This week I'm working on images for the Iviswold Castle at Felician College.  I'm going to work on what is most familiar to me, which is, the Canticle of the Sun by St. Francis of Assisi.  The sun will be first, many drawings of the sun!  In Image of St. Francis by Brooke, she says that she was under the impression that Francis appeared as the dawn of a new day.  This was amazing to me because I had titled a window of mine by just that name, and it starred, not just the cross, but the rising sun.  She says Francis brought a change in the weather, a burst of sunshine.  "The likening of Francis to the sun, and to associate images of light, found public expression less than two years after his death...".
 Pope Gregory IX delivered a sermon, saying:
like the morning star among clouds,
like the moon at the full,
like the sun shining on the Temple of the Most High.

St. Bonaventure, around 1260, wrote:
"By the glorious splendour of his life and teaching, Francis shone like the day-star amid the clouds, and by the brilliance which radiated from him  he guided those who live in darkness...to the light.  Like the rainbow from him the clouds with sudden glow, he bore in his own body the pledge of God's covenant, bringing the good news of peace and salvation to all men, like a true Angel of Peace."

Dante honored Francis with these words:
From a mountain slope
was born into the world a sun,
even as our sun rises from the Ganges.
Therefore let no-one speaking of that place,
say Assisi--the word falls short--
but "Oriete", if he would correctly speak.

And finally, Thomas of Celano wrote that in Frances a holy newness was created...a new spirit was given..when the servant and saint of Christ, like one of the lights of heaven, illumined the world with a new observance and new signs from above.  ...Can it really be claimed that Francis "was born into the world a sun"?

With these wonderful words, I move forward with the visual image.