The Splendors of Creation

This Sunday our church celebrates its patronal feast day, St. Francis Day.  We will indeed bless the animals.  Each in their own heart carries images of St. Francis.  And there is some historical evidence, though scant as it is. 

Like all holy personages of distant past, the life of St. Francis is shrouded in myth and legend.  In his novel, Saint Francis,[1] Nikos Kazantzakis brings forth a most vivid picture of the beloved saint.

Kazantzakis tells the story of St. Francis through the fictional character Brother Leo, a God-obsessed follower of the beloved saint.  It is he who commits to writing down everything he remembers of what Francis said and did.

In the mists of memory and urged on through inner compulsion Brother Leo explains how he came to produce the story.

“Every evening beneath the light of the lamp I took aim at each of your words, each of your acts, and pinned them down securely one by one so that they would not perish.  A single word from your lips, I said to myself may save a soul.  If I fail to record it, fail to reveal it to mankind, that soul will not be saved, and I will be to blame.[2]

“I had taken up my quill to begin writing many times before now, but I always abandoned it quickly, each time I was overcome with fear.  Yes, may God forgive me, but the letters of the alphabet frighten me terribly.  They are sly, shameless demons—and dangerous!  You open the inkwell, release them:  they run off—and how will you ever get control of them again! They come to life, join, separate, ignore your commands, arrange themselves as they like on the paper—black, with tails and horns.  You scream at them and implore them in vain: they do as they please.  Prancing, pairing up shamelessly before you, they deceitfully expose what you did not wish to reveal, and they refuse to give voice to what is struggling, deep with your bowels, to come forth and speak to mankind.[3]

One Sunday, Brother Leo, arriving home from church is finally God-compelled to take up the story.

“Had God not squeezed those demons into place whether they liked it or not, with the result that they wrote the Gospels?  Well then, I said to myself, Courage, my soul!  Have no fear of them!  Take up your quill and write![4]

What a marvelous narration of how the imagination reconstructs a story from the scant bits and fragments of personal and corporate memory, from legend and myth, where little actual historical fact is to be had.

And so, Spirit-inspired, this is how Kazantzakis offers up the reality of this sainted personage as it has become imbedded in his soul.

And this the best that any of us can do.  The reality of St. Francis is what the Spirit has implanted in our souls.  Yea, a smattering of facts, but they hold no existential meaning.  Meaning comes from the living images of St. Francis that mentor behavior and understanding.

So, here’s what the spiritual gift of that saint that guides my understanding and actions, the gift that uplifts my soul.

First, St. Francis for me is the seer of the immensity and wonder of creation.  There is an incident in Kazantzakis’ novel where one monk abhors the redness of the geraniums at the gate of his parents’ house.  Monk Peter asserts, that flower is evil for it is a distraction from God.  Francis to the contrary, tells his mother that it is a blessing, for in the deep redness of that flower God is revealed.

I agree with Francis.  The natural world at its deepest levels – from the tiniest amoeba to the swirling billions of galaxies revealed in the James Webb and Nancy Grace Roman space telescopes.  The lizard in my yard that I delight in as I spend most of an hour observing as it seeks its next meal and basks in the warming sun.

Francis is the saint celebrating the delights of the oneness of creation.

As our reading from Job exclaims, these mysteries are beyond our ken.  God inquires of Job’s presumptiveness:

“Do you know when the mountain goats give birth?  Do you observe the calving of the deer?  Can you number the months that they fulfil, and do you know the time when they give birth, when they crouch to give birth to their offspring, and they are delivered of their young?  Their young ones become strong; they grow up in the open; they go forth and do not return…Who has let the wild ass go free?”

Of course, Job in his hubris knows absolutely nothing of these natural delights.  Nothing.

He knows nothing more than we know of many of the mysteries of the cosmos.  We still have not a clue as to that dark matter is or what that dark energy is that continues to propel the galaxies further apart from one another. 

He knows nothing more than this administration knows or will acknowledge of global warming that already is killing hundreds of thousands of us in increasingly uninhabitable lands.  Nothing.  And our Mother Earth continues to heat up.

This world and beyond is a treasure revealing the depths of God every much as my friendly lizard friend or Francis’ brilliant, red geranium at the gate.

Might it be time that we, along with the Psalmist, delight in the immensity and began to care for it?  Before it’s too late?  Just saying.

Secondly, Francis appreciated the gifts of women.

He valued the gifts of all.  He worked with Saint Clare as an equal in her work to draw women closer to God.  The Poor Clares, the Order of Saint Clare was an order of the Franciscans. 

Recently, we have lost a beloved sister with the passing of Gloria Steinem.  I believe St. Francis would have delighted in her gifts and mission. She worked for decades to elevate women to their full potential.  It was her work in encouraging women to build flesh-and-blood networks that opened the door to the awareness of their full ability to claim their rightful place in society.  To exercise all their gifts of mind and spirit.

In a 2016 speech she said, “Something happens when we are together in a room like this with all five senses, that cannot happen on the printed page—as much as I love books – that cannot happen on a screen.”[5]  Such gatherings were the key to consciousness-raising.  No, you can’t do this on your cell phone!

In the tradition of St. Francis, I totally agree with Ms. Steinem and celebrate her legacy – a gift to all of us. 

In her memory we are called to stand opposed to the misogamy of this current administration that has demoted and disparaged women as “fat, stupid, and unqualified.”  We must send these women haters a loud and clear message this November.

I close with a story of three monks at evening prayer that gives us an insight to their three orders – Dominican, Franciscan, Jesuit.  At some point the lights go out.  The Dominican begins to philosophize on the nature of light.  The Franciscan began to pray in celebration of Brother Darkness.  The Jesuit goes outside and changes the fuse.

I believe I share a deep resonance with the Franciscan in his delight in the deep mystery of creation.  Yes, that deep red geranium flower and the prancing wild mountain goat of Job.  I also share a heritage with the Jesuit who gets stuff done.  

With Francis, I believe I too have received the same divine call, “Build my Church.”  Yes, maybe a bit God-obsessed as Brother Leo and Father Francis.  In a vibrant community of memory and faith, the door of eternity opens wide.   Wherein we celebrate and give thanks for the splendor of God’s handiwork in the cosmos.

So, to the memory and legacy of Francis, that beloved saint of Assisi, may God be praised.  Amen.

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[1] Nikos Kazantzakis, Saint Francis (New York: Ballantine Books, 1966).

[2] Ibid, 20.

[3][3] Ibid, 20-21.

[4] Ibid.

[5] Michelle Goldberg, “Losing Steinem and the Freedoms She Fought For,”, September 6, 2026

October 4, 2026
St. Francis Feast Day

  “The Splendors of Creation”
The Rev. Dr. John C. Forney
Job 39:1-18 Psalm 121

Acts 4:32-35; Luke 12:13-21