10-07-23

ECCLESIOLOGICAL ETCHINGS
October 7, 2023
The Feast Day of St. Francis of Assisi (not something most Protestants recognize in the same way our Catholic siblings do) was Wednesday, October 4. There are many exceptional quotes from St. Francis, including these:

Start by doing what’s necessary; then do what’s possible; and suddenly you are doing the impossible.

If you have people who will exclude any of God’s creatures from the shelter of compassion and pity, you will have people who will deal likewise with other people. 

Lord, grant I might not so much seek to be loved as to love.

As I said in yesterday’s Etching, St. Francis inspired the idea of offering gratitude for and blessing of animals. For Francis, it was all about viewing creation wholistically, everything was from God and needed to be encountered through the lens of love. That’s easy when I think about a fluffy puppy, but what about a slug, vulture or monkfish? Like a lot of things in the life of faith, there are moments when it appears to be a breeze to live into some high ideal, and then the next moment you find yourself looking into the eyes of a monkfish and feeling God’s voice wanting you to affirm the sacred beauty and preciousness of the creature. But the cute puppy and that monkfish are both members of creation, the creation God declared to be good.

Every creature, great and small, is precious in your sight, Magnificent God! And I am so thankful, especially for those days when I sort of feel like the monkfish in a sea of cute puppies. Amen.

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MONKFISH