In all creatures God is revealed to us: the beauty, the grandeur, the infinite variety, the individuality, and the mystery. That is what St. Francis saw and what he teaches us. But something has deformed the beauty of God’s creation, and that something is injustice. According to St. Bonaventure, in his Collationes en Hexaëmeron, “justice makes beautiful what has been deformed.” Justice then is the path to peace, peace of mind, peace between and among people, and peace among all God’s creatures. St. Francis, of course, was not a philosopher, a thinker, and theologian like St. Bonaventure. He was a seer, a poet. He spent his whole life trying to see rather than trying to reason things out. He was always looking for signs of God in the world around him. He had found God in the lepers, so he knew that one must look hard and long in order to see the hidden mystery beneath the appearances of things. And because of his deep presence to things and people, he was also a contemplative, one who looks and looks deeply. And that is the first step toward making peace and reconciliation.
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