A Modern Saint Francis Florilegium for the Morally Injured Fools Who Want to Stay in the World

Abstract

This zine of short essays, collages, and erasure poetry stitches together representations of Saint Francis with texts like Hospicing Modernity by decolonial scholar Vanessa Machado de Oliveira Andreotti in order to explore some of the moral dynamics of modern living. Rather than claim to describe a historical Francis, instead this “modern florilegium” attempts to reconstruct a Francis who speaks to us as a companion in troubled times; as a patron saint of moral injury and as a willfully foolish figure. This Francis, “my” Francis, is one who troubles and complicates the desire to “leave the world,” as much as he insists we find ways to know, feel, and enact new ways of living.