The Saint and the Animals.

Tomorrow is the 4th of October. It is the feast day of St Francis of Assisi, the patron saint of animals and ecology/the environment in the Christian calendar. It is also World Animals Day.

You see how animals and the environment are grouped together, all part of God's creation, part of this world. Why should we give this respect and consideration to animals? Like it or not, there is a bond between human beings and animals, a special bond between living, feeling beings.

St Francis recognised this special bond. He preached to birds and other animals. He believed that we like the animals, should sing praise to God our creature. There is the story of St Francis and the wolf of Grubbo. This wolf was terrorising the town and all in it. St Francis was able to get the wolf to stop its reigh of terror and had a pact made between the town and the wolf. The toown people would feed the wolf and it would leave them in peace.

St Francis called animals his brothers and sisters. He saw a oneness between animals and us that many never want to see. This was in the 16th century A.D! He wrote the Canticle of the Creatures praising God's creatures and God. There is a plaque in the garden of St Claire, a follower of Francis, inscribed with this song of praise. I want to see it myself some day. Its in Italian but so what? I will lay my hands on it and run through each word.

St Francis was a lot more. He gave up everything to help the needy, to preach God's Word including peace. Even the Muslims repected him and he was given safe passage to the Holy Land. The St Francis Assisi Prayer for Peace was written to embody the spirit by which he lived, was written during the First World War. Read also and enjoy Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's "The Sermon of St Francis. You may not be religious but he was a good man loved God and all life.

So, tomorrow, pat and praise your animals, know that they are God's creatures too and think of what you can do for ecology.

Peace be upon you.