A good movie to watch: Brother Sun, Sister Moon

It's a movie about Saint Francis of Assisi. It follows his life up to his meeting with Pope Innocent III. Made by Zepherelli during the Hippy Era, it reaks of a humanistic view of life and interprets the life of Francis in such a way that God might be excusable, or at least made weaker. That in itself is inexcusable.

However, it is more than possible to see the piety and Christ-driven goodness of the true character of Francis throughout the film, and I found it not only very spiritually edifying passively, but a motivating and driving film that really tugged at my desire to do good works in the world and love God more.

Francis is just such an amazing person. I often have wondered how a person such as myself could combine my great love for nature with my relationship with God. God, having made nature, is definitely evident in it. The first way that I considered when I was in high school was science. Biology would provide a means of understanding the order of the universe and God's intelligence in it. But something seems wrong with it to me. You have to take apart the things you love, divide them from their essence, to understand their function. You cannot enjoy a bird's heart as you can enjoy a living bird. I need not know that a bird has hollow bones to wonder at its mystery of flight. As Gandalf says, "he that breaks a thing to find out what it is has left the path of wisdom."

So the tack of Saint Francis, who sees the work of God in all of nature, is a valid alternative to enjoying nature in our Truth starved culture. Francis enjoys the bird for itself. He wonders at Brother Sun, and Sister Moon in an engaging canticle. He blesses all of creation as he sees it struggling to praise God. He even gives a sermon to the birds that he loves. He's bizarre, in short, but he's bizarre because of how much he loves God. He simply and humbly submits to his place in creation, trusting wholly on the provision of God to live, and follows without question his understanding of God's universe.

There are a lot of great scenes in the movie, if you can stand the campy 60s ballads that accompany them. One of these is Francis' renunciation of the world. He takes all of his clothes off as he stands in the middle of the town square, in front of the Bishop, and gives them to his father. Then he walks out of the town butt naked! It's great. The best scene of the movie, however, takes place in Rome. When Francis meets the Pope, wonderful things happen. But I won't say anything about them. Further proof, though not in the movie, of Francis' holiness, is the gift of Stigmata bestowed upon him by the Lord.

I need to read Chesterton's book on Francis, and Bonaventure's Life of Saint Francis as soon as I can. Unfortunately I haven't the time with 3 papers due soon and Phaedrus being my only reading for entertainment that I have access to.