Finding Saint Francis

[iloveangels]

Actually the biggest complaint I have been hearing is that during the time before they were combined it was to diluted. Without a common authority most members of SFO had poor training. Many were treated as second-hand citizens (i.e. servants of the other Orders).

Many see this as a big revival and an opportunity where the Holy Spirit is guiding the Order to regain its original intent. Similar to the way the Brothers and Sisters of Penance were founded in the first place. Are there going to be growing pains and problems during the process? Yes it will happen with any human run organization, but with the help of St. Francis, St. Clare and other patron Saints those issues have been worked out and are still being worked out. Each SFO fraternity can still have its own feel and outreaches, but now there is better training, more communial feel and more support then ever before.

Instead of looking at the perceived “problems” of the past, look to how to embrace the future.

I think it’s true that the order was more diluted before the new rule of 1978 when we reported to friars. SFOs were treated like a sodality or a pious society before. We are still just coming out of that now in actuality.

However, I think we do have some growing pains to get through. There’s a tendency, and I’ve seen it written as well as vocalized even at fairly high levels, to look back at the era in the 13th/14th centuries when the secular Franciscans were responsible for a lot of social change, rather unwittingly maybe–and expect that we will be mostly “social change agents.” THAT is a complete misunderstanding of the vocation and purpose of the third order. It’s a consequence, and if God wills it then so be it. But it’s not our main purpose for acting.

Honestly, I think we somehow have to get past the popular politics of the present moment which is a confusion for many people.

The rule itself says, in so many words, that we are instead to join ourselves to St. Francis in being completely faithful to the Holy Catholic Church and Scripture, wherever that takes us. And we are to be as faithful to Franciscan tradition as the OFMs and Poor Clares, but in our own way and in our own houses and neighborhoods and families, which means prayer and simplicity and faith that God is in charge no matter what. And that everything in creation gives Him praise, if for no other reason, than merely by the fact that it exists. And to recognize that strife for the sake of strife is futile since we all have the same Father. This is my little explanation of the charism, for what it’s worth.

Am I worried. Nope. God will get us through this too. Always has, always will. It was believed by St. Francis himself that the Franciscan order would be with the church til the end of time. I’m not sure how that would ever change. Don’t think it would.

 

[iloveangels]

As we all know, I am very new to this and so my opinions are pretty much worthless, but from what I’ve read, I agree. In fact, learning about this has restored my hope and made me once again look forward to connecting with the local SFO when I am in a place where there is such in a few months. Maybe I’ll get to be part of the new formation program.

That would be awesome, Julia Mae.

 

[Marauder]

As we all know, I am very new to this and so my opinions are pretty much worthless, but from what I’ve read, I agree. In fact, learning about this has restored my hope and made me once again look forward to connecting with the local SFO when I am in a place where there is such in a few months. Maybe I’ll get to be part of the new formation program.

Your opinions are never worthless. Unless you are trying to live exactly as St. Francis lived where he wanted everyone to call him names and to call him things like worthless out of humility.

Then we are all worthless

Like I said the past is that, the past, something to learn from, not something to dwell on.

Pax et bonum

 

[Julia_Mae]

There’s a tendency, and I’ve seen it written as well as vocalized even at fairly high levels, to look back at the era in the 13th/14th centuries when the secular Franciscans were responsible for a lot of social change, rather unwittingly maybe–and expect that we will be mostly “social change agents.” THAT is a complete misunderstanding of the vocation and purpose of the third order. It’s a consequence, and if God wills it then so be it. But it’s not our main purpose for acting.

Honestly, I think we somehow have to get past the popular politics of the present moment which is a confusion for many people.

The rule itself says, in so many words, that we are instead to join ourselves to St. Francis in being completely faithful to the Holy Catholic Church and Scripture, wherever that takes us. And we are to be as faithful to Franciscan tradition as the OFMs and Poor Clares, but in our own way and in our own houses and neighborhoods and families, which means prayer and simplicity and faith that God is in charge no matter what. And that everything in creation gives Him praise, if for no other reason, than merely by the fact that it exists. And to recognize that strife for the sake of strife is futile since we all have the same Father. This is my little explanation of the charism, for what it’s worth.

This is great. Srsly.

After reading two books of his life, we know he, himself, effected great social change. He “saved” the Church (along with Saint Dominic) if we are to believe the dream/visions of the Pope. But he didn’t set out to, did he?

