St Francis and my ‘foster child’

For the last few months, we had a foster child. It started off by him just coming over for a meal, then disappearing again, but gradually he moved in and spent most of his time here, much to the chagrin of our own resident, a very snooty cat who doesn’t tolerate invaders kindly. It all caused some dissent in the house.

I enjoyed his presence, friendly, pushy even, but the line had to be drawn at aggression.  Vinny tended to win the battles which drove my daughter, normally a very placid person, to most uncharacteristic behaviour. In a fury she would come to the defence of her cat. But to Vinny it was water off a duck’s back. In no time he’d be back, purring, rubbing, walking over my computer keyboard and spending the last few hours of the night sleeping right on top of me. Then every so often he’d absent himself for a few days, leaving a bit of a hole in my life.

I didn’t know where this foster-child belonged, until one day he came back with a collar and tag with a telephone number. When I phoned his folks they said they didn’t really mind where he stayed but I wasn’t to feed him, so that hopefully he would go home. I was concerned about such brutality but after a week of excluding him from animal feeding time he was still around. I phoned again and his “parents” came to fetch him, promising to keep him locked up for a while to see if he would settle down at home.

Now that it seems that he has really gone I am experiencing presumably at least a little of that wrenching feeling of loss that foster-parents must experience. Fostering is a particular and special vocation, giving love and care to a child who needs it — but it can present some problems. Clearly there are implications for the whole foster-family. How do others welcome the stranger or resent his presence? How does he or she fit in? Is the foster-child willing to make some required adjustments or does he come with the expectation that he will automatically be accepted? Obviously this is a very simplistic example, but the point is, it gave me food for thought.

October being Mission month, the family life theme deals with our mission, our mission to grow and particularly for marriages to grow.  Another important commemoration this October is the feast of St Francis, possibly the favourite confirmation patron saint.

Maybe this is because we see him as a nice, kindly, animal-friendly person, who preached to fish and tamed a wolf that was threatening a village. But there is much more to Francis than that. He developed a mission that has been sustained for 800 years by many religious and also lay people in the secular branch of the Franciscans. His mission, contained in his rule, has been adapted to many different social situations but in essence it consists of living the Gospel in daily life, identifying totally with Jesus.

What I appreciate about St Francis, while also being enormously challenged, is that in spite of (or through) giving up all possessions and attachment to them, he was able to live a life of joy. He described perfect joy as total acceptance of one’s cross and being able to give glory to God for that. His joy was expressed in love of creation, in relationships and in giving joyful praise to God.

Most of us know the Prayer of St Francis, that starts “Lord make me an instrument of your peace” but maybe not many of us know his Canticle to the Sun. It is a hymn of praise to God for all creation and his close relationship with each of brother sun, sister moon, brother fire, sister air and even sister death.

In the pop song from the film Brother Sun, Sister Moon, he says: “I am God’s creature, of God I am a part, I feel your love awaking in my heart.”   Without sentimentalising, I think this could be tweaked to deal with fostering of cats or people, or marriage, or care for and love of animals and all of creation as well as an urgent cry for peace and goodness.

All of this is loving God and the fruit of that love is growing in joy and in mission.