This is undoubtedly Francis’s most recognized writing, keeping in mind that the popular prayer repeated and reprinted every day all over the world as “The Prayer of Saint Francis,” beginning with the line, “Lord, make me an instrument of your peace,” wasn’t written by Francis but originated from an anonymous hand about a century ago.
Francis composed the “Canticle of the Creatures” in the Umbrian dialect of vernacular Italian when he was nearly blind, one year before his death. The circumstances are so similar to those in the Bible surrounding the “Song of Moses” in Deuteronomy 31–32 that it seems that Francis must have been inspired by the life of Moses and this earlier poem.33 However, the content and tone of the two poems couldn’t be more different.
He was living in a small hut outside the walls of San Damiano in a place that Clare had prepared for him among the gardens. There, she cared for him. He grew blinder by the day. After sixty days at San Damiano, he was unable to see at all. But in this song, he expresses his wonder and belief in the wildness and expectancies of nature as part of God’s plan for human life. This marked the true dividing point—the first real signpost—for what has become the modern understanding of how earth and heaven join together. This text is why St. Francis has long been the patron saint of environmentalists, of any and all who care about creatures and creation.
It is important to clarify that Francis did not “love nature” in any abstract sense. He never lived, spoke, or wrote in that manner. Instead, Francis loved creatures—one by one, easily and often. As one contemporary author has put it: “The Canticle signifies that the whole creation is a cosmic Incarnation—earth, air, water, sun, moon, stars—all are related to Brother Sun who is the splendor and radiance of the Most High. We might read Francis’ Canticle as foreshadowing the new creation, when we will find ourselves related to all things in the spirit of reconciliation and peace.”34
Francis begins by integrating the natural and the spiritual in a way that deliberately honored those creatures and aspects of creation that we normally either forget or despise.
Most high, almighty, good Lord God,
to you belong all praise, glory, honor, and blessing!
Praised be you, O my Lord and God, with all your creatures,
and especially our Brother Sun,
who brings us the day and who brings us the light.
He is fair and shines with a very great splendor:
O Lord, he signifies you to us!
Praised be you, Most High, for Sister Moon and the Stars,
you set them in the heavens, making them so
bright, luminous, and fine.
Praised be you, O my Lord, for our Brother Wind,
and for air and cloud, calms and all weather
by whom you uphold life in all creatures.
Praise the Lord for our Sister Water,
who is very useful to us and humble
and precious and clean.
Praise the Lord for our Brother Fire,
through whom you give us light in the darkness.
He is bright and pleasant and very mighty and strong.
Praise the Lord for our Mother Earth,
who sustains us and keeps us,
and brings forth the grass and all
of the fruits and flowers of many colors.
This was the beginning of the Canticle, which Francis then taught to his companions, asking them to sing it. Then, he needed to add another verse when the bishop of Assisi was arguing with a local governor so fiercely that the bishop excommunicated the governor and the governor forbade any citizen to enter into any contract with the bishop.
The Mirror of Perfection tells us that Francis was grieved when he heard of their bickering, but “most of all he was grieved that no one had gotten between them to try and make peace.”35 So Francis wrote this additional verse for his song, speaking to the need for mediating justice and peace among the powers of the world.
Praised be you, O my Lord, for all who show forgiveness and pardon one another for your sake, and who endure weakness and tribulation.
Blessed are they who peaceably endure,
For you, Most High, shall give them a crown.
Last, at the very end of his life, Francis made room for death in his hymn. He could hardly open his eyes, and any sunlight was painful to him. “Brother Ass” he had once called his own body, comparing it to the beast of burden that never does all that its master requires of it. But Francis transformed his discomfort into praise for those parts of earthly existence that most challenged him. Once he was told by his doctors and companions that his infirmities were beyond healing, the time had come to look forward to death, and he did. He asked for Leo and Angelo to come to his side and sing to him of Sister Death. Francis had written the last verse.
Praise to you, O my Lord, for our Sister Death
and the death of the body from whom no one may escape.
Woe to those who die in mortal sin,
but blessed are they who are found walking by your most holy will,
For the second death
shall have no power to do them any harm.
Praise to you, O my Lord, and all blessing.
We give you thanks and serve you with great humility.
33 See Deut. 31:14–22, which begins with God telling Moses, “Your time to die is near,” and ends with: “That very day Moses wrote this song and taught it to the Israelites.” Then, the Song of Moses itself appears in Deut. 32:1–43.
34 Delio, Franciscan Prayer, 136.
35 The Mirror of Perfection was written anonymously in about 1318, and first published in 1898 in a French edition by Paul Sabatier. Today it is available in many English language editions including in the third volume of Armstrong, Francis of Assisi, and in Habig, St. Francis of Assisi: Omnibus. The short translation quoted above is from tale 101 in The Mirror, in my own translation.