October is traditionally the harvest month for those of us who live in the Northern Hemisphere. This year, farmers across the great American plains have seen crops stunted by drought and intemperate heat. Yet, October brings again the bright yellows and oranges of falling leaves and vine-ripened pumpkins and the invigorating crispness of autumn air. In October, we cannot fail to note the dying of things. The grasses grow dormant; the flowers fade and then yield to frost, the once verdant leaves fall and decay. This year of drought, many U.S. farmers have plowed under dried up corn husks that have yielded no fruit. October brings with it the knowledge that the cycles are ever with us, and that we, too, are part of this cycle of birth, death, and rebirth. For many, it’s a challenging lesson. We sometimes turn away from all that this season tells us about our own mortality. But the Christian steward knows that stewardship is steeped in the season of harvest. It’s not surprising that the Hebrew Scriptures are filled with harvest imagery. There is a time for everything, the writer of Ecclesiastes tell us, and a season for every activity under heaven … a time to plant and a time to uproot. From our ancestor’s world, embedded in agrarian culture, we’ve moved to a fast-paced environment where we sometimes ignore the cycles of life, or fail to learn from their implications. Jesus, the offspring of a carpenter and the friend of fishermen, was also deeply attuned to the rhythm of the fields. He observed the seed that fell on rocky soil and the seed that fell on fertile land. He told us the hard truth that unless a grain of wheat dies, it remains but a single grain. It’s good, no matter how old we are, to yield to the lessons of this passing season. How do we approach the harvest? Have we prepared our soil well? What will be harvested from our lives? Where are our first fruits going? Are we comfortable acknowledging that the summers of our lives lead inevitably to their autumns, that all of this is God’s plan, that faith tells us another spring is promised somewhere in our future? October tells us what the heart knows: the harvest and the steward are inexorably linked.

In today’s Gospel, we hear of the ten men afflicted with leprosy, and the one who glorifies God for being healed. It is a dramatic scene of gratitude. But in order for the miracle to happen in the first place, these men had to start walking in faith before their diseased conditions could change one tiny bit. Good stewards of their faith realize that they cannot wait until their problems are over to start walking in faith. They praise God even in the darkest of nights, and in the worst of circumstances. Do we walk in faith, offering the Lord our gratitude even when we are in difficult circumstances?

Scientists say that most of us will never experience the full wonder of the star-filled nighttime sky because of the “light pollution” which keeps our modern world too bright to see true night. No doubt, this would have saddened St. Francis of Assisi, whose feast we celebrate October 4.

The saint who embraced the glory of creation, Francis is the patron saint of ecology and a model steward for our present age. Always one of our most popular saints, you need only visit a garden shop to find that, even in the midst of secular commerce, you can find a lawn statue of the 12th century native of an Umbrian hill town. Yet like many famous folk, Francis has become somewhat stereotyped, those statues always adorned sweetly with little birds. In reality, Francis was a bold and inspired man, a good steward of creation, who embraced it as bountifully good, emphasizing the original outpouring of God’s love into the world (at a time when the emphasis was often placed heavily on the stain of original sin.) Francis was a good steward of his neighbor. He famously embraced a leper he met on the roadway, even though he deeply feared the disease. When the man appeared to vanish, Francis felt he had encountered Christ himself which strengthened his belief that God is found in all of creation.

Francis heard the words “Rebuild my church” while visiting the worndown chapel at San Damiano. Only later did he and others regard those words as a challenge not to repair a structure but to reinvigorate Christian spirituality. Today, in a time of environmental crisis, Pope Francis is the first pontiff to take the saint of Assisi’s name as his own. The Holy Father’s encyclical, Laudato Sí, On Care for Our Common Home, speaks to the need to be good stewards of creation, to protect and cherish God’s great gift. St. Francis left us, along with a deep love for creation, with a spirituality that embraces simplicity and love for the poor.

October offers Christian stewards an opportunity to pray outdoors in the beauty of autumn, the changing leaves, the early dusk. Be a good steward of your prayer life: Take a prayer walk, as St. Francis would. Ask the saint to help you recommit to a simpler lifestyle, recycling, reusing, honoring resources, to seeing the earth and its poor as holy. Perhaps we might even venture out to the garden late at night, to see as many stars as we can.