Franciscan Vocation

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OliverP

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Hi all,

I’ve been feeling a real pull towards the religious life, particularly the Franciscans. However despite my asking the difference between the Observants, Conventuals and Capuchins, nobody has really been able to give me a solid answer. So my first question would be if any of you guys know the differences as they pertain to modern practices and apostolates. I already know the difference in their histories but I’d like to know how they apply to today.

My second question is that I was made aware that in over the last 50 years the Franciscans seem to have become a little…liberal (for want of a better word). By this I mean watered down liturgy, guitar masses, and a lack of much tradition.

I’m not, as it may sound, a rigid traditionalist, but I do have a love and desire for very reverent and beautiful liturgy. I don’t like guitars at masses, I love sung masses and incense, and solid teaching that isn’t focussed purely on Gods love, but also touches on those hard hitting truths which we now appear afraid to tell people.

So even though I am very attracted to the Franciscans, especially due to the inspiration of Padre Pio, I feel a bit dismayed at how the Franciscans, or how they appear in my neck of the woods, appear to have lost a lot of their tradition. I did consider Franciscans of the Renewal or Friars of the Immaculate, but they’re not very big where I am and for some reason do not feel drawn to them at all. Atm my heart is very much between the Capuchins and the Conventuals.

Any advice for somebody who wants to join one of these orders but feels that the order in its modern form is going to leave them disappointed?
 
I don’t have much knowledge of the Fransciscan order, but if you’re interested in their life, you should visit some communities, especially if there’s some close by where you live.

As far as the differences between OFM’s, Capuchins, Conventuals, etc. There’s really not a huge difference today, despite their differing histories. Or so I’ve been told.
 
Just a couple of thoughts:

Bear in mind that things like liturgical preferences are dependent upon the religious community. Franciscans are much more likely to have toned down, simplified liturgies compared to, say, Benedictines, as a general rule. Your taste may not align with a particular community’s charism. That’s usually the least important thing, though.

Second, don’t get too hung up on which groups are in your area if you’re thinking of certain orders like the Franciscans. They’re likely to move you around anyway, unless you find a community that values stable monastic life.
 
Check out this video by a Franciscan Brother (who is now a priest)

 
I would point out that talk such as “watered down liturgies” is a phrase which can be thrown around with abandon, sometimes with merit, sometimes by someone with an agenda, and has a tendency to take on a life of its own. By that, I mean that what may have occurrred at one point in time in one or several places can end up being attributed far beyond the time/place continuum and to groups to which it has no bearing whatsoever.

Cor_ad_Cor beat me to the punch, however, I agree with him that if liturgy being celebrated a certain way is a significant part of what you are looking for in a community, you might be more likely to find it among the Benedictines than the Franciscans; both accept poverty in one form or another, but the Franciscans are much more a mendicant order; the Benedictines are not. And the Benedictines are community based liturgy of prayer (LOTH as well as daily Mass in community) and work normally restricted primarily to their abbey. Both evangelize, but in different ways; so you may need to decide between more formal liturgy and the different charisms of the Franciscans.

As an aside, rather than judging all Franciscans by those you have met, you may want to take some time and visit the different groups, again because too often, there is a tendency to paint all with a big brush when the details do not support “one color”.
 
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Franciscan friars of the renewal

Have you thought about these franciscans. I would regard them as very traditional and very much engaged in ministry with Youth, feeding the poor, Pro life work, Street evangelization, deep life of prayer especially for the Eucharist and praying the rosary. Through there youth apostolate, daily routine of praying a walking rosary in Moyross in County Limerick they have saved a lot of youth from drug and gang lifestyle. Eventually the gangs key members were all arrested. Not perfect but far less violent than what it used to be.

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Franciscan Friars of The Renewal UK and Ireland
 
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I agree, I struggled to write my post in a way they didn’t give off the kind of impression you described. I just like nice liturgy that doesn’t have innovations not suited to mass. Aesthetically, I am more traditional. I understand, however, that aesthetics are secondary to everything else.

It is a significant part, but as you and Cor_ad_Cor said, I need to visit and experience for myself before I make judgements. I’m just looking further ahead in case what I think is the reality (been told by my priest I look too far ahead and worry myself). As for the Benedictines, as much as I love them, I don’t think I’m called to monastic life and being away from the world. There is a desire for that in me, but knowing myself I don’t think I’d last more than a month at most. Whilst I love time to myself in quite solitude, I do get the desire to be around different people, so a mendicant order is probably the best shout for me.

Thank you for your help!
 
Yes, I have. They are good brothers in that order, but for some reason I don’t feel a pull to them. Having some exposure to the community in my own country, I don’t think I’d fit in well there. But I’m not writing them off yet, I need to do more investigation I think. Early days yet.

