Confraternity Of Penitents

[jimcav]

With formation in the CFP you’re not thrown in the deep end and left to sink or swim. If you have a good read through the year by year course of study over the four year period you’ll see that you’ll be gently led into living by the Rule as it’s all about growing you into this deeper walk of faith.

True enough.

I keep going back to read the fantastic site this confraternity has. It’s very informative and one of the best sites out there from any confraternity or associatian I’ve seen.

I guess it’s just nice to talk to people who are members or are thinking of becoming members. It just confirms much of what they say on their site and it helps me to know that this way of life is truly possible in todays world…

 

[Sancta_Rosa]

This morning I received confirmation that my inquirer application has been accepted and that I can apply to join this year’s Postulant programme. This is the most wonderful news and at Mass this morning I wanted to dance and tell everyone I felt so happy. I didn’t of course, but in my heart I was dancing as I offered up praise and thanks to Our Lord+ as I knelt in prayer.

 

[jimcav]

This morning I received confirmation that my inquirer application has been accepted and that I can apply to join this year’s Postulant programme. This is the most wonderful news and at Mass this morning I wanted to dance and tell everyone I felt so happy. I didn’t of course, but in my heart I was dancing as I offered up praise and thanks to Our Lord+ as I knelt in prayer.

That’s fantastic news Sancta Rosa!

I wish you God’s blessing’s in your journey to perfection!

Please keep us informed on your progress and your journey. I hope to be following you soon!

 

[JReducation]

Hi Br. JR:

Happy New Year!

This is a bit off-track but I just have a question/clarification. Wasn’t the Order’s name changed from ‘Third Order Secular Franciscans’ (TOSF) to ‘Secular Franciscan Order’? The Pauline Rule still mentions the term ‘Brothers and Sisters of Penance’.

Based on my observations, one other side effect is that many find the new rule a bit(?) lenient, but to my mind, it is because the Rule is composed of high level statements that must be supported by a good Constitution. Privately I guess, any secular franciscan may use the early rules as his ‘personal statutes’.

In Christ,
albertziggy

PS. You are always in my prayers, brother!

What happened was that until the mid 1970s the secular Franciscan Third Order was not a unified family. It went under many names, because each of the obediences has a branch of the Third Order for which they were responsible. There were as many names as there were branches of the secular Third Order.

The original name was the Brothers and Sisters of Penance. But over the centuries, that term became identified with the life of the “Tertiary”. He or she was to be a brother or sister of penance. This part was preserved by Paul VI when he had the rule rewritten.

Pope Paul tried to do for the Secular Franciscans what Pope Leo tried to do for the friars. At the end of the 19th century there were many groups of friars. Pope Leo reorganized them. The Capuchin Friars Minor were the largest group, so he left it alone and they became the Friars Minor Capuchin. The Conventual Friars Minor were also very large. So they were left alone and became the Friars Minor Conventual. When all the 100+ smaller groups came together, rather than take any of their names: Recollect, Discalced, Penitents, Observants, etc. Pope Leo grouped them all under one label, Friars Minor. They came to be known as THE Franciscans.

Paul VI tried to do the same with the secular arm of the Third Order. He didn’t want to use any of the names that were being used around the world. That would show some kind of favoritism. He commanded the commission whose job it was to write the new rule to come up with a name that everyone could accept. The best name that they came up with was Order of Franciscans Secular (OFS). The English speaking countries felt that this was awkward to say. So they reorganized the words into the Secular Franciscan Order. The problem with the English translation is that it places the term secular at the front and order at the end. The fact that it is truly a canonical order, subject to the Holy Father and under the jurisdiction of the Sacred Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life, gets lost.

But the Pauline Rule, as it is called, is not that far from the original rule. What Pope Paul had done to it was to take out the “guides”. In religious life we call the guides all those little pieces that tell you when to fast, how to dress, how to minister, etc. What he wanted was the rule to be a spiritual writing that conveyed the spirituality of St. Francis.

Personally, I believe that the Rule of the Secular Franciscans is an excellent work of theology and spirituality. But the absence of the guides or the disciplines is notable. What has happened has been that many traditions were laid aside. This was not the intention of the reformed rule. The intention was to explain the spirituality of St. Francis in a manner that all the members of the order understand it and all can live the same spirituality. Unfortunately, many members of the order have run with the title “secular” a little too far. Secular was used as a canonical title, not to mean belonging to the secularized world. In canon law, anyone who is not in public vows is a secular man or woman. For example, all diocesan deacons, priests and bishops are secular men. Pope Benedict XVI is a secular man. He is not a religious. He is not in vows. He is not a consecrated religious. That’s the true meaning of secular.

