And Brother J.R. proves once again what a BAMF he is.
Nice answer!
I have no idea what a BAMF is, but I hope it’s good.
After many years of studying Francis’ life, his writings, teachings, what has been written about him, his theology and his ecclesiology and spending almost the same number of years teaching Franciscans studies, I have never found anything in his writings or those of the people who knew him as to why Wednesday I have three theories, but have been unable to prove or disprove any of them.
First: He may have gotten the idea from Ash Wednesday, which in those days was a major holy day. Just as we perpetuate Good Friday by making all Fridays a day of penance, Wednesdays may have held the same meaning to him.
Second: There were a number of penitential movements during his time. His was not the first. He may have learned this from the Albagensians, who were later condemned for heresy, but not for this particular practice. Though we don’t know for sure if this is one of their practices.
Third: Francis was a great admirer of the Benedictines, though he tried to get as far away as he could from many of their practices, such as chanting the Hours, cloisters and much of the structure of the monastic life, because he found it to be confining, he did carry many of their practices into the world, creating a movement that had strong monastic qualities, without the external trappings of monastic life. The Benedictines did have many days of abstinence built into their structure.
It may have been that all of the above influenced each other. However, it was Francis who took this and other ascetical practices outside of the cloister. One has to understand what it meant to him, if one is to engage in it productively.
For Francis of Assisi, asceticism was not something that one did because it was a rule, to weed out vices, or to comply with rules and regulations. He was not a man who was very attentive to tradition. He probably would not be very welcome on this forum. Francis heard a higher calling. That was to become a living duplicate of Christ.
We have to understand how he sees Christ, which is a little different from how many of us see him. In fact, Francis’ spirituality was more Eastern than Latin. He saw Christ as the one who revealed the Father through the power of the Holy Spirit. His spirituality is very Trinitarian and transcendent at the same time that it’s incarnational. God is both here and in eternity. To love God, one must become as poor as God. God is simple. Poverty is an end, not a means to an end. When one achieves perfect poverty, one has become like Christ; therefore, becoming one with the Father as Christ is one with the Father. This is only possible through the work of the Holy Spirit. Fasting and abstinence strip one of one’s attachment to self.
In the end, fasting and abstinence are a means of living the first beatitude and a means of becoming like Christ Crucified who says, “I thirst.” One becomes totally poor, because the Crucified Christ is poor. Only by becoming the Crucified Christ can one achieve union with the Father. Only then can Francis say like Christ, “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.”
This was the goal of his life and the goal that he sets for his brothers, nuns and seculars, to become so like Christ that we can commend our spirits to the Father and be united to him as the Son is united to him, thus fulfilling Christ’s wish that we remain in his love and Paul’s admonition that we conform to Christ crucified.
Fasting and abstinence, in the Franciscan tradition goes beyond atoning for sin. It is an act of union with Christ that leads to union with the Father and it is motivated and sustained by the grace that one receives from the Holy Spirit.
It is profoundly Trinitarian and mystical. Fasting and abstinence unites the ascetic and the mystic. On the one hand there is the sinner who joins Christ on the cross to atone for humanity’s sins. However, it also goes further. It unites the individual to Christ who liberates himself from everything, including his humanity, in order to surrender his spirit to the Father who awaits with open arms.
Fasting and abstinence are one single act of atonement and liberation, when through the grace of the Holy Spirit, it seeks to be Christ who atones and goes to the Father once he has experienced thirst. This becomes very clear to us in the Office of the Passion, which is an addendum to the Divine Office that Francis wrote for his followers, secular and regular. His choice of psalms and the prayers that he writes speak to us of this vision that he has.
Fraternally,
Br. JR, OSF
man big words for such a little minded person at this time of night] was considered to be a hoax. So does the Church leave that open to believe in if one choosees to believe in it? Or what should one do regarding that?