Feast of St Francis, a rich boy who renounced his privilege and heard a voice from the cross in a ruined chapel calling him to “repair my church.” He came to understand that this meant restoring the church to the image of Jesus—nonviolent, poor, and for the poor.

Francis has been sentimentalized by charming images of him preaching to the birds. But Francis represented a radical breakthrough to a new model of human and cosmic community—a new relationship between men and women, with people of other faiths, with nature...

—contrary to the values of his world (and our own). His was the name that occurred to Pope Francis when he was elected pope. “Immediately I thought of St Francis of Assisi. Francis was a man of peace, a man of poverty, a man who loved and protected creation.” (Art: J.A Swanson)

Francis’ Canticle to the Sun inspired the title of Pope Francis’ encyclical on “care for creation”: Laudato Si’. Written during a time of suffering, it extols “Brother Sun, Sister Moon,” wind, fire, those who forgive and those who endure in peace—finally Sister Death.