October 4, 2026
“All That Remains” Photo by LKV Walsh
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Today is the Feast of St. Francis. It is a celebration of all creation, and it is a reminder that we humans (and our ideas about the world) are not the totality of the same. My favorite story about St. Francis involves his generosity to the poor and how badly it disappointed his wealthy father. His dad was so angry that in 1206, he called Francis to task for his disobedience right in center of the town. As the story goes, Francis established his very clear boundaries with his father by taking off all of his clothes in the middle of the town square and returning them to the man who rightfully owned them. Take that, Dad!
I love this story because I am a brat, but I also love this story because it is a great example of how we are often our best and most loving selves when we do not follow the “rules” of the “polite society” around us. Francis is a saint to emulate precisely because he did not attend to how he was perceived. He disappointed his dear old dad. He made friends with wolves. He slept under the stars without shelter or a shred of comfort. St. Francis sang songs to the sun and the moon and understood the cosmos as part and parcel of the Divine. He asked his followers to avoid all ownership. He asked the pope to release him and his brothers from owing anything to Rome.
St. Francis wasn’t a troublemaker – not on purpose anyway. He was simply doing what was required to love. In the process, he was avoiding what would inevitably cause harm. Of course that means he was an outcast and an oddball. GK Chesterton points out in his biography that St. Francis called himself and his companions jongleurs de dieu – jugglers (or jesters) for God. He and they were Holy Fools.
I often think what it would look like to follow a path of Holy Foolery. What could we disrupt in our families, our churches and our places of work? How could we benefit all creation – our family/friends/coworkers, our animals, our land/water/air? We’ve tried yelling about the troubles of the world; we’ve cried about them; we’ve tried setting up another committee. What if we tried to love the world the Franciscan way… like holy fools? Could a start be as simple as saying, “No” to complicity in the harm we see daily? Like the deaths of civilians in Gaza? Like the destruction of the Global South for profit? Like the sexual misuse and exploitation of women and children?
Shall we try it and see?
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