He just felt personally called and responded and changed his own life and people saw it and wanted that for themselves.

His world was so corrupt, the Church had so much corruption, and there were those who tried to change that and in similar ways. But they are gone. Francis just changed himself and wanted to follow Jesus. That’s what’s in the books I read.

I think we somehow have to get past the popular politics of the present moment

In the first book of his life I read, which was written in the 19th century, the author, on commenting about Francis says (paraphrasing) “It’s a long road from hating evil to loving the good.”

 

[Julia_Mae]

That would be awesome, Julia Mae.

I think so, too. In fact, I am thinking of emailing them and maybe visiting sometime this month, as soon as my daughter has a definite closing date for the house she is buying with the “mother-not-in-law” apartment that I am supposed to move into. There is someone living there now, and we want no make sure she is not disrupted by having to move abruptly, so exactly when I will move is up in the air, but it will be by April. I wonder if, as the formation takes so long, they might let me start a bit early and a bit long distance?

It would be something of a challenge to get up there for the meetings once a month, I think, but Francis slept on the floor without blankets, gave away his tunic multiple times and starved himself while throwing himself into thorn bushes and snowbanks, so maybe I can muddle through the 72 mile drive somehow.

 

[Luigi_Daniele]

I used to do around 1 hour in both directions…

 

[Julia_Mae]

Your opinions are never worthless. Unless you are trying to live exactly as St. Francis lived where he wanted everyone to call him names and to call him things like worthless out of humility.

Well, that would be fine with me, but if I wanted that then probably somehow it really be pride. Or something.

I’m a person who just read some books. I think the relative value of my opinions on this matter is just pretty much reflective of fact. I have in past, actually told people who expressed opinions on evolution that they mostly needed to shut up and pay attention to what I was explaining because the state of their education made their opinions worthless.

Which was also factual but explains my very great need for Franciscan spirituality in my life. I don’t have a single trait that Francis valued. If I were a man in his time and wanted to be a friar he’d refuse me. That’s not humility. That’s just the way it is. You can tell right here from the way I answered what you surely meant as charity how arrogant and opinionated I am.

Francis had me pegged:

Chapter XXI. On the inane and loquacious religious

Blessed (is) the servant who, when he speaks, does not manifest all his own (thoughts) in view of (some) wage and is not swift to speak (cf. Prov. 29:20) but wisely provides what he ought to speak and answer. · Woe to that religious who does not retain in his heart (Lk 2:19.51)the good things, which the Lord shows him, and does not show them to others through work, but who in view of (some) wage desires rather to show them to men with words. · He himself receives “his wage” and (his) hearers bring back little fruit.

I see a vow of silence and forum abstinence in my future.:sad_yes:

However, in order not to take anything away from you, I will admit you might be as much of a clanging cymbal as myself. I’m not seeing that, but we all know what my opinions are worth.

See how I just made myself the topic?

Please speak more about Francis.

 

[Julia_Mae]

I used to do around 1 hour in both directions…

I will take your sacrifice as my inspiration!

 

[iloveangels]

This is great. Srsly.

After reading two books of his life, we know he, himself, effected great social change. He “saved” the Church (along with Saint Dominic) if we are to believe the dream/visions of the Pope. But he didn’t set out to, did he?

He just felt personally called and responded and changed his own life and people saw it and wanted that for themselves.

His world was so corrupt, the Church had so much corruption, and there were those who tried to change that and in similar ways. But they are gone. Francis just changed himself and wanted to follow Jesus. That’s what’s in the books I read.

In the first book of his life I read, which was written in the 19th century, the author, on commenting about Francis says (paraphrasing) “It’s a long road from hating evil to loving the good.”

No, don’t think so. He set out to love God with all his heart and mend his ways. Then God told him in a vision to rebuild his church. The first thing Francis thought was to rebuild the stone building where he was standing. It took him a long time and much urging to get a rule for his brothers because they wanted to be with him. He did not on the first day start out to found a huge rule with millions of followers, no. He set out to follow the Gospel.

Even later, I’m quite sure that he viewed his rule as only the just response to the great humility and love that God had showed by coming to earth as the Christ. He was not a political man. And he eschewed money since he knew after his early years what ravages it could take on a person if they made it their god.

It was the church who realized that the rule could have the effect of saving millions of souls and turning around the spiritual waste of the 12-13th century.