Now the SFO has the arduous job of recovering its traditions, because they are not spelled out in the new rule. Rather than spell out when to fast, the new rule speaks about the theology of penance and so forth.

I don’t know if that helps.

Fraternally,

Br. JR, OSF

 

[albertziggy]

Now the SFO has the arduous job of recovering its traditions, because they are not spelled out in the new rule. Rather than spell out when to fast, the new rule speaks about the theology of penance and so forth.

I don’t know if that helps.

Fraternally,

Br. JR, OSF

Thanks Br. JR of your response. It helped a lot! I agree with you 100% that we need to recover a lot of our traditions…especially on the aspect of penance. I am optimistic that we will get there, somehow… someday.

In Christ,
albertziggy

 

[jimcintosh]

The rule was not suppressed for any bad reasons. It was suppressed because there were two rules for the Secular Franciscans and it was very confusing. There was a rule of 1221 and a rule of 1223. Francis wrote both of them, but never abrogated the old one. As the Secular Franciscan Order grew and spread some fraternities lived according to one rule and other fraternities lived according to the other. In 1978, the Superior General of the Secular Franciscan Order asked Pope Paul VI to help unify the order. Pope Paul responded by writing a Franciscan rule of his own and abrogagted both rules, the one of 1221 and 1223, which is his right as Pope. Both rules were lifted by a papal bull. Therefore, neither could be abrogated by anyone except St. Francis or a pope. Well, St. Francis died and no pope ever touched either rule until Paul VI came along.

I’m sorry, Br. Jason. I am a fan of many of your posts, but this one is a misstatement of Franciscan history.

Francis did submit three rules for approval. The first, the so-called Primative Rule, was most probably a verbal rule composed of bible verses which was approved verbally by the pope in 1209. By 1221, the rule had been amended over time as required when various situations arose or as required by the Rome (such as Pope Honorius III’s decree in September 1220 that the brothers had to undergo a novitiate before being accepted for final vows). This Rule of 1221 was submitted to Rome but was not approved. It was rewritten to be more acceptable, and the rewrtitten rule was approved in 1223. This is the rule that is lived by the friars of the Order of Friars Minor, Order of Friars Minor Capuchin and Order of Friars Minor Conventual.

The history of the Secular Franciscan Order is very different. Their original rule of life, many Franciscan scholars agree, was Francis’s Letter to All the Faithful, most probably written prior to 1215. This was expanded by Francis into a longer Letter to All the Faithful in 1220. (This *Letter *is actually printed with and is thereore incorporated into the Pauline rule.)

The first official rule for the seculars was Memoriale Propositi, which was issued in 1221. The similar year may be the basis for confusion here. Memoriale Propositi is the 1221 rule followed by this group, not the non-approved rule of Francis written for the first order.

Memoriale Propositi was hardly untouched “until Paul VI came along”. Both Popes Nicholas IV and Pope Leo XIII issued changed rules for the seculars. The latest (the fourth in the series) was the rule of Paul VI. The reason a new rule was issued was not to arbitrate between existing rules but rather the same reason many orders and congregations rewrote their rules and/or consititutions in the middle of the last century – because of the mandate of the Second Vatican Council to return to the charism of their founders. This is the same reason that the rule of the Third Order Regular congregations rewritten and also approved by Paul VI.

The late Bob Stewart, OFM, wrote an excellent history of the rules of the Secular Franciscans as his doctoral thesis, De Illis Qui Faciunt Penitentiam’: The Rule of the Secular Franciscan Order: Origins, Development, Interpretation, for those wishing to explore this history further. I suspect it can be purchased through the Franciscan Institute at St. Bonaventure University.

One of the side effects of the new rule written by Paul VI was the change in the name of tjhe order, from The Brothers and Sisters of Penance to the Secular Franciscan Order. This triggered a great deal of concern among the Secular Franciscans and the Regular Franciscans, because the new name can easily be interpreted to mean that the order is an order of lay people, which is not the case at all. The order has always had deacons, priests and lay members. Leo XIII, Pius X, Pius XII and John XXIII were members of the Order. They wore the Franciscan habit under their secular cassocks. There were also great lay men and women who were professed into the Franciscan Order under the rule of 1221: Thomas More, Joan of Arc, Angela Foligno, Margaret of Cortona, Elizabeth of Hungary, Louis King of France and the Martin (St. Therese’s parents). They are all Franciscan venerable, blesseds and saints who lived by the early rule…

The name change was from Third Order Secular to the Secular Franciscan Order. The regular third orders elected to keep the name Third Order Regular.

