At this season, when we celebrate the life and witness of Saint Francis of Assisi, one of the questions which may be raised for us might be: Can animals be saved; do they have a place in Heaven? This is an important question for many faithful believing Christians in our day when in the secular Western World man thinks of himself more and more as being quite separate from and dominant over the the rest of creation, which is viewed only as a thing to exploit and not as something to be cherished, cared for and nurtured for all.
This is emphatically not the teaching of Jesus, or the scriptures, or the Church. St Paul, in his first pastoral letter; the Letter to the Romans, writes;
“… creation waits with eager longing for God’s children to be revealed; for because of our fall its whole existence has been made fruitless and ineffectual by God’s own will. For he subjected it to this state in the real hope that it too will be set free from its futile decay and be brought with us to that glorious freedom that we, as God’s children, will have. For we know that the whole of creation has been groaning in birth pangs until now; and not only creation, but we also, who already have the first fruits of the Spirit, who groan inwardly as we wait for our adoption as God’s children, with the redeeming of our fallen physical nature.” (Romans 8;18-23, my paraphrase).
What does Genesis say about creation and its relationship with God? In the first Chapter God created the firmament, in the midst of the waters of chaos. Then in this firmament he separated the waters from the dry land on which he created vegetation. He created light to separate day from night and then all the other creatures in the sea and on land. At each stage he saw that what he had created was good; that is perfect: fully and completely what he intended it to be. Then, on the sixth day, God created man, both male and female, in his own image and likeness and gave to them stewardship over all that he had created: and at the end of all this; “he saw everything that he had created and behold it was very good.” (Gen 1;31) On the seventh day he rested.
This is not a historical account of the making of the world but an ontological one: that is, it tells of the relationship between God and us and between us and the rest of creation. This relationship is further clarified in the second chapter of Genesis where we see what, in a sinless state, our relationship with the rest of creation should be; we are called to be co-creators with God, for we are called upon to name everything in the world he has created.
What is in a name we might ask? In the ancient world, not only in the religion of Yahweh; to have power to name something was to have power over it, for its name was its true essence. In this story, by giving man power to name creation, God gave us power to complete what he had begun: without being named creation was not yet fully real. It goes on to show us the terrible consequences of our fallen state, for the whole of creation, as Paul says; “was subject to futility” by that fall. What Paul makes very clear in the passage above is that creation remains incomplete until humankind is redeemed.
The life and ministry of St Francis of Assisi points to the possibility and meaning of this full restoration of creation to this un-fallen state. For he had that kind of relationship to all the created things that Adam (ourselves) had before the fall. The many stories that have come down to us about Francis: preaching to animals, birds and fish, as well as to humans, attests to how well he was able to bring his hearers to a true understanding of this gospel even as he lived it himself and how he invited the whole of creation to join him in this truth through the worship of God. By his own reckoning Francis was not an educated man, he did not arrive at an understanding of this way by reason, but by God’s revealing it to him in his heart directly. It is clear that his understanding of creation was very close to that of St Paul and this shows in the way he lived and acted, and the prayers and sayings that are ascribed to him and the many stories of how he acted towards creation.
One of the most loved of these stories is that of Brother Wolf. The tale tells how the town of Gubbio was being terrorised by a fierce wolf: no person or domestic animal was safe from his depredations. Francis, learning of the wolf’s terrifying actions, against all the advice of the town’s folk and his brethren, sought the wolf out in his lair and, when he launched himself at him, he made the sign of the cross and said;
“Come, brother wolf; I command you in the name of Christ that you do not hurt either me or any man.”
And as soon as he made the sign of the cross the wolf closed his jaws, ceased from his attack and, coming gentle as a lamb, laid himself at St Francis’ feet. Francis said to him that he had done much evil in those parts, destroying and slaying God’s creatures without his permission, not only the beasts of the field but humankind who are made in God’s own image, as well; wherefore he was worthy of death, but, he said, he would rather make a covenant of peace between them and with the town’s folk, so that he injure them no more.
The wolf, in its turn, made every sign that he would obey this covenant and Francis, believing that it had done all of this evil out of hunger, promised that as long as the wolf lived the citizens of Gubbio would feed him. He then led the wolf off, as quiet as a lamb.
Now in a prophecy made by Isaiah he tells how God intends for creation to be and what heaven will be like: a state in which everything and every creature will be in harmony together; no creature will in any way harm or eat any other (the lion will lie down with the lamb) and all will be led by a little child (Isa 11;6). This child has always been understood by the church as Christ himself and by extension redeemed humanity (us) as well. Now, in many ways, St Francis, in this story and many others, gives us a foretaste of this perfect state, even while creation is still waiting for the completion of that promise, for Francis was so much at one with God that he was able, in his evangelical simplicity, to act within God’s promise.
Now, as is the custom, we have brought our much loved pets to Church during this St Francis’ tide, to be blessed, and this is a lovely and proper thing to do, but we should see it in a much larger context: that of the salvation of the whole creation. Yes our pets that we love but also all the animals, birds, insects, fish, etc, etc. But that is not all: the whole of the inanimate world as well: St Paul saw this clearly and St Francis did as well. In his Canticle of the Sun, which was written after he had received the stigmata of the wounds of Christ’s passion and by some accounts was finished on his own death bed. In it Francis praises God through all creation:
“Be praised, my Lord, through all your creatures,
especially through my lord Brother Sun,
who brings the day …”:
the Sun, the moon and the stars, the wind and the water and in all things he praises God, as we should all do, for we are the voice of creation, which has no other.
Clearly it is God’s intention to save all creation including our pets and all animate life, and the whole of the inanimate cosmos, huge and impersonal as it may appear to us to be. And we have an irreplaceable part in this process to play. Let us hear what Francis has to say to us and treat this world with the respect which is required of us by God the creator.
In the Mercy, Chris
A Pilgrim's Way 