From the Vicar
Earlier in the year we had earmarked the last day of the school term (Friday 1st Oct) as a St Francis inspired pet-blessing service. I was rather looking forward to the cacophony of God’s creation, but alas, Alert Level 2 struck again and we had to have a more subdued celebration (not that a room full of children can’t be equally as raucous as a hall full of animals!).
This Sunday’s service is a celebration of St Francis too. One of the most well-known of the saints, there is a good amount known of his life, but also a good amount of fable attributed to him. The saying, “Preach the gospel; when necessary use words” is an oft-quoted favourite that doesn’t actually come from Francis. Certainly he believed that one must live a life of holiness, as seen in chapter XII of his 1221 rule, “No brother should preach contrary to the form and regulations of the holy Church nor unless he has been permitted by his minister … All the Friars … should preach by their deeds.” But Francis did most of his preaching with words. Writing just three years after Francis’ death, biographer Thomas of Celeno writes, “His words were neither hollow nor ridiculous, but filled with the power of the Holy Spirit, penetrating the marrow of the heart, so that listeners were turned to great amazement.”
Our man clearly spent a great deal of time using his words when he preached, “sometimes preaching in up to five villages a day, often outdoors. In the country, Francis often spoke from a bale of straw or a granary doorway. In town, he would climb on a box or up steps in a public building. He preached to . . . any who gathered to hear the strange but fiery little preacher from Assisi.” He was sometimes so animated and passionate in his delivery that “his feet moved as if he were dancing.”
It can be easy to turn St Francis into a quaint, gentle man preaching to the birds and penning verses like, “Make me a channel of your peace” (another false attribution that can’t be traced back further than 1912). But on closer inspection, Francis was a much more radical, disruptive, and destabilising figure. May we too live as holy disrupters and bold proclaimers of a different and better way.
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