Let’s explore Francis’ image of God that he names in his “Canticle of the Creatures.” Poetry, song, art, help us to enter into the mystery and expansiveness of the divine. Father Greg Friedman discusses one of the popular heresies at the time of Francis which was the notion that material world was “evil” and the spiritual world was “good.” Rigid religion, of course, has been known to narrow the image of God as well.
For Francis, the Incarnation was a kind of poetic experience that broke all that open. I find it really moving to look at Francis’ life and see how the incarnation completely transformed his perspective and really his entire mode of being in the world. If God was so humble to be born as a vulnerable baby, to become a lowly piece of bread in the Eucharist, to breathe the world into existence, then the material world, the Created Order, was infused with the sacred. “O sublime humility!,” Francis wrote. “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!” We can sense Francis’ image of a humble God when he continues, “Hold back nothing of yourselves for yourselves, that He Who gives Himself totally to you may receive you totally!” This expansive image of the divine will ultimately bring us back to love and its transformative power. And I think that daring to name this mystery which permeates our lives can help us to deepen our gaze and also work through the complex thoughts and feelings within us.
I’ll conclude with this quote from Merton: “To say that I am made in the image of God is to say that love is the reason for my existence, for God is love. Love is my true identity. Selflessness is my true self. Love is my true character. Love is my name.”
—from Franciscan Media’s Franciscan Spirit Podcast
with host Stephen Copeland, featuring Greg Friedman, OFM
