Season of Creation 2025 - Week Four
Week Four Spotlight - St. Francis and Kinship with Creation
by the Rev. Ryan Boettcher
You may have heard that we have a big event coming up in the life of the church: St. Francis Fest on Sunday, October 5th from 4-6pm at Nomadic Outpost. On this feast day, we celebrate the well-known “patron saint for animals and the environment” who lived in 12-13th century Italy.
Francis came from a wealthy family, but over time, he became disillusioned with his wealth. Eventually he renounced it, with some stories even suggesting that Francis literally took the clothes off of his back while making a vow of poverty in front of the bishop of Assisi.
Numerous stories tell tales of Francis preaching to the birds and developing a close relationship with the environment around him. In the book, Refugia Faith (a book the Creation Care team is reading through right now!), Debra Rienstra shares how Francis cultivated a “kinship” with the whole of creation, even calling the sun, “brother,” and the moon, “sister.” According to legend, Francis was the first one to stage a live nativity scene at Christmas! “His sense of kinship arose from his ability to perceive the essence of the incarnation: kenosis, emptying…[and] becoming childlike in his gentle love for other creatures, including people.” (*see below)
Mural at the Cathedral of St. Francis, Santa Fe, NM. Photo by Mtr. Janne.
St. Francis Fest provides us with an opportunity to not only celebrate God’s good earth and our pets, but also to cultivate a kinship with all of creation and the companions we have been tasked to care for. And in doing so, we are invited, even if just for a little while, into the good news that we are not the center of the universe. Francis reminds us that we all can follow Jesus into this kenotic life of love and kinship.
We hope you can join us for St. Francis Fest this year as we celebrate our kinship with all of creation! Learn more below.
*pp 73-74, Refugia Faith: Seeking Hidden Shelters, Ordinary Wonders, and the Healing of the Earth, by Debra Reinstra. “Rather than imagining ourselves as the only creatures that matter in the whole universe, we instead imitate the self-emptying love of Christ. The Christmas season invites us to ponder that radiant incarnational moment in history, the crisis point that gathers all creatures into kinship, embraced by the kenotic love of God.”
