Saint Francis and the Sacred Family of Nature

The Old Religion in the Saints’ Calendar · October 4

How pagan does Saint Francis sound to you?

Brother Sun. Sister Moon. Brother Wind. Sister Water. Brother Fire. Mother Earth. Sister Death.

On his feast day, October 4, Francis offers us a rich subject for studying sacred relationships with the natural world. His Canticle of the Creatures, also called the Canticle of the Sun, brings the powers that sustain human life into the language of family.

What can this Christian poetry help us understand about experiencing nature as a family of sacred relationships?

Our sister, mother earth

Francis writes:

Praised be my Lord for our sister, mother earth,
The which sustains and keeps us
And brings forth diverse fruits with grass and flowers bright.

The relationship begins with nourishment. Earth keeps us alive. The harvest, the grass beneath our feet, and the flowers growing around us become expressions of a sustaining presence.

Calling Earth Mother gives that dependence a familiar shape. We receive our food through her. Our bodies belong within the life she supports. Calling her Sister also places us beside her in the wider family of creation.

My reading is that this language invites gratitude to become a relationship. We can recognize what we receive, attend to its source, and consider the responsibilities that follow.

Water and fire as relatives

Of water, Francis says:

Praised be my Lord for sister water,
The which is greatly helpful and humble and precious and pure.

Of fire:

Praised be my Lord for brother fire,
By the which Thou lightest up the dark.
And fair is he and gay and mighty and strong.

For me, these verses make an everyday encounter available to religious attention. Drawing water, tending a hearth, and watching a flame can become occasions to recognize dependence and offer thanks.

Kinship gives us a vocabulary for that attention. Sister Water and Brother Fire have qualities we can come to know through repeated encounters. Their usefulness sits alongside beauty, power, and affection.

A family in the older stories

Readers of Norse mythology will recognize another world expressed through family relationships.

In Snorri Sturluson’s Gylfaginning, Earth is Thor’s mother. Sun and Moon are siblings, the children of Mundilfari. Night has a son named Day. Here, the sky, the ground, and the passage of time take their places within genealogies.

The details have their own character: the Norse Sun is female and the Moon male. Each figure belongs to a particular story, with relationships and actions of their own.

Reading these accounts alongside Francis brings a shared possibility into view: human beings can understand their place in the world through relationships with powers given names, personalities, and kinship.

For someone exploring pagan religion, that comparison opens a practical question. How might we approach the ground, the weather, and the changing sky when we understand ourselves as participants in a larger family?

The difficult relative: Sister Death

Francis extends the family to mortality:

Praised be my Lord for our sister, the bodily death,
From the which no living man can flee.

His following lines speak of sin, divine will, and salvation. The family image lives within his Christian account of human destiny.

I find the name Sister Death especially arresting. The family includes the ending of bodily life. The same poem that attends to nourishment and warmth also makes room for the encounter every living person will face.

Read at the autumn turning, that image carries particular force. We gather the harvest, watch leaves fall, prepare our homes, and remember the dead. Kinship reaches through the whole cycle: receiving life, sustaining it, and meeting its end.

Reading the saints’ calendar closely

This is why I think early Christian religious material deserves close attention from pagans. A saint’s poem, a feast’s customs, or an account of conversion can give us material to examine alongside older beliefs and practices.

With Francis, the most productive evidence is his own language. He gives us a medieval Christian expression of sacred kinship with the world. Reading him alongside the Norse material helps us examine how family language gives religious meaning to our relationships with natural powers.

His feast becomes an invitation to study—and to pay attention.

The next time you drink water, feel the Sun, tend a fire, or put your hands into the soil, consider the relationship involved.

What changes in our religious life when we experience these powers as relatives?

Follow the turning year on the Galdorcraft Norse Runestav Calendar⁠.

Sources

• Francis of Assisi, Canticle of the Sun, translated by Stephen Donovan, O.F.M., in Paschal Robinson’s The Writings of St. Francis of Assisi (1906). All verse quotations above use this translation’s wording. 
• Robinson’s preface credits Donovan with collating and translating the Canticle. 
• Snorri Sturluson, Gylfaginning, chapters 9–11, translated by Arthur Gilchrist Brodeur (1916). 
• Franciscan Media, Saint Francis of Assisi, for the October 4 feast.