Thank you!
 
Conventual Franciscans of Great Britain and Ireland

Not sure about other provinces, but the UK and Irish provinces of the Conventuals are very prayerful. I know in the postulancy and there novitiate consists of a lot of adoration including one adoration on Friday for Pro life causes. They also gather after evening prayer to pray a fraternal rosary together. Daily consecration to Immaculate heart of mary by St Maximilian Kolbe

Alot street evangelisation, working at a nursing home attached to the house of formation, pro life work, youth ministry, strong fraternal charity to one another, Postulancy is in Oxford as well. Get to study in novitiate at Assisi at the same place as St Francis’s remains.
 
OliverP said:
As for the Benedictines, as much as I love them, I don’t think I’m called to monastic life and being away from the world. There is a desire for that in me, but knowing myself I don’t think I’d last more than a month at most. Whilst I love time to myself in quite solitude, I do get the desire to be around different people, so a mendicant order is probably the best shout for me.
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Benedictines, at least in some monasteries, are hardly in solitude and away from the world. Not trying to sway you, just saying… around here, they’re found about as frequently as Franciscans. Cistercians, in the other hand, are not so common and may be more in line with your “solitude” thinking.
 
Well I used to be very I retested in them too. I would look into the CFRs or the Franscian Friars Minor in Indiana. I personally was more attracted to the communities who lived more simple and poor lives more like the original Franciscans. Some of the bigger groups that are now more liberal do not adhere to the rule as strictly
 
Not sure if you were referring to the New Haven-based Friars Minor (who have a great reputation) or the Conventual Friars Minor of Mt St Francis, some of whom I’ve known myself. They’re wonderful, too!
 
OliverP said:
By this I mean watered down liturgy,
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That’s very much the wrong term.

While my liturgical tastes are rather conservative, understand that simplicity just plain dominates the entire Franciscan spirituality; that is what they are. It is simultaneously their strength in some contexts, and weakness in the eyes of some others.

It is the reason they were one of only two groups to have any success at evangelizing the Indians.

(I’ve been to known to quip that Jesuit music is as bad as Franciscan religious art. More fairly, their art reflects their spiritual approach, and can reasonably be compared to pre-columnbian art–again, simplicity as both strength and weakness).

Another example is that Franciscans generally reject concelebration not out of a notion of tradition, but rather humility (that a priest should be humble enough to offer individually or to attend that of another priest so offering).

Again, not right or wrong, but the core of their spirituality.
 
Yes, I do feel it is the wrong term, however I couldn’t think of how else to word it (maybe my simple mind is a sign, haha).

I do find it interesting, all this talk of simplicity. Whilst I don’t disagree, my understanding of Franciscan simplicity has always been simplicity of person, life and prayer…but that is separate from the mass.

For example, the Extraordinary Form of the mass is anything but simple, yet this was the mass highly promoted by Franciscans around the Council of Trent and was the mass celebrated by the saints right up to people like Padre Pio and Bl Solanus Casey. My understanding, therefore, is that whilst simplicity of life, personal prayer, and how one relates to other people is key in Franciscan spirituality, there was a separation between that life and the mass. Simplicity was the rule until it came to the celebration of the mass because the mass is not about us, but Him, and therefore is due proper reverence and splendour. It would be a greater humility for a Franciscan to indeed celebrate the mass in a way that was not normal for their way of life and I believe this is how they would have seen it before the ordinary form.

Disclaimer: I’m an OF lover and not saying that the EF should be what everybody celebrates.
 
Hey, don’t look at me; I’m Eastern.

So I see no conflict in a simplistic theology that revels in the beauty of a complex liturgy . . .

(and, for that matter, Easterns don’t have an insistence on nailing things down, and are happy to answer “yes” to either/or liturgical questions, but the liturgy has generally been far more complex in the East. It’s rare for two things to be simultaneous western liturgy, but quite common in even modern easter liturgy, while historically there were even more than that . . . .)

there are many paths to Him, and many ways of reaching, but they are all His . . .

hawk
 
What you call the Observants, would I think mean those who just have OFM, after their names…who minister at
St Anthony’s Messenger, etc. They are shrinking very rapidly, are extremely liberal. I urge you not to go there.
The conventuals are also shrinking, they aren’t perfect but seem more orthodox than the Capuchins. Consider them.

Fr. Groeschel left the Capuchins due to problems, I dont know if the problems continue. Consider the Franciscans Third Order Regular. They are priests who are fully orthodox, staff Franciscan U. At Steubenville. In terms of geography, remember the large orders are shrinking, are pulling out of cities. The growing orders may open a new house in your part of the country.
 
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