The Franciscan Path to God

Originated with Francis of Assisi (1182 – 1226) and found expression in the way he and his followers embraced the gospel way as a life. It found its theological formulation in spiritual theologians of the second generation of Francis’ Order. It is first the spiritual vision and life of one man, and then the characteristic ideal, doctrine and practice of the Order(s) he founded.

Franciscan spirituality frankly restates the common heritage of Catholicity. Francis himself saw a distinction between his personal calling and that of his followers. He would lead those who first joined him along to a church to consult the gospels and find out where their call lay. As he was dying he said to the companions around him, “I have done what was mine to do; may Christ teach you what is yours.” Yet most of his followers returned to their father as to the indispensable shaping influence on their life and spirit.

Though he left a Rule, a testament, a considerable number of writings his personal example has always been accorded unique status, and even the rule he elaborated, obtained approval of, and virtually identified with the gospel, was interpreted, often scrupulously and zealously, in the light of what was considered to be his authentic intentions. If his own way to God was extraordinary in its simple verity, its magnetism did not die when he did. Chesterton states: “What was passing from the world was … a thing not to be replaced or repeated. It has been said that there was only one Christian, who died on the cross; it is truer to say in this sense there was only one Franciscan, whose name was Francis.”

The uniqueness of Francis is what is most admired; it is what appeals that is reachable by all. Few saints have received universal acclaim like him. His arrival in the smallest village provoked enthusiastic outpouring of a kind of popular celebration of the word of God. Bells rang, shops emptied, everyone gathered to hear God’s little crier. The attraction lasts at different social and cultural levels. Art has been influenced by him. He is patron of environmentalists and of almost every good cause. The stream of writings on him continues. Italians place his Song of Brother Sun at the beginning of a book of poetry. Protestants venerate him and call themselves the 4th Order.


“Why is the whole world running after you?” asked Masseo of Marignano. “I mean, it isn’t that you’re awfully handsome or anything, or educated, or of noble stock… so why after you?”
“I believe it’s like this,” Francis replied. “God has found nothing on earth more vile than me. So he picked out something weak, ignorant, and detestable, so that all glory would go back to him, the author of all good.”

The Gospel an Absolute
The experience of God is the most basic element in a spirituality. A number of happenings made Francis conscious of having encountered the Lord. He used to say, ‘The Lord revealed to me,’ to account for enlightenment received in contemplative praying, through an opening of the Scriptures; or by encountering a leper or a pauper. Insights into God as fountain-head of goodness and as a caring Father made him the person he became and stamped his spiritual attitude. With the fatherhood of God came the overwhelming experience of the brotherhood of Jesus.

In the Rule he drafted for himself and his brothers he stated as their chief aim the following of the doctrine and the footprints of Jesus. He preferred ‘following’ to ‘imitation.’ It meant stepping into the earthly footprints of and ‘walking on after’ by a simple and direct obedience to the gospels. Total obedience to the gospel could be credible, as a way of life, only within the Church.

The Church was to him a mother-figure, within whose guardianship he felt utterly free. His attitude seems to have been that only her authority enabled him to take the gospel as an absolute.
Poverty as the Way to Christ
Francis’ poverty is rooted in the idea that God is the
Only owner, as is evident in the gospels’ portrayal of
the humble earthly existence the Lord chose for Himself, and in Christ’s sending disciples, devoid of securities, to preach the Good News. He saw himself as a creature among creatures, a ‘little brother’ among brothers and sisters in the natural world – one of which, ‘Sir Brother Sun’ deserved the extra title for so much resembling the ‘Most High.’

Choosing to be poor meant rejoicing over things because they existed, not because they could not be possessed. His poverty was not primarily ascetical, not mere deprivation and discipline, nor was it an end in itself; it was, rather, to live up to the gospel and to conform to Christ; to empty oneself before the fullness of God’s goodness.

And was she not a lady? Lady Poverty for Francis comes from the troubadour’s pleasing his lord by singing his lady’s praises. Now, poverty is the chosen bride of the Lord, Christ. Francis and company, leaving all to lead a gospel life, form a pact with Christ’s Lady that by her good offices she might bring them to Christ. In this view, poverty is the way to Christ and is shown to have for humankind a redemptive significance.

