The Painted Prayerbook

Saint Francis © Jan L. Richardson

Happy Feast of St. Francis! As I mentioned on the Feast of St. Clare, the hospitality of Franciscans has been a pivotal gift in my life, and I owe them much for helping to preserve my vocation and to sustain me when I made a flying leap into ministry beyond the local church. In particular, it was my Franciscan friend Brother David who helped to inspire that leap and gave me a place to land. I had met him when I was serving as a pastor. Shortly afterward, he established a Center for Art and Contemplation at the retreat center where he worked and where, thanks to the good graces of the Franciscans and not a few other folks, I would become artist-in-residence for some years.

David and his brothers at San Pedro Center gave flesh to the wonders and challenges of Franciscan life and to the spirit of St. Francis. Born in Italy in the 12th century, Francis gave up the riches of his family in order to embrace a life of radical devotion to God and to God’s creatures. He took as spouse the one whom he called Lady Poverty, and a community began to gather around him; they became known as the friars minor (“lesser brothers”). Their rhythm of life included preaching missions (Francis traveled widely, journeying even to Egypt), periods of fasting and prayer, and service to those who lived on and beyond the margins of the society, notably those living with leprosy. It was during a period of fasting and prayer prior to the Feast of Michaelmas that Francis, secluded on a mountain with Brother Leo, received the stigmata—the wounds of Christ.

We know St. Francis in large part for The Canticle of the Creatures, which he began during a time of intense illness. Of his desire to write the canticle, he said to his brothers, “I wish to compose a new hymn about the Lord’s creatures, of which we make daily use, without which we cannot live, and with which the human race greatly offends its Creator.” His praises include, famously, “Sir Brother Sun” and “Sister Moon and the stars” as well as “Brother Wind,” “Sister Water,” and “Brother Fire.” He counted mortality among God’s familiar and familial creatures; on his deathbed, Francis added verses that included the line, “Praised be You, my Lord, through our Sister Bodily Death, from whom no one living can escape.”

Francis left behind a handful of other writings that testify to his deep and simple love of God. With World Communion Sunday coming up tomorrow, it seems fitting to include this portion from A Letter to the Entire Order, which Francis wrote in 1225-1226:

Let everyone be struck with fear,
let the whole world tremble,
and let the heavens exult
when Christ, the Son of the living God,
is present on the altar in the hands of a priest!
O wonderful loftiness and stupendous dignity!
O sublime humility!
O humble sublimity!
The Lord of the universe,
God and the Son of God,
so humbles Himself
that for our salvation
He hides Himself
under an ordinary piece of bread!
Brothers, look at the humility of God,
and pour out your hearts before Him!
Humble yourselves
that you may be exalted by Him!
Hold back nothing of yourselves for yourselves,
that He Who gives Himself totally to you
may receive you totally!

And in the Earlier Rule that Francis wrote for his community, he pleaded,

Therefore,
let us desire nothing else,
let us want nothing else,
let nothing else please us and cause us delight
except our Creator, Redeemer and Savior,
the only true God,
Who is the fullness of good….

Therefore,
let nothing hinder us,
nothing separate us,
nothing come between us.

On this day of celebration, and all the days to come, may it be so. Happy Feast!

(Quotations from Francis of Assisi: The Saint, ed. by Regis Armstrong, O.F.M. Cap., et al.)

Artwork: detail from “St. Francis” © Jan L. Richardson. To use this image, please visit this page at janrichardsonimages.com. Thank you!

Saint Clare © Jan L. Richardson

When I became the Artist in Residence at a Catholic retreat center more than a decade ago, it was due in large measure to the hospitality of the Franciscan community that administered the center. I harbor a deep fondness for Franciscans as a result, and so today is a particular day of celebration. It’s the Feast of Saint Clare, the friend and colleague of Saint Francis who became a remarkable leader in her own right.

Born in Assisi, Italy, around 1194, Clare was the third of five children born to the well-to-do Favorone family. The story is told that as Clare’s mother Ortulana anxiously prayed for her child’s safe birth, a voice called to her, “O lady, do not be afraid, for you will joyfully bring forth a clear light that will illumine the world.” When she gave birth to a healthy daughter, Ortulana and her husband named her Chiara or Clare: the clear one, the bright one.

In his book Clare of Assisi: Early Documents, Regis Armstrong relates a story about Clare that took place on Palm Sunday in 1212. He writes that “when all the young ladies of the town customarily dressed in their finest and proudly processed to the Bishop for a palm branch…Clare remained in her place, prompting him to come to her.” Although some ascribed her reticence to shyness, Armstrong suggests that this was “a symbolic gesture suggesting her renunciation of the social conventions of the time with all the vanity and appeal to wealth with which they were imbued and the Bishop’s awareness and reverence of the movement of God within her.” That same Sunday, Clare, who had befriended a radical young preacher named Francis, secretly went to Our Lady of Angels, the Portiuncula, where she made a commitment to Francis and his spiritual brothers to embrace their life of devotion and poverty.

Clare lived in several monasteries, moving more than once to avoid pressure from her family, who had sought to arrange a marriage for her. Other women later joined her, including her mother, and Clare became the leader of the Poor Ladies of San Damiano, later to be known as the Poor Clares. Clare and her sisters shared Francis’s passion for poverty, humility, and charity to all, particularly those on the margins of the affluent society in which Clare and Francis had grown up.

In a time when women’s monastic communities received various forms of protection from the church, including financial support, Clare insisted that her community have the right to poverty, trusting that the goodwill of others would provide for their needs. The church authorities resisted Clare on this point, but she refused to relent. Finally, on August 10, 1253, Clare received an approved copy of the Rule she had written for her community. Bearing the seal of Pope Innocent IV, the document ensured that the charism of poverty would remain the privilege of the community that Clare had founded. Clare died the next day.

Although tradition attached to Clare the identity of la pianticella (the little plant) of St. Francis, she embodied her own distinct vision, one that continued to shape Franciscan life after Francis’s death. Clare’s few surviving writings reveal a deep commitment to a God-centered life, a life in which she sought to give up all that would hinder intimacy with God.

In Clare’s “Second Letter to Blessed Agnes of Prague,” she offers this blessing:

What you hold, may you [always] hold.
What you do, may you [always] do and never abandon.
But with swift pace, light step,
unswerving feet,
so that even your steps stir up no dust,
may you go forward
securely, joyfully, and swiftly,
on the path of prudent happiness,
not believing anything,
not agreeing with anything
that would dissuade you from this resolution
or that would place a stumbling block for you on the way,
so that you may offer your vows to the Most High
in the pursuit of that perfection
to which the Spirit of the Lord has called you.

And so may this be our blessing for this day. Happy Feast of Saint Clare!

Artwork: detail from “Saint Clare” © Jan L. Richardson. To use this image, please visit this page at janrichardsonimages.com. Thank you!

Clare’s blessing is taken from Regis Armstrong’s book Clare of Assisi: Early Documents.