The social consequences of the 13th & 14th centuries, ie. the casting off of feudal law and the start of the renaissance were neither anticipated nor perhaps even fully approved by either St. Francis or Rome. These changes meant the end of many things people were used to and liked. No one knows, of course, in periods of great change who to attribute what to, rather like the changes in the 20th century, no? Great improvements, great violence, great disasters, great wealth, great poverty. Who can sort it out?

What can be said is that St. Francis and the Franciscans gave many people a reason to continue trusting in God, and to believe that being alive was good. It made people believe again in a time of great unrest and confusion. That’s what the 13th century was like, not so different from today in some ways.

 

[iloveangels]

One of the huge themes of Franciscanism is the humility of God. That the almighty and eternal God, creator of everything that has ever existed, would come to earth as a baby in a barn full of cows, to save us from our sins, shocked St. Francis. And yet he knew it had been true. This has everything to do with not taking oneself too seriously in much of anything but our sin. After all, who do we think we are anyway?

Credible legend says that St. Francis built the first nativity scene. St. Francis is also responsible for the Stations of the Cross as we know them today, according to similar credible legend.

Have you seen any of the movies about St. Francis? Some of them are really corny but I can think of at least one that’s pretty good.

 

[Luigi_Daniele]

I will take your sacrifice as my inspiration!

It wasn’t a sacrifice. It was a gorgeous drive.

 

[Julia_Mae]

Credible legend says that St. Francis built the first nativity scene. St. Francis is also responsible for the Stations of the Cross as we know them today, according to similar credible legend.

Have you seen any of the movies about St. Francis? Some of them are really corny but I can think of at least one that’s pretty good.

Which is the good one? I have to admit, I’m also sucker for corny, buy stock in Kleenex!

I believe that Nativity thing is fairly well-documented. I didn’t know about the Stations of the Cross, perhaps further along in Celano’s book or somewhere I’ll find it. I love the Stations. Reading his writings, it’s amazing the things in practice we have that came from him. I read that the last part of the Hail Mary (Holy Mary Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death) came from this:

Holy Virgin Mary, there is none like unto Thee born in the world among women, • Daughter and Handmaid of the Most High, the Highest King, the heavenly Father, Mother of Our Most Holy Lord Jesus Christ, Spouse of the Holy Spirit: pray on our behalf with St. Michael the Archangel and all the Virtues of Heaven and all the Saints before Thy Most Holy Beloved Son, the Lord and Master.

…but not until the Reformation. But maybe a lot of people were saying it anyway.

 

[Luigi_Daniele]

Francis indeed instituted the Nativity. I am not sure that Francis himself instituted the Stations, but Franciscans certainly did.

The Peace Prayer is not his, though. Anonymous later Franciscan author.

 

[iloveangels]

Which is the good one? I have to admit, I’m also sucker for corny, buy stock in Kleenex!

I believe that Nativity thing is fairly well-documented. I didn’t know about the Stations of the Cross, perhaps further along in Celano’s book or somewhere I’ll find it. I love the Stations. Reading his writings, it’s amazing the things in practice we have that came from him. I read that the last part of the Hail Mary (Holy Mary Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death) came from this:

…but not until the Reformation. But maybe a lot of people were saying it anyway.

The best movie, in my opinion and I’m not an expert mind you, is “Clare and Francis.” It’s new, it was made in Italy, it’s a little controversial in spots but also it was made in conjunction with the friars in Italy. It’s far more faithful to what we actually know about St. Francis than some of the early ones that have been around for awhile.

You can buy a copy online-it’s not very expensive. Or you can watch it in Italian on youtube. LOL. I watched it on youtube, then bought an English copy so that I paid for it, and have the copy in English.

 

[Julia_Mae]

You can buy a copy online-it’s not very expensive. Or you can watch it in Italian on youtube. LOL. I watched it on youtube, then bought an English copy so that I paid for it, and have the copy in English.

If it’s open source we could record it and subtitle it.

 

[Julia_Mae]

Francis indeed instituted the Nativity. I am not sure that Francis himself instituted the Stations, but Franciscans certainly did.

The Peace Prayer is not his, though. Anonymous later Franciscan author.

You mean “make me a channel of your peace,” right?

