The Story Behind 'All Creatures of Our God and King'

The story behind All Creatures of Our God and King is older than almost anything else we sing. Its words reach back eight hundred years, to a nearly blind and ailing Francis of Assisi, who lay in a small hut and sang the whole of creation into a chorus of praise.

An eight-hundred-year-old song

Around the year 1225, near the end of his life and suffering greatly, St. Francis of Assisi composed "The Canticle of the Sun" — a poem calling on the created world to praise its Maker. Francis did not write it as a distant observer of nature. He addressed the sun, the moon, the wind and the water as kin: Brother Sun, Sister Moon, Brother Wind, Sister Water. To him every creature was a fellow creature under one Creator, and every one of them owed God praise.

That a man in such pain would spend his strength calling the universe to worship tells you something about the faith that shaped him.

From canticle to hymn

For centuries the canticle lived as a poem, not a congregational hymn. Then, around 1919, an English clergyman named William Henry Draper paraphrased it into English verse — reportedly for a children's Whitsuntide festival — and set it to the soaring German tune "Lasst uns erfreuen," which dates from 1623.

The result keeps Francis's family of creatures intact. "Thou burning sun with golden beam, thou silver moon with softer gleam, O praise Him, O praise Him, Alleluia!" Verse by verse the wind, the clouds, the rising morn, the flowing water and "the earth that day by day unfoldest blessings on our way" are each summoned to lift their voice.

All creation, one chorus

The hymn's structure is a widening circle. It begins with the great lights of the sky, moves to the elements, then to the earth and its fruits, then — strikingly — to human beings of "tender heart" who forgive one another, and even to death itself, which for the Christian is a doorway rather than an end. Finally it gathers everything into one command: "Let all things their Creator bless, and worship Him in humbleness, O praise Him, Alleluia!"

It is one of the few hymns that asks not only people but the whole creation to sing.

Why the story matters

We can grow small in our worship, praising God only for what touches us directly. Francis's canticle blows the walls out. It reminds us that the sun and the rain and the harvest were praising God long before we arrived and will do so after we are gone, and that our part is to join a song already in progress. To sing it well is to step outside ourselves and take our place in a chorus that fills the sky.

Sitting with it at home

If you would like to study this hymn slowly, our All Creatures of Our God and King Deep-Dive Study gathers the full public-domain text, the story of St. Francis and the Canticle of the Sun, the scriptures of creation-praise behind it, and reflection questions for a week of readings.

You might also enjoy our list of five public-domain hymns every family should know or our guide to leading a hymn study at home.