As I write this, it is October 4, the Feast Day of St. Francis, beloved by many the world over. Putting aside any temptations to sentimentalize him and lock him up in bird baths, he stands out as a fine model of healthy masculinity.
His well-known love of birds, animals, fishes, flowers and bushes as well as caves qualify him as a Green Man for sure. A cave is of course a feminine image of returning to the womb of Mother Earth and caves were his favorite place to retreat to.
He was also very observant about the new world that was arising around him. A post-feudal and post-monastically dominated religious world included freed serfs and commune living that inspired his ideas for a new kind of community.
Medieval scholar Père Chenu reminds us that Francis’s spirituality of poverty was not just a personal vow, but part of a “social evolution” that turned its back on an “obsolete” monastic sense of economics that was thoroughly tied up with the dying feudal regime.
Chenu also tells us that Francis’s sense of Joy changed a civilization more fully than did kings and power brokers of the time.
Auxilium Christianorum
Francis’s greatest poem is a Cosmic Christ poem.
Most high, all-powerful, all good Lord!
All praise is yours, all glory, all honor
And all blessing.
He sings praise and blessing back to their source.
To you alone Most High, do they belong.
No mortal lips are worthy
To pronounce your name.
He invokes the apophatic Divinity, our inability to name the mystery that is divinity. Yet, the divine is incarnated in nature:
All praise be yours, my Lord, through all that you have made,
And first my Lord Brother Sun,
Who brings the day; and light you give to us through him.
How beautiful he is, how radiant in all his splendor!
Of you, Most High, he bears the likeness.
To be continued
Adapted from Matthew Fox, The Coming of the Cosmic Christ, p. 114.
Banner Image: “Mural of St. Francis of Assisi and the Wolf of Gubbio at the St. Francis Inn in the Kensington section of Philadelphia, Pa.” Photo by Jim McIntosh on Flickr.
Queries for Contemplation
Do you recognize Francis as a Green Man and a model of a healthier masculinity?
Related Readings by Matthew Fox
The Coming of the Cosmic Christ: The Healing of Mother Earth and the Birth of a Global Renaissance
In what may be considered the most comprehensive outline of the Christian paradigm shift of our Age, Matthew Fox eloquently foreshadows the manner in which the spirit of Christ resurrects in terms of the return to an earth-based mysticism, the expression of creativity, mystical sexuality, the respect due the young, the rebirth of effective forms of worship—all of these mirroring the ongoing blessings of Mother Earth and the recovery of Eros, the feminine aspect of the Divine.
“The eighth wonder of the world…convincing proof that our Western religious tradition does indeed have the depth of imagination to reinvent its faith.” — Brian Swimme, author of The Universe Story and Journey of the Universe.
“This book is a classic.” Thomas Berry, author of The Great Work and The Dream of the Earth.
6 thoughts on “Francis Balancing Masculine & Feminine in Father Sky, Mother Earth”
This paragraph could use a little unpacking:
Medieval scholar Père Chenu reminds us that Francis’s spirituality of poverty was not just a personal vow but part of a “social evolution” that turned its back on an “obsolete” monastic sense of economics that was thoroughly tied up with the dying feudal regime.
What I see in St. Francis is a soul responding to the living spiritual essence and presence of God in the all and the everything of creation. Unfolding within this evolutionary shift of consciousness, emerged an awakened heart, full of love, compassion, mercy and gratitude for all life; as he converged in relationship with this spiritual reality.
I also see in St. Francis his own inner struggle of fully including ALL of himself; the physicality of his humanness, in relationship with this spiritual reality of embodiment of the living essence and presence of God within; which he suffered through in unhealthy self-inflicted mortification. It is said, that during his death he regretted not extending this love, compassion, mercy and gratitude towards his own body; which is the sacred temple of God.
So my answer to today’s query is both yes AND no… for there is something to learn from both of these healthy and unhealthy expressions of masculinity within St. Francis’s journey of the soul.
Thank you, Jeanette. I agree with the caveat about not respecting his own body.
Yes! Thank you DM team for the beautiful video of St. Francis’s “Canticle of the Creatures”!
There is also a story told of when Francis was a soldier, that he met Shams of Tabriz (Rumi’s teacher) in a tavern in Damascus where they played cards.
Francis, and the many other saints who practiced extreme forms of self-mortification/asceticism, are the tragedies of the dualism that Christians embraced, even while they viciously attacked and exterminated “heretic gnostics” for being dualistic. Then Christians stirred in “mortal sin.” turning human bodies into inherently-created sin-garbage. Humans were demonized from conception.
But it didn’t have to be that way. Mystical Christian nondualism was originally vigorously embraced, according to Irenaeus (who linked it into a very short transmission back directly to John, the author of the Gospel.) He wholeheartedly attacked the gnostics BECAUSE of their dualism/non-unity. (So did Plotinus, the famous neoplatonic mystic), and he emphasized the body and the created world AS part of the Divine Unity of God.
This means:
1) John insisted upon MYSTICISM as a fundamental aspect of Jesus’s intended message;
2) It was a UNITIVE, NONDUALISTIC message; and
3) it AFFIRMED humans, their bodies, and Creation.
Christianity was born in a tempestuous, changing, pluralistic society that was very dualistic, and it has always resisted its own nondualistic, unitive mystical Truth. Now, most Westerners don’t even realize the
centrality or even existence of this mysticism in the Bible.