Francis of Assisi NOT a sissy
September 22, 2006
Originally uploaded by jimfrazier.
In preparation for our Yom Kippur interfaith component on Francis, I watched Franco Zeffirelli’s Brother Sun, Sister Moon this week. Wow. 70’s Christian melodrama at its best and an inspiring portrayal of the twelfth century Francis, complete with a Donovan soundtrack!
One of my favorite lines was delivered by Alec Guinness, playing Pope Innocent III:
For in our obsession with original sin, we often do forget original innocence!
I’ve also pulled up a seminary paper I wrote in May ’03 on “The Comparable Vitae of St. Francis of Assisi (1181-1226) and St. Sergius of Radonezh (1314-1392)”. Not one of the strongest papers I wrote in grad school, but a good refresher for me on these two saints.
Opening lines:
The great saints of history were men and women who lived in total devotion to Christ. The most revered of these changed the way the Church thought this was possible. As the ecclesiastical structures on earth canonized (from the Greek word meaning ‘standard’) these saints, they sometimes changed their own rules and standards for how salvation was thought possible.