Within the writings of St. Francis that exist today, we find a brief prayer composed by the saint known as his Prayer Before a Crucifix. In his Major Life of St. Francis, St. Bonaventure wrote: “The brothers spent their time praying continuously. They prayed more from the heart than with the lips, since they did not yet possess any liturgical books. Rather, the cross of Christ was their book, and they studied it day and night after the example of their father, who never ceased exhorting them about the cross.”

Whenever Francis would go into a forest for prayer in solitude with his brothers, not having any prayer books, they would take two branches of a tree, bind them in the form of a cross, and on this symbol of Christ’s suffering and death, they focused their prayer. St. Francis would have recited this prayer before the famous Crucifix of San Damiano and would have used it whenever he saw any crucifix:

Most High, glorious God,
enlighten the darkness of my heart
and give me right faith, firm hope,
and perfect charity, wisdom, and perception,
O Lord, that I may do your holy and true will.

The only type of crucifix that St. Francis knew in the 13th century was a painted crucifix, of which a few remain in Assisi today. He was acquainted only with the type of crucifix in the style of the Crucifix of San Damiano, an icon, and never knew the familiar crucifix we frequently see today, with a threedimensional corpus on it which emerged a century after St. Francis. It was before these wooden or painted crucifixes that he prayed, he meditated.

During a few of the Lents of my life, I meditated on St. Francis’ Prayer Before a Crucifix. I found five themes for myself in this short prayer: Light, Faith, Hope, Love, and the Will of God. These themes animated St. Francis’ prayer whenever he sat before a crucifix, and they would have been for him a deep well from which to draw living water that nourished his meditation. And it was during one of these Lents, reflecting on those five themes with the Scriptures and from stories about St. Francis, St. Clare, and some of the early Franciscans, that I wrote down my reflections. I began using them for Lenten retreats with others and ultimately got them published, entitled: The Cross Was Their Book. The book is available HERE.

At the end of each section in the book, there are suggestions to assist you in your own meditation. Since Sacred Scripture was the main focus of St. Francis’ meditation, biblical passages are offered for each of the five themes. And finally, St. Francis reflected on his encounters with God every day. This reflection becomes the challenge for each of us as we try to discover how we personally encounter and incarnate in ourselves each of the themes of St. Francis’ Prayer Before a Crucifix.

A myth about St. Francis that I’d like to dispel is the claim that he was responsible for the first Christmas crib scene, il presepio. I cringe a bit when I hear this, as I believe he would as well, for it seems one already existed in Rome in the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore. Nevertheless, he certainly helped popularize the Christmas crèche.

One of my Franciscan brothers, Bill Short, wrote: “In one sense, we can say that the events of Christmas 1223 were important to the ‘democratization’ of Jesus’ birth…Francis’ Christmas crib at Greccio proclaims that it is possible for ordinary folk, who work hard and raise families, to enter into union with God with the help of good preaching, good staging, and, of course, grace.” The first biographer of St. Francis describes that Christmas celebration at Greccio as follows:

“About fifteen days before Christmas, St. Francis was in the little town Greccio and sent this message to a citizen, John of Vellita: ‘If you wish to celebrate the feast of Christmas, go and prepare what I tell you. For I want to recall to memory the little Child born in Bethlehem, and set before our eyes the inconveniences of his infant needs, how he laid in a manger, how, with an ox and ass standing by, he lay upon the hay.’ So, John prepared all.

As Christmas drew near, the brothers arrived from various places. Neighbors prepared candles and torches to light up that night. Finally, St. Francis arrived and saw the manger prepared with hay, the ox and ass also present. There, simplicity was honored, poverty exalted, humility commended, and Greccio was made into a new Bethlehem.

The night was lighted up like the day. The people were filled with joy. The brothers sang as the saint of God stood before the manger overcome with love and joy. Mass was celebrated over the manger.

The saint of God, clothed with the vestments of the Deacon for he was a Deacon, sang the holy Gospel, preached to the people about the birth of the poor King and the little town of Bethlehem. A vision was seen by a man of a little child lying in the manger lifeless. Then he saw St. Francis go up to it and rouse the child as from a deep sleep, for the Child Jesus had been forgotten in the hearts of many; but, by the working of grace, the Child was brought to life again through St. Francis and impressed upon their memory. When the solemn night celebration concluded, everyone went home with joy.”

[Friar Thomas of Celano, First Life 84–86].

A parishioner gave me a magnetized bumper sticker of a Christmas crèche with the message: “Keep Christ in Christmas!” With all the commercialism and secularism surrounding this feast, displaying a crèche, both inside and outside our homes, proclaims that “the Child Jesus has [not] been forgotten in the hearts” of our parishioners.

Statues of St. Francis are often found in gardens, and he’s been jokingly referred to as “the birdbath saint.” St. Francis’ close, almost mystical, association with nature has emerged because of a poem he composed in the last months of his life: his Canticle of the Creatures or his Canticle of Brother Sun. This Canticle is the first poem encountered by all students of Italian literature.

St. Francis lived intimately with creation, was enamored of creation, and sang the praises of God for his relationship with Brother Sun, Sister Moon and Stars, Brother Wind and Weather, Sister Water, Brother Fire, and our Sister Mother Earth. This Brother/Sister/Mother connection with all of creation was also experienced with the men who began to follow him as brothers/friars.

In the 13th century, there was no concept of one-to-one relationships like St. Francis had with his brothers and creation which he referred to by the word fraternitas, a Latin word of feminine gender. To translate it literally into English as “fraternity” alludes to male dwellings at a university, so the Latin word is the preferred use.

Religious life up to the time of St. Francis was mostly lived in monasteries, and the only expectation of the monk or nun was to relate to the community as a whole, one-to-all. So, when men and women began to join his movement, St. Francis invited them into a fraternitas, not into a communitas — a community. In fact, the word “community” is not found anywhere in St. Francis’ personal writings. Those who came to live with St. Francis were invited into a fraternitas — meaning they were taught and encouraged to live a life of relationship to each other on a one-to-one basis.

One example of his one-to-one relationship with creation occurred in the last year of his life. He suffered from trachoma of the eyes, and the treatment then was cauterization of the eyes. As the doctor started the procedure, St. Francis said: “My Brother Fire, be kind to me…for I have loved you and beg the Lord to temper your heat.” As the doctor drew the iron from the fire, the brothers in the room with him fled. When they returned, St. Francis said to them: “I did not feel either the heat of the fire nor any pain in my flesh;” and then to the doctor: “If my flesh is not sufficiently burned, burn it again” [Second Life of St. Francis, Thomas of Celano, section 166]. He lived in harmony with all of creation.

It’s interesting to note that no animals at all are mentioned in his Canticle of the Creatures. However, the early biographies are filled with stories about the Saint and his experiences with the animal world.

So, in spite of sometimes being referred to as “the birdbath saint,” it was Pope Saint John Paul II who made St. Francis of Assisi patron saint of the environment and ecology on November 29, 1979.