Francis’ companions summarized it as follows: It is not surprising that the fire and other creatures respected him. We, who lived with him, have seen with shock how he loved and respected these creatures. And because of them he became deeply joyful. His Spirit was so filled with affection and sympathy for all creatures, that he was disturbed whenever someone treated them with disrespect. Filled with enthusiasm, he spoke to the creatures as if they had a feeling for God and as if they could speak to and worship Him. And many times he was immersed in that situation of being enraptured in God, that his sense of time fades away (SP 86).
There is, therefore, a “human” (i.e., at the level of the human person) relationship between man and nature. For Francis, everything that exists and the common factor in all these things must be seen and understood in the human level, not in a subhuman level, or in a “dionysian” level where man loses his identity in the intoxicating oneness with nature.
Reference to Jesus
The spiritual basis of modern ecological consciousness can be traced back to the 13th century. In fact, the Canticle of Brother Sun already included an ecological dimension. A source narrating the composition of the Canticle is proof of this: We need nature every day and cannot manage without it. And yet it is through nature that we offend our Creator over and over again (SP 83).
But it is doubtful whether Francis would have discovered this relationship with nature if he had not first found and made a firm decision for Jesus. There is even a point in which he specifically links every experience of God to Jesus Christ (cf. RH 1). Even his biographer suggests such an interpretation when mentioning the exceptional circumstances that led to the writing of the Canticle of Brother Sun: Francis underwent experiences of extreme frailty and infirmity (infirmitas), of resignation and dark night (tribulatio), an experience that is almost characteristic of our own age. The second experience Francis had was that of the love and mercy of God which gave him renewed strength (confortatio) and reassurance (certificatio).
Only after this second experience was he able to compose his extraordinary poem on creation, the Canticle of Brother Sun. Only out of the love of God and of Jesus can the creatures become brothers and sisters to each other. This can be expressed in words which Francis himself used:
Kissing your feet, and with all that love of which I am capable, I implore all of you brothers to show all possible reverence and honor to the most holy Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, in whom that which is in the heavens and on the earth is brought to peace and is reconciled to the all-powerful God (L. Ord 12).
In the Eucharist, the bread and wine, the gifts of creation, become a place where God meets man through Jesus Christ. The sacred signs (=sacrament) pertain not only to the relationship between God and the human soul. As the Jesuit, natural scientist and philosopher, Teilhard de Chardin, says, they have a cosmic dimension. In the Eucharistic celebration all matter is “consecrated”..
From CCFMC LU 12
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