The explanation I heard about the Nativity is that people used to make pilgrimages to the Holy Land to visit whatever they thought the actual location of His birth was. I think they may have had a reenactment there and it was a big deal. But Christians were being killed there because of the Holy Wars and such and so Francis made the ceremony for them at home.

I have no idea if that’s correct. I find historians like to explain things but it’s mostly their own speculation, though certainly I would respect their erudition.

 

[Julia_Mae]

a minor friar is one of my favorite blogs. This is from an old post there, I just wanted to share here:

It wasn’t a good morning for parish technology. There was no internet or any access to documents on the office server. To my embarrassment it turned out to be as simple as the server having gone in some kind of hibernate mode, which was actually a good thing because I found a lot of dust to vacuum when I removed the front panel to turn it back on.

At one point during my efforts to fix the network, I was going down the hall and remarked to one of our older friars,

“Nothing works in this tired and broken world!”

to which he responded immediately,

“Brother, that’s why we’re here.”

Anyway, not really what I wanted to post, blogging just made me think of it.

I didn’t know if SFO folks knew about this:

Thoughts on the Gospel of Our Lord, Jesus Christ, For Members of the Secular Franciscan Order*

AND - can anyone tell me why the Crusader Cross is considered Franciscan? You can see it at the above link. Thanks.

 

[Marauder]

I’m a person who just read some books. I think the relative value of my opinions on this matter is just pretty much reflective of fact. I have in past, actually told people who expressed opinions on evolution that they mostly needed to shut up and pay attention to what I was explaining because the state of their education made their opinions worthless.

That is something you will have to overcome on your spiritual journey, especially if you want to become a Franciscan. You need to remember that everyone has Christ within them, whether they be poor/rich, educated/uneducated, Catholic/atheist, etc. Nobody should ever be viewed as worthless, whether you are viewing them personally as worthless or their opinions doesn’t matter. In charity when dealing with others, especially in evangelic circles taking that opinion will get you nowhere.

On of the things you can think about is that the spiritual journey can be thought as a spiral or as an inverted tornado. You start out at the bottom where it is real big, there is a lot to learn and you may be far from Christ. You learn more, you come more into the circle, you put into practice some of those teachings, you learn more and farther and farther you get into the circle moving farther and farther up the tornado/spiral until you reach the pinnacle. It can take awhile to move at all or even go backwards at times, the key is to try to always continue.

I have found in my spiritual journey that I have changed a lot and things that were important to me in the past aren’t as important and things that weren’t very important are now more important. You may find the same thing happening to you in your discernment process.
Which was also factual but explains my very great need for Franciscan spirituality in my life. I don’t have a single trait that Francis valued. If I were a man in his time and wanted to be a friar he’d refuse me. That’s not humility. That’s just the way it is. You can tell right here from the way I answered what you surely meant as charity how arrogant and opinionated I am.

Francis had me pegged:

It is good that you see yourself in his admonitions, to not see yourself in any of them would show someone with way to much pride to fairly evaluate themself.

I see a vow of silence and forum abstinence in my future.:sad_yes:

No reason to do that. If you feel uncomfortable talking in such a large thread you could always talk in a smaller environment under the “Franciscan Spirituality” social group. Many of the people talking in this thread also talk over there.

Pax et bonun,
Jim

 

[Marauder]

AND - can anyone tell me why the Crusader Cross is considered Franciscan?

That is primarily used by the Custos of the Holy Land. The Franciscans that are responsible for most of the Catholic Shrines and holy sites in Israel. They have basically been in the Holy Land almost uninterrupted since the time of the St. Francis’ meeting with the Sultan.

It is actually called the Jerusalem Cross The big Cross is there for the obvious reason. The 4 surrounding Crosses represent the four books of the Gospel. Some also say the 5 crosses symbolize the 5 wounds of Jesus.

I am not exactly sure of the history as to why the Custos adopted as their primary symbol. I am sure others would know.

A lot more information about the Custos can be found here:
myfranciscan.org/

 

[Luigi_Daniele]

a minor friar is one of my favorite blogs. This is from an old post there, I just wanted to share here:

Anyway, not really what I wanted to post, blogging just made me think of it.

I didn’t know if SFO folks knew about this:

Thoughts on the Gospel of Our Lord, Jesus Christ, For Members of the Secular Franciscan Order*

AND - can anyone tell me why the Crusader Cross is considered Franciscan? You can see it at the above link. Thanks.

That’s brilliant. (And yes that was the prayer I was referring to)