Is Francis the Saint of Peace?

Here is the fifth of seven weekly reflections I’m writing about St. Francis and St. Clare from my time in Assisi this fall.  Coming up in next two weeks – “Going Naked for Christ” (as Francis did) and “The Friendly Beasts – Francis and the First Public Nativity Scene.”  Today – the Saint of Peace.  (These reflections are unapologetically Christian, my spiritual tradition.)

The “Prayer of St. Francis” is beloved, profound, countercultural.  Adopted and affirmed by people of all religions and no religion, it is sung in churches, calligraphed on cards, prominent in self-help groups.  Dorothy Day prayed it daily.  Bill Wilson put it in the AA literature. 

20^th century peace movements made this prayer their anthem, and they dubbed it “The Peace Prayer.”

     Lord make me an instrument of your peace.
     Where there is hatred let me sow love.
     Where there is injury, pardon.
     Where there is doubt, faith.
     Where there is despair, hope.
     Where there is darkness, light.
     Where there is sadness, joy.

     O divine master grant that I may
     Not so much seek to be consoled as to console,
     To be understood as to understand,
     To be loved as to love.
     For it is in giving that we receive.
     It is in pardoning that we are pardoned.
     And it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.

Only problem is -  Francis of Assisi did not write this prayer.  It only first appeared in print, in French, in 1913.  Nothing close to these words are found in his writings or legends.  But by 1930 this prayer had been translated, published, adopted, memorized and sung, over and over, all around the world.  And ascribed to Francis, who had been dead for 700 years.

That’s what saints do, my teacher in Assisi told us on our fall retreat there, they are “generative,” their lives are gifts that keep on giving, even after they die.  What they “really” did or said while alive is important, otherwise we would not know of them.  But what makes them saints is that their lives and legacies keep on inspiring and magnifying. 

Both Francis and his colleague Clare have been described as “mirrors” of Christ, meaning they reflect and reveal and shine the life and teachings of Christ for generations to come. 

But I would add that they are not just mirrors, but also magnifying glasses; the pretty simple, and sometimes very difficult lives of folks we call saints shine larger and brighter and deeper as time passes and as folks in different locations are inspired by them.

In a fascinating book, “St. Francis of America” Patricia Applebaum chronicles how each generation of Americans has appropriated or magnified a particular aspect of Francis’ life and teachings, depending on the issues and needs of the time.  In the 60’s hippies portrayed Francis as a barefoot groovy guy.  More recently environmentalists have canonized him as the patron saint of ecology.  Earlier, 50’s landscape architects created the first Francis birdbath to bring a friendly gentle guy into New England formal gardens.

And in the first half of the 20^th century, Americans (and Europeans) disillusioned that the “war to end all wars” did no such thing, and despairing that the Depression was further squeezing life out of people’s bodies and souls, found in the anonymous words of the so-called Prayer of St. Francis some hope, some powerful encouragement to be instruments of peace.  Religious writers and peace activists like Quaker Rufus Jones cited the prayer over and over.

And recently, in the 21^st century, authors and peace activists have appropriated Francis in a new way as an advocate for interreligious dialogue – they praise him for a heretofore less known but well documented story, that in 1219 Francis travelled to Egypt to meet with a prominent Muslim leader, preaching reconciliation not only in Christian Italy, but in the entire multicultural, multi-religious Mediterranean and Near East.  How cool and worldly is this simple small-town guy?

Icon of Francis and the Sultan is by Brother Robert Lentz, OFMBack to the so-called “Prayer of St. Francis” - does it matter that Francis didn’t “actually” write it?    Francis left very few written words of his own – he was actually sort of anti-intellectual and a very reluctant codifier of faithful behavior.  What little we know of him is augmented by collections of legends and biographies by followers and authorized Papal accounts.   In none of these collections and lives of Francis does he say anything like this prayer, or even, remarkably, say one word about being “peacemakers.”  His main message was that to follow Christ meant radical poverty, owning nothing.  Also humility.  And joy. 

But it should be noted that many of the Francis legends are about reconciliation (town of Gubbio and the wolf) or forgiveness (many stories of how the friars should get along) or how owning things inevitably leads to violence (he said friars should not have their own prayer book because they would just fight over who had a better book and want more and more books.)  So although he never said, “We should be peacemakers,” he was all about the prerequisites or practices or marks of peacemaking – reconciliation, forgiveness, sharing. 

But in the war torn 20^th century, people were crying out more and more for peace, and Francis seemed like their guy.  His generative spirit inspired anti-Vietnam war sentiments, hippie churches, international peace conferences, writers from Tolstoy to Chesterton.

And now, in the 21^st century, Francis’ peacemaking is taking on an even more expansive, global form – interreligious dialogue, in the rediscovery of the story of his remarkable trip to Egypt in 1219 to meet with the Muslim leader there, in an attempt to bring to an end the horribly destructive Fifth Crusade.  Two recent books – “St. Francis and the Sultan,” and “The Saint and Sultan” have promoted the idea that Francis undertook this dangerous journey across the sea, with no protection or weapons or advance team, not, as tradition told it, to try to convert the Sultan to Christianity, but, in this century’s retelling, to engage, one spiritual leader with another, in their common shared love of God and neighbor.  And their sacred call to peacemaking.  Whatever happened in that month of conversations, we know for sure that the Sultan surprisingly welcomed this barefoot crazy wanderer from the enemy camp as an equal, and a friendship grew.

The last day of our retreat, after a week of visiting 13^th century churches and piazzas and homes, we visited the recently built Museum of Memory, commemorating the righteous citizens of Assisi who resisted the Germans in 1945, who on their retreat north out of Italy were slaughtering Jews and destroying ancient cities.  Thousands of Italian Jews, many of whose families had lived in Italy for centuries, streamed to Assisi, convinced that certainly the city of Francis and Clare, peacemakers, would welcome and shelter them.  As many local citizens as there were already in Assisi, 3-4000, the population was doubled by these refugees.  The local bishop, mayor, nuns, priests, simple citizens who worked in government and had printing presses to make fake documents, all worked together to hide and save thousands of Italian Jews.  The bishop even befriended the German commander assigned to Assisi, a Christian doctor from the same southern German town that later birthed Pope Benedict, and convinced him to look the other way, to hold off those intent on bombing the sacred places, to deter those searching for hiding Jews.  After the war this German was honored as a righteous Gentile.  Such is the generative power of Francis. 

That night at dinner we asked ourselves, in 2018, when they come to get us or others, where would be the safe places we could hope to be hidden and saved?

Was Francis a peacemaker?  Surely as any faithful follower of Jesus must love enemy and turn the other cheek and welcome all as children of God, yes, he was a peacemaker.  As one who saw how property and envy and fear turn us into competitors not lovers, yes, he called for reconciliation.  There is even a legend about him taking up a stick and pretending it was a violin bow and “playing” a song of joy to God.

So yes, he knew all about how we should all be “instruments” for God’s peace.  Even traveling to feared and foreign lands to learn new songs, songs of peace.  Let’s learn more about saints of the past.  And look for saints in our present, in our midst.

Copyright © 2018 Deborah Streeter