800 Years of St. Francis · Day 12 of 31 · Monday, October 12, 2026
This week we turn to the Canticle of the Creatures, and it matters where it was written.
In 1225, a year before he died, Francis was staying in a small hut beside San Damiano, where Clare and her sisters lived. He was nearly blind from an eye disease he had carried since his travels in the East, and he was in constant pain. The early accounts say he could not bear daylight, and that even at night, mice ran over him and gave him no rest. After one especially long night, he got up and sang a new song of praise, calling the sun his brother and the moon his sister.
We often picture the Canticle being written on a sunny hillside by a man pleasantly moved by nature. It wasn’t. Francis could barely see the sun he was praising. He was in trouble, and from inside that trouble he called the sun his brother.
That changes what the Canticle asks of us. Praise, it seems, does not wait for the pain to lift. It is not a reward for a good day. It is a way of seeing that remains possible even on the worst one, perhaps especially then.
Notice today: Can your praise begin before your pain lifts? What is one thing, even today, that you could call by a family name?
He could barely see the sun. He praised it anyway, and the world has been singing with him for eight hundred years.
At San Damiano: For anyone carrying a loss, Pathways Through Grief: A Healing Journey, a weekend retreat, November 27–29. Details
Day 12 of 31 · 800 Years of St. Francis: A Daily October Companion · spiritualbreak.com
Reflection © 2026 Michael J. Cunningham OFS.
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