(This article originally appeared in the TAU-USA Summer 2025  Issue #116)

Canticle of the Creatures Reflections – Part 2

 Praise and bless my Lord and give Him thanks

and serve Him with great humility.

What is Ours To Do?

by Vickie Klick, OFS

Chair, NAFRA Centenary Task Force

When I think of Francis’ Canticle of the Creatures, I most often think of the stanzas about the world around us. Less often, I think of the stanzas composed to encourage reconciliation and to honor Sister Bodily Death. However, until now I have largely overlooked the final stanza:

Praise and bless my Lord and give Him thanks

and serve Him with great humility.

This final exhortation brings us back to the opening lines of the Canticle:

Most high, all powerful, good Lord,

Yours are the praises, the glory, and the honor, and all blessing.

To You alone, Most High, do they belong,

and no human is worthy to mention Your name.

In the end, despite our unworthiness, Francis recognizes that we, like all the other creatures he mentions, must praise and bless the Lord – but we humans must go further. We need to give thanks, and we need to serve Him humbly.

Our praise and blessing are not just from our nature, as they are for other creatures, but they arise from our free will with the help of the Holy Spirit. (No one can say ‘Jesus is Lord’ except by the Holy Spirit. [1 Corinthians 12:3]) Our thanks and service are also freely chosen.

At one level, then, our response to this final stanza is obvious. How can we take it further and embed it more thoroughly into our daily lives – the way we live our Rule?

Our commitment to daily prayer helps ensure we praise and bless the Lord regularly. After I started writing this article, I added more thanksgiving to my daily prayer, starting (some days at least) before I get out of bed, and ending with some reflection on what I am thankful for during Evening Prayer. One of the beauties of our way of life, though, is that we can each adapt this exhortation to the rhythm and needs of our own lives.

In our humble service of the Lord, we emulate our Mother Mary. Mary’s first action after the Annunciation was to go in haste to serve her cousin, Elizabeth, in her miraculous pregnancy. It’s hard to imagine a more humble response to the momentous event that had just taken place in Mary’s life!

Taking the Visitation as an example, how can our actions each day help others become aware of Christ’s presence? (Art. 13 of the Rule points out that part of doing that is to be aware of “all people as a gift of the Lord and an image of Christ.”) This is a tall order, requiring that “great humility” that Francis mentioned.

In summary, this last stanza of the Canticle invites us to accept the challenge to join in with all of creation in our uniquely human response to the Lord’s goodness. Let us all take this challenge seriously as we strive to live the Gospel in the spirit of St. Francis.

St. Francis of Assisi statue at The Franciscan Renewal Center, Arizona