Thursday, October 6, 2022

Gospel Reflection on St. Francis of Assisi

The Rev. Rob Stevens

This week in our church calendar we commemorate St. Francis of Assisi. He is quite famous as far as saints of the church go. He is well known today mainly for his love of animals and this week many communities held a Blessing of the Animals service. I was fortunate to officiate one a St. Andrew’s-by-the-sea Tuesday and many four-legged creatures joined me.

St. Francis is also credited with a prayer that is well known. It is a prayer that I refer to as a “bathroom mirror prayer.” My most vivid and perhaps most powerful memory of this prayer was when we as a community prayed it at our Celebration of New Ministry when I was first called as your rector in 2005. I knelt in the center aisle in the middle of the church, the bishop stood by my side and all of us, together, prayed this prayer. I still get emotional thinking about that moment, and I believe it set us on the correct path together. St. Francis and the prayer attributed to him are anchors for me. I offer it to you today as a reminder of who we are to be as followers of Jesus and the Good News that it is sweet work we are called to do.

The Book of Common Prayer page 833

62. A Prayer attributed to St. Francis
Lord, make us instruments of your peace. Where there is
hatred, let us sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where
there is discord, union; where there is doubt, faith; where
there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; where
there is sadness, joy. Grant that we 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. Amen.