The Canticle of Brother Sun

Cosmic ode, poetic masterpiece, spiritual summit, prayer for peace, call to fraternity: the Canticle of Brother Sun is known by all, or at least its title is, and it has been celebrated in many ways, set to music so many times. Yet, there is something in it that resists, which is why it will never completely be a classic. It continues to vibrate with its initial transgression which pushes it towards the universal while remaining in the assumed particularism of a vernacular dialect. The call to peace is also a coup de force and its profession of fraternity rises from an infinite solitude of suffering. The Canticle is pri­marily a cry. Let us listen to it with "the ear of our heart."