Brother Francis and the Chorus of All Things

In the autumn of 1225, nearly blind and wracked with pain, Francis of Assisi lay in a small hut beside the chapel of San Damiano. His eyes, burned by years of desert sun and weeping prayer, could barely distinguish light from shadow. Yet it was there, in that unlikely place of suffering, that he composed what many consider the first great poem in the Italian language — the Canticle of the Sun.

"Praised be You, my Lord, through Brother Sun," he dictated, his voice thin but certain. "Through Sister Moon and the Stars. Through Brother Wind and Sister Water." He praised the Almighty through fire and earth, through every creature that crawled or flew or swam. He even praised God through bodily death itself.

What strikes the reader centuries later is not merely the beauty of the words but the circumstances. Francis did not write this hymn from a mountaintop. He wrote it from a sickbed. He could no longer see the sun he praised. He could barely stand on the earth he celebrated. Yet he understood something Psalm 148 declares with thundering clarity — that praise is not an opinion we offer when conditions suit us. It is the fundamental posture of all creation before its Maker.

The psalmist commands sea creatures and storm clouds, cedars and cattle, kings and children to praise the name of the Lord. Francis, broken and blind, simply joined the chorus that was already singing.