Franciscanism: A Definition
In line with the instruction and spirit of St. Francis, franciscanism is a response to the fatherly and motherly love of God, through the following of Christ involving maximum conformation to his life and teaching, by means of gospel penance in the Church, expressed chiefly by brotherly love and littleness.

Dominic: The Man and His Dream

Dominic’s life was shaped by his experience, at home, as a student in Palencia and by his journeys north of the Pyrenees. All his family were in some way affected by his mother’s concern for the poor, a source of gentle admonishment by her husband. Her eldest, Anthony, devoted his life to the care of the poor in a house of hospitality for tramps, pilgrims and scholars.

IN June 1206, with Bishop Diego, he entered the city of Montpellier, where he saw dispirited papal legates preaching to the Albingensians. Diego shocked them with a proposal. The greatest asset the Albingensians possessed was their evangelical fervor. If the legates were to have credibility they must imitate the life style of the apostles preaching on foot in poverty. They did not like the suggestion and asked Diego to lead them. Diego and Dominic did just that and the enterprise known as the preaching or the Preaching of Jesus Christ began. Diego returned to Spain to settle his affairs and died. The others went home. Dominic was the only one to carry on the preaching.

He devoted his life to the care of the poor in a house of hospitality for tramps, pilgrims and scholars. He knew the taste of failure, but he remained faithful to his initial inspiration, preaching throughout the region, convinced that in the Lord’s time the tide would turn. Fidelity in the midst of failure is not the least of Dominic’s legacies. To safeguard the continuity of the preaching, the Order was born in 1215 - first, the nuns at Prouille in 1206, and by 1214 he had gathered a small group of men who shared his life preaching on the pattern of the apostles. Dominic recognized a need for education, and from the beginning he insisted on study in the service of preaching, and the cloister had cells for studying and sleeping in. For each member of a community to have a cell for study and sleep was unusual if not unheard of at the time.



The Man and His Spirit
Dominic was a man of great charm and breath of vision, extraordinary compassion, an incredible zeal for souls, in deep union with God, an organizational genius.

Dominic believed in the virtue of laughter. Jordan of Saxony, his successor, wrote: “His face was always radiant with cheerfulness… and through his cheerfulness… found his way into people’s hearts as soon as they saw him.” For him joyousness of heart was a gospel characteristic. So the Dominican spirit is a joyous spirit that affirms the goodness of created things with faith in the absolute priority of God’s grace in any human action. It is trust in God. Failure or adversity might cloud but not diminish inner peace.
Spontaneity
He was a man of spontaneity using quick vivid phrases. His immediate response to opposition was joy: ‘now we can hope for victory.’ Frequently on the road he fell behind his companion: ‘Go on ahead, let us think of the Savior.’
When he heard a monastery bell for prayer he changed direction to join the praying community. When requests for preaching could not be met he sent a novice: ‘Go confidently; the Lord will be with you.’
Present to God, Present to the World
To be present to God and to be present to the world are the qualities that distinguish Dominic and his spirit. Always among people, he had a deep companionship with God. John of Spain, his critic, said: “He prayed more persistently than all the brothers… He nearly always spent the night in the church… I saw in him a fervor of prayer such as I have never seen the like of.” He loved choral prayer.
A Jesus SpiritualitDominic’s utter concentration upon the personal following of Christ dwarfed all other devotions in the Order. He desired to spend himself for others as Christ had spent himself on the cross. The same desire was to drive the missionaries across the boundaries of the world. He gave the Order its ‘Jesus spirituality’, its devotion to the humanity of Christ that has so characterized the lives of men and women like Albert the Great, Margaret of Hungary, Thomas Aquinas, Catherine of Siena, Meister Eckhart, Tauler, Rose of Lima and others. Inseparable from this was devotion to Mary, mother of God.

Openness to New Ideas and Charisms
Dominic was open to new charisms, to new ideas, to truth from whatever source it came. He lived during the time of great social change. He read the signs of his time and committed himself to the future. He saw the need for structures that did not close doors. He conceived of the Constitutions not as static pieces of legislation, but rather as laws which must be constantly tested and reappraised.
Apostolic Freedom: ‘Stupefyingly Free’
Cardinal Villot in 1970 called Dominic ‘stupefyingly free.’ For him freedom of spirit was a deliberate choice, and apostolic tool. Dominican spirituality is incarnational, enfleshed, in the human condition and the Cross of Jesus. It does not flee the world, rather the world is a friend, if a wounded friend.