{"id":16077,"date":"2026-07-12T07:28:02","date_gmt":"2026-07-12T12:28:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/yogisden.us\/?p=16077"},"modified":"2026-07-12T07:28:06","modified_gmt":"2026-07-12T12:28:06","slug":"the-story-behind-saint-francis-dancing-on-water","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/yogisden.us\/?p=16077","title":{"rendered":"The Story Behind Saint Francis Dancing on Water"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">We had our family vacation earlier this month. Our first stop was Santa Fe, New Mexico. The morning after we got there we were eager to get outside and walk around because driving from Tulsa to Santa Fe takes a long time. Our first stop was the Cathedral Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi which is in the middle of downtown and adjoined out hotel. We were a little early for the Cathedral to open so we walked around the grounds of the Cathedral. I&#8217;m always looking for shadows and I came upon this sculpture.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-photo is-provider-flickr wp-block-embed-flickr\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<a href=\"https:\/\/flic.kr\/p\/2sowgRf\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/55388838100_b610a56a3e_c.jpg\" alt=\"Saint Francis Dancing on Water Sculpture - edited\" width=\"600\" height=\"800\" \/><\/a>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It made a great shadow and the adjoining plaque said it depicts Saint Francis dancing on water. And it was like, what!?!? I am not Catholic but every depiction I have seen of Saint Francis of Assisi is that he was a very serious guy. I have never seen a painting or a sculpture of him being joyful. So that kind of jarred my thought process and I thought I have to go check this out. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-photo is-provider-flickr wp-block-embed-flickr\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<a href=\"https:\/\/flic.kr\/p\/2smSc2v\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/55370091123_127df5605b_c.jpg\" alt=\"Saint Francis of Paola Dancing on Water\" width=\"600\" height=\"800\" \/><\/a>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It turns out that it is a different Saint Francis, Saint Francis of Paola, a Franciscan hermit, who modeled his life after his namesake from Assisi. He is most known for his crossing the Straits of Messina. He didn&#8217;t have enough money to take a ferry so he prayed and blessed the sea and then laid his coat down and walked across the Straits. Because of this miracle, he is regarded as the\u00a0patron saint of boatmen, mariners, and sailors. I call him the Joyful Saint Francis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I love finding out stuff like this. The interwebs can be fun!!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I am linking to <a href=\"https:\/\/thisandthatablog.blogspot.com\/2026\/07\/shadow-shot-sunday-july-12-2026.html\" data-type=\"link\" data-id=\"https:\/\/thisandthatablog.blogspot.com\/2026\/07\/shadow-shot-sunday-july-12-2026.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\"><strong>Shadow Shot Sunday<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>We had our family vacation earlier this month. Our first stop was Santa Fe, New Mexico. The morning after we got there we were eager to get outside and walk around because driving from Tulsa to Santa Fe takes a long time. Our first stop was the Cathedral Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi which [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[387],"tags":[4087,4089,4088,3756,1288,1056,1346],"class_list":["post-16077","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-shadow-shot-sunday","tag-cathedral-basilica-of-st-francis-of-assisi","tag-franciscans","tag-saint-francis-of-paola","tag-santa-fe","tag-sculpture","tag-shadow-shot-sunday","tag-shadows"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/yogisden.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16077","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/yogisden.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/yogisden.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yogisden.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yogisden.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=16077"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/yogisden.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16077\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16079,"href":"https:\/\/yogisden.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16077\/revisions\/16079"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/yogisden.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16077"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yogisden.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16077"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yogisden.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16077"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}