To say they wore “the habit” might be misunderstood. The distinctive sign of the Leonine rule was the cord. They wore the cord under their clothes. The distinctive sign of the Secular Franciscan Order today is the Tau Cross. The former cord (and sometimes even brown clothes) was dispensed with to avoid confusing this secular order with the regular orders.

 

[jimcintosh]

What happened was that until the mid 1970s the secular Franciscan Third Order was not a unified family. It went under many names, because each of the obediences has a branch of the Third Order for which they were responsible. There were as many names as there were branches of the secular Third Order.

The original name was the Brothers and Sisters of Penance. But over the centuries, that term became identified with the life of the “Tertiary”. He or she was to be a brother or sister of penance. This part was preserved by Paul VI when he had the rule rewritten.

Pope Paul tried to do for the Secular Franciscans what Pope Leo tried to do for the friars. At the end of the 19th century there were many groups of friars. Pope Leo reorganized them. The Capuchin Friars Minor were the largest group, so he left it alone and they became the Friars Minor Capuchin. The Conventual Friars Minor were also very large. So they were left alone and became the Friars Minor Conventual. When all the 100+ smaller groups came together, rather than take any of their names: Recollect, Discalced, Penitents, Observants, etc. Pope Leo grouped them all under one label, Friars Minor. They came to be known as THE Franciscans.

Not to nitpick, but the history here is also somewhat misstated.

First, the Leonine reorganization of the first orders. There had, from even during the time of Francis, been disagreement about how to live the rule – and, in particular, poverty. Finally, in 1517, Pope Leo X broke up the Friars Minor into the Friars Minor of St. Francis of the Regular Observance and the Order of Friars Minor Conventual. In 1619, the Capuchins broke away from the Conventual friars and were recognized as a seperate order. We had, then, after 1619, three General Ministers and three orders following the same rule.

And all was not peaceful within the Friars of the Regular Observance. Because of continuing desire to live more simply, different reform groups had developed within the same order and under the same General Minister: the main group, the Discalced (barefoot friars), the Reformed, the French Recollects and the German-Belgian Recollects. It was these different groups within the Regular Obedience who Pope Leo XIII united in 1897 with Felicitate Quadam. They were given one constitution, would wear one similar habit, would have one central government, and would be known as the Order of Friars Minor.

VI tried to do the same with the secular arm of the Third Order. He didn’t want to use any of the names that were being used around the world. That would show some kind of favoritism.

I would refer you here to my last post. The name “secular” is a technical one, but so are many things in the church (the bishop is the “Ordinary”, the “Extraordinary Ministers of Eucharist” and so-forth).

The rule doesn’t have “guides” because that would lock the order in for all time. Instead, these kinds of things are spelled out in the constitutions and statutes – international, national, regional and fraternity statutes. The rule, for example, calls for a distinctive sign, as all orders are required to have. It is the national statutes which spell out that that distinctive sign for each country. It is in these statues that the sign being the tau cross is specified.

 

[jimcintosh]

I’m sorry. I mentioned Bob Stewart’s history of the rules of the Secular Franciscans, with emphasis on the development of the Pauline rule, De Illis Qui Faciunt Penitentiam: The Rule of the Secular Franciscan Order: Origins, Development, Interpretation, but I neglected to mention that for those wishing more information on the history of the first order friars, Dominic Monti, OFM, has writtten an excellent and very readable book, Francis & His Brothers, which should be available through Amazon and other outlets.

Finally, anyone wanting more information on the Leonine union should read Maurice Carmody OFM’s The Leonine Union of the Order of Friars Minor 1897, which I think is also available from the Franciscan Institute at St. Bonaventure University.

 

[CreekCrawler]

There was a rule of 1221 and a rule of 1223. Francis wrote both of them, but never abrogated the old one.

Great post, but a slight correction… St Francis didn’t write the Rule of 1221.

From the CFP website

“Francis had written letters of advice to the penitents, but he did not write the Rule of 1221. Cardinal Hugolino dei Conti dei Segni, the Protector of the friars and sisters, wrote the Rule of 1221 at the request of Francis and his lay followers who had entered a penitential life due to the friars’ preaching. The Rule was a legal document on how most of the penitents were already living. The Rule was adopted by Francis as the Rule for his lay followers, thus becoming the first Rule of the Third Order of Saint Francis.”