“Praise the Lord. Praise God in his sanctuary;
praise him in his mighty heavens.
Praise him for his acts of power;
praise him for his surpassing greatness.
Praise him with the sounding of the trumpet,
praise him with the harp and lyre,
praise him with timbrel and dancing,
praise him with the strings and pipe,
praise him with the clash of cymbals,
praise him with resounding cymbals.
Let everything that has breath praise the Lord.” (Psalm 150, NIV)
After voicing all the ways that we should praise the Lord, the Psalmist concluded, “Let everything that has breath praise the Lord.” Has anyone taken that more literally than Saint Francis? He was explicit in his praise to the three persons of the Trinity.
“Worthy art Thou, O Lord, our God, to receive praise, glory and honor and benediction. Let us praise and exalt Him above all forever. The Lamb that was slain is worthy to receive power and divinity and wisdom and strength and honor and benediction. Let us praise and exalt him above all forever. Let us bless the Father and the Son with the Holy Ghost. Let us praise and exalt Him above all forever. Let the heaven and earth praise Him, the Glorious, and every creature which is in heaven and on earth and under the earth, in the seas and all that are in them.”
Saint Francis’ “The Canticle to the Sun” is some of his best-known writing. He began, “Praise be my Lord with all His creatures, and especially our brother the sun, who brings us the day, and who brings us the light; fair is he, and shining with a very great splendor: O Lord, he signifies to us Thee!” In the Canticle, he exhorts, “our brother, the wind; our sister, the water; our brother, fire,” and then becomes even more expansive. “Praise be my Lord for our mother, the earth, which doth sustain us and keep us, and bringeth forth diverse fruits and flowers of many colors, and grass.”
Far from pantheism, for Francis, images of things are not God. Rather, with passion, he says to all creation, “All ye works of the Lord, bless ye the Lord. Let us praise and exalt and bless Him above all forever.” His Canticle calls us to worship in the setting of the splendor of the natural world.
In many ways, Wendell Berry echoes Saint Francis. The author of more than 80 books of poetry, fiction, and essays, when he went to the University of Kentucky to teach, he and his wife made the decision to live in the country. They bought an old house and twelve acres. Often, his poetry is a celebration of the whole of creation in a Franciscan kind of way. In his poem, “Meditation in the Spring Rain,” he writes, “The thickets, I said, send up their praise at dawn.”
Praise and thanksgiving do not belong to a particular day or season but to the whole of life. “Praise the Lord! Praise God in His sanctuary. Praise Him in the mighty firmament of His power!”
Moment of Reflection: In the hymn, “All Creatures of our God and King,” we sing, “Let all things their Creator bless and worship him in humbleness.” How does God’s creation inspire your praise?
Prayer: Praise, praise the Father, praise the Son, and praise the Spirit, Three in One. Thank you, Father, for loving me with all your creation. Amen.
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