Francis’ Transcendence of Tradition and Its Major Impact on His Attitude Toward Creation: The Sermon to the Birds (trans. D. Chabrajska)

Roger D. SORRELL

Dorota CHABRAJSKA

John Paul II Institute, Faculty of Philosophy, John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin, Al. Racławickie 14, 20-950 Lublin, Poland , Poland

Abstract

The present text comprises an analysis of the background as well as the implications of Francis of Assisi’s Sermon to the Birds. The author argues that Francis’ ideas expressed in the Sermon can only be understood in their 13th-century context and shows that many of Francis’ beliefs concerning the proper relation of humanity to the natural world have their antecedents in scripture and in the medieval monastic orders, while other ideas and practices – his nature mysticism, his concept of familial relationships with created things, and his extension of chivalric conceptions to interactions with creatures – are entirely his own. The Sermon to the Birds is described as an effect of the fusion of wandering evangelism with eremitic ideals, and explained in the context of the emerging Franciscan ideal. The author insists, however, that only by seeing Francis in terms of the Western traditions from which he arose can we appreciate the true originality of this extraordinary figure and the relevance of his thought to modern religious and environmental concerns.

Summarized by Dorota Chabrajska
(based on the information provided by Oxford University Press)

 

The present article is a Polish translation of Chapter 3 of Roger D. Sorrell’s book St. Francis of Assisi and Nature: Tradition and Innovation in Western Christian Attitudes toward the Environment, New York–Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988, pp. 55-68.

© 1988 by Roger D. Sorrell. By permission of Oxford University Press, USA.

Keywords:

Francis of Assisi, the Sermon to the Birds, nature, natural world, mysticism, environmentalism, scripture, monastic orders, the Franciscan ideal