsfolk, so Francis went into the forest to talk with her. After their conversation the wolf abandoned Gubbio’s environs to hunt elsewhere, leaving the people of the area in peace. Once a child at St Gregory’s asked rector Rick Fabian why the animals have no halos, like the human saints. Rick explained: “Animals are perfect, just as they are; they don’t need halos.”
Francis and three other saints portrayed with animals in St. Gregory's Dancing Saints Mural— Seraphim, Lady Godiva, and Sadi—remind us that God’s work of creation extends to all creatures, and that some have known God in companionship with animals or through imaginative and compassionate reflection on the stories of animals.
Movies, Music, and More
Francesco is a 1989 docu-drama relating in flashback St. Francis of Assisi's evolution from rich man's son to religious humanitarian and finally to full-fledged saint. Some mature content, viewer discretion advised.
St. Francis' Canticle of Creation has inspired countless hymns, songs, and works of art. Below are a few videos inspired by the Canticle of Creation. What other resources can you find inspired by the poetry, sermons, and life of St. Francis? Share your favorite finds with the youth group, care of Sylvia. We'll add our favorites to this page throughout the summer.
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Youth Group Favorites: SGN Community Creations & Discoveries
St. Gregory's youth group and leaders invite you to join them in creating and discovering work inspired by the life, writings, and work of St. Francis. Submit your discoveries and original photographs, writing, artwork, videos, musical compositions, and other creative reflections inspired by St. Francis to the youth group, care of Sylvia. We'll add our favorite submissions to this page throughout the summer.
SGN Favorite #1 (submitted by Leesy Taggart)
Saint Francis and the Sow BY GALWAY KINNELL 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 its 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 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 sheer 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. Galway Kinnell, “Saint Francis and the Sow” from Three Books. Copyright © 2002 by Galway Kinnell. Reprinted with the permission of Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved, www.houghtonmifflinbooks.com. |