More alike than different!

SUNDAY, October 4th, is the Feast of St. Francis of Assisi, who died in early October 1226. St. Francis is one of the world’s most beloved saints in the third Millennium. Robert Kennedy Jr. wrote a popular children’s book about Francis’ love of animals, but Francis’ bravery in crossing religious and cultural barriers also has won over strong supporters, today. So, here are some additional resources on Francis you might enjoy exploring. First, he was featured in 2008 as one of the first “Interfaith Heroes” honored by ReadTheSpirit, an Interfaith resource on the web. The original “Heroes” story about St. Francis is still online. In their online magazine, we’ve also found many contemporary writers mentioning St. Francis as an inspiration to “creation care” today. There’s an interview with best-selling evangelical author Tony Campolo that mentions St. Francis’ message—among others—on care of animals. The Humane Society of the United States now includes a section of “Francis Files” on the group’s Web site, encouraging pet owners to send in stories about spiritual connections with animals. To encourage those efforts by pet owners, the Humane Society actually publishes one of the best, inspiring overviews of Francis’ life online.

World Communion Sunday and peace
SUNDAY also is World Communion Sunday, an effort started before World War II that caught on later through the American ecumenical movement and has spread around the world—encouraging all Christian churches to celebrate communion on the first Sunday of October. The idea is not that churches will join for community-wide services, but that everyone in every church—or as many churches as possible—will celebrate communion on the same day. Of course, the world’s biggest denomination, the Catholic church, celebrates the sacrament every Sunday—so the idea is to have Christians forming a virtual unity in worship, even if their denominations remain separate in organization. Here’s a little history of World Communion Sunday as well as some popular resources from the National Council of Churches USA. Of course, there’s a whole lot more than that online—and here’s a sampling of other things that might interest you: First, there’s a bilingual English/Spanish “Great Thanksgiving” prayer created for World Communion Sunday using English and Spanish worship resources from the United Methodist Church. The Reformed Church in America offers a whole page of materials and links from a Reformed perspective in approaching World Communion. From the United Church of Christ, there’s a PDF download of “Come, the Meal is Ready,” a liturgy for this special day. (Clicking the link should start the PDF downloading for you.) And from the Mennonite Church of Canada, there’s a page that includes a PDF download link (the link on the page is orange) that offers a model for a whole service on this theme, including prayers. In other words—a lot of creative people in many different branches of Christendom plan for this special day each year. If you’re ministry is doing something special that’s really inspiring you this year, please Email ReadThe SpiritPlanner (www.ReadTheSpirit.com) and they will share it across the world. Of course, be sure to share it with St. Patrick’s staff so we can spread the word. too!