St. Francis and the Things He Didn't Write

Every Fall, when it gets cool enough, I put on my jacket for the first time in many months (it's Texas) and I'm surprised at what I find in the pockets. Sometimes I discover things I've been looking for since the last time it was below 60 degrees outside. On less impressive occasions I find old food. Last week I found a copy of the prayer of St. Francis in the inside pocket of my leather jacket and ever since I've been carrying it around and reading it. Oddly enough, I can't recall where I got it.

I was reminded that in all of my time as a medievalist I've never come across this prayer as a historical artifact. It's recited all over the world, but never once has it come up in a medieval text or a lecture. Why? Because Francis didn't write it. It's actually from the 20th century.


That was a shock to me. And it comes on the heels of a similar realization I had a few weeks ago - Francis also never said "Preach the gospel at all times, and when necessary use words." That quote has been attributed to him for a long time, but it's origins are unclear. We've really exaggerated Francis.

Also, he caught a fish that big.

It goes on.

What about the hymn, 'All Creatures of Our God and King?' (One of my favorites.) Nope. His name appears in the margins, but that's only because the song references something Francis wrote called Canticle of the Sun.

Francis is said to have been the first person to experience the stigmata, but as far as I can tell he never made that claim - others made it for him.

A famous book called Little Flowers of St. Francis sits on my shelf, but it was written more than century after the Saint's death. Poor Francis has been misquoted a great deal.

That doesn't make the prayer any less potent. I pull it out of my coat pocket on the way to the train and read it, every morning, and it provides quite a challenge:

Lord, make me an instrument of Your peace;

Where there is hatred, let me sow love;

Where there is injury, pardon;

Where there is error, truth;

Where there is doubt, faith;

Where there is despair, hope;

Where there is darkness, light;

And where there is sadness, joy.

O Divine Master, Grant that I 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.

Praying with Billy Joel

For someone who loves 70s singer-songwriters, I am sorely deficient in my knowledge of Billy Joel. I mean, I can sing along to "Piano Man" in a heartbeat, but that's as far as it goes. So when "Only the Good Die Young" came on the radio the other day, I turned it up, hoping to further my Billy Joel education. At first I was disappointed. After the first few lines, I thought I had the song pegged as a an anti-church cliche with a little bit of Marvell's "To His Coy Mistress" thrown in:

Come out Virginia, don't let me wait.
You Catholic girls start much too late.
Aw, but sooner or later it comes down to fate.
I might as well be the one.

Well, they showed you a statue, told you to pray.
They built you a temple and locked you away.
Aw, but they never told you the price that you pay
for things that you might have done.
Only the good die young.

But I kept listening, and I'm glad I did, because of this line in the bridge:

You say your mother told you all that I could give you was a reputation
She never cared for me
But did she ever say a prayer for me? 

Wait a second -- did Billy Joel just remind me of an important truth about prayer? I think he did.

According to Wikipedia, Billy Joel has said that "...the point of the song wasn't so much anti-Catholic as pro-lust," but it is also, in its own way, pro-love as well, since praying for someone is a good way to learn how to love them. The song reminded me of this article, in which a man with opposite political views of President Obama learns to love him just through the habit of praying for him. It reminded me of how it only takes a second to pray for that person who overshares personal information in the facebook feed for me to begin to care about that person and their otherwise "TMI" statuses. It reminded me of how I'm a better friend and family member when I remember to pray for the important people in my life. When I do, suddenly my excuses about being too busy to write or call seem silly; when I pray for them, I start to love them better. And as the song suggests, praying for someone is a good way to stop judging them as well. So thanks, Billy Joel, for that lesson -- I better catch up on your body of work just to see what else you have to tell me!