St. Francis’ ‘Canticle of the Creatures’ at 800 endures as vision of redeemed creation

A hunter’s moon rises behind a statue of St. Francis of Assisi on the grounds of the National Shrine of Our Lady of Champion in Champion, Wis. (OSV News photo/Sam Lucero, CNS)VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Eight centuries ago, St. Francis of Assisi composed a poem that remains familiar today, inspiring hymns, art and the titles of two of the late Pope Francis’ teaching documents on integral ecology.

“The Canticle of the Creatures” includes tributes to “Brother Sun,” “Sister Moon and Stars,” “Brother Wind” and “Sister Water,” all of whom give glory to God, their creator. Though perhaps less cited, it also praises “Sister Death.”

With the poem’s vivid imagery, what is not apparent is that St. Francis composed it a year before his death in 1226, around age 44, in weakened health and losing his sight. Despite his physical condition, he was believed to have been granted a great spiritual grace: the ability to see the world, including creation, in its redeemed form, elevated by the Incarnation.

The Franciscan order is celebrating the 800th anniversary of “The Canticle of the Creatures” throughout 2025. Meanwhile, the Church is marking the annual Season of Creation from Sept. 1 to Oct. 4, St. Francis’ feast day.

Pope Leo XIV’s prayer intention for September is for “our relationship with all of creation.” “Let us pray that, inspired by St. Francis, we might experience our interdependence with all creatures who are loved by God and worthy of love and respect,” he said in a video presenting the prayer intention.

In 1224, St. Francis traveled about 70 miles north of Assisi to the mountain town of La Verna, where he ultimately received the stigmata, or the miraculous gift of the physical wounds of Jesus Christ’s crucifixion. When he came down from the mountain, he was practically blind and hemorrhaging from the wounds. He was also suffering mentally and perhaps depressed, because he was dismayed about the Franciscans’ direction.

The saint spent around two months in a little hut near the monastery of St. Clare of Assisi, the woman who followed his model of religious life and founded a community of like-minded religious sisters. St. Francis was sick — field mice ran over him, and he may have had tubercular leprosy, Father Bodo said. During this time, St. Francis was attended by Brother Leo, one of his closest religious brothers.

St. Francis had cried out to God for help and heard God say: “‘Tell me, brother, (what) if in compensation for your sufferings and tribulation, you were given an immense and precious treasure: The whole mass of earth changed into pure gold, pebbles into precious stones, and the water of the rivers into perfume? Would you not regard the pebbles and the waters as nothing compared to such a treasure? Would you not rejoice?’”

St. Francis said, “Yes, Lord, of course I would rejoice in that.”

The Lord went on to tell him to rejoice in his infirmities and told St. Francis, “As of now, you live in peace as if you were already sharing in my kingdom.”

From then on, for the remainder of his life, St. Francis lived with a vision of the natural world as redeemed in Jesus Christ. As he received that vision, “spontaneously he broke into this song of ‘The Canticle of the Creatures,’ praising God for all of creation.”

The praise — which begins, in the Italian dialect, “Laudato Si’,” includes the four classical elements: earth, water, fire and air.

St. Francis later added new stanzas to the original poem — one on forgiveness, directed at the feuding bishop of Assisi and the city’s mayor, and — as he approached his final days — one on death that begins, “All praise be yours, my Lord, through Sister Death, From whose embrace no mortal can escape.”

Fittingly, the poem has been tied to environmentalism and care for creation, inspiring the name for Pope Francis’ 2015 encyclical on integral ecology, “Laudato Si’” (“Praised Be”) and the 2023 apostolic exhortation “Laudate Deum” (“Praise God”).