Bless the Animals — and St. Francis

Today is the feast day of one of the most revered of all Catholics, St. Francis of Assisi, and this weekend will come the famous Blessing of Animals. At Christmas, when we see a "nativity scene," what we are seeing is the American version of the Devotion of the Crib, a scene originally blessed by St. Francis.

Where does this come from? The life of a fascinating man, especially for an infidel such as myself. Literally a great believer in chastity, poverty, and charity, St. Francis not only inspired an order of monks, bringing thousands into the fold, but brought forward crucial concepts of kindness and dignity, central to the church today. With the reverence for the nativity scene comes a reverence for baby Jesus, and a deeper understanding of what it means to be kind. According to the Catholic Encyclopedia:

Again, to medieval notions of justice the evil-doer was beyond the law and there was no need to keep faith with him. But according to Francis, not only was justice due even to evil-doers, but justice must be preceded by courtesy as by a herald. Courtesy, indeed, in the saint’s quaint concept, was the younger sister of charity and one of the qualities of God Himself, Who "of His courtesy", he declares, "gives His sun and His rain to the just and the unjust".

What a brilliant cast he puts on the words of Christ (in Matthew), who spoke of the rain that falls on the just and the unjust! His blessing of animals will be said this Sunday in countless churches. His is the gift of sympathy, but it comes out of a desire for universal justice, even for other species. How 21st century!

The very animals found in Francis a tender friend and protector; thus we find him pleading with the people of Gubbio
to feed the fierce wolf that had ravished their flocks, because through
hunger "Brother Wolf" had done this wrong. And the early legends have left us many an idyllic picture of how beasts and birds alike susceptible to the charm of Francis’s gentle ways, entered into loving companionship with him; how the hunted
leveret sought to attract his notice; how the half-frozen bees crawled
towards him in the winter to be fed; how the wild falcon fluttered
around him; how the nightingale sang with him in sweetest content in
the ilex grove at the Carceri, and how his "little brethren the birds"
listened so devoutly to his sermon by the roadside near Bevagna that
Francis chided himself for not having thought of preaching to them
before. Francis’s love
of nature also stands out in bold relief in the world he moved in. He
delighted to commune with the wild flowers, the crystal spring, and the
friendly fire, and to greet the sun as it rose upon the fair Umbrian
vale. In this respect, indeed, St. Francis’s "gift of sympathy" seems
to have been wider even than St. Paul’s, for we find no evidence in the great Apostle of a love for nature or for animals.