Dear Friends in Christ,

If there’s one lesson that my seminary dean drilled into my head over the course of three years, it’s that “you must never anticipate a feast!” You can transfer it later, but you can never shunt it forward…

Well, I must cover myself in sackcloth and ashes, because not only are we anticipating Francis’s feast by a single day, my seminary dean, himself, will be present to help lead our Saturday quiet morning and preach on that worthy saint’s life!

In the twentieth century especially, Saint Francis has taken on a broad popular devotion. Many Christians have justly become enamored with the Prayer Attributed to Saint Francis (“Lord, make us instruments of your peace”), though it is certainly not by him. (It is probably by the early-twentieth-century French priest and publisher, Fr Esther Bouquere).

And as the stewardship of God’s creation has become of increasing public concern—both natural and animal—many Christians have been inspired by the ministry of Francis, who famously preached the Gospel to the birds.

These are all worthy things to remember him for.

But I think the most important legacy of Francis—one still lived out by the friars who take him as their patron, and one lived out by the late (and first Franciscan) Pope—is a legacy of poverty, humility, and service.

Francis was a man born into considerable wealth, for whom worldly authority and worldly comfort were readily at hand. But he eschewed all this and, instead, pursued a life in service of the poor and downtrodden. He preached, passionately, to people for whom the Sacraments of the Church were a distant thing, hidden behind rood screens in grand abbey churches.

Francis was a man whose experience of God brought him ever closer to the lowly, and whose experience of the lowly brought him ever closer to God.

Except in churches that have him as their patron, Francis’s feast should never be kept on a Sunday—though I fear a great many parishes do not observe this rule. No doubt Francis, a man of such quiet humility, would be aghast to see the fuss so many of us make over him. So tomorrow, Saturday, we will try to remember his ministry in a quieter way.

I hope you’ll join us at 8:30am tomorrow, Saturday, October 3, for Holy Eucharist in commemoration of Saint Francis with a blessing of the animals. And please stick around after, for a morning of quiet contemplation and prayer, led by Fr Andrew McGowan. Perhaps in the quietude of the church and our beautiful gardens we will hear that birdsong that inspired Francis to preach.

Yours, faithfully,

—Fr Matthew