Br JR’s new thread, specifically his last question;
Brought up a question in my mind.
How important is the Founder to religious orders?
My order, the Order of Carmelites (also called the Carmelites of Ancient Observance, or Order of the Brothers of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Mount Carmel (this is our official name and appears in our documents), have no founder. St Albert of Jerusalem is known as the Lawgiver and our rule is addressed to Brother B (we believe that he did not want his name to be known).
We view our spiritual founders as Elijah and the Blessed Virgin Mary.
So how important is it to have actual physical founders for a religious order?**
**
I believe they are two different questions that people need to understand. The importance of teh founder is one question. Must a community have a founder is another question.
The second question is self-answering. The Carmelites are a good example. You guys don’t have a specific founder. You came together through various stages.
But then there are communities that were founded with a particular vision and mission. When I speak about the importance of the founder, that’s what I’m addressing. Whether the vision and mission of a community comes through organic development as is the case of the O’Carm or it is revealed to them through an individual, the community must remain faithful to it or it loses its sense of direction and its identity. Imagine if the Carmelites lost touch with ther vocation to be hermits/contemplatives. They would end up someplace else, but not at Carmel. They would be some other religious family in a Carmelite habit.
The same thing would happen if Benedictines, Franciscans, Dominicans, Jesuits, Trinitarians, etc lost sight of the missioin and vision that we received through the founder. We would end up being something or someone else, but not whom we were meant to be.
Whether we get our vision and mission through an individual or through a tradition, as is the case of the Carmelites, it has to be preserved. It was a gift that the Holy Spirit gave to the Church and which we have no right to cast off for something new.
Then there is the question of obedience. Communities that have founders usually have a moral obligation to obey the founder, unless the rule specifies something different. Like Albert is to the Carmelites, founders are to other religious families. They are the law givers. In many rules, the founders require obedience to themselves and their successors. Since most communities have a founder or several founders, it becomes an important question. How much do we appreciate their vision and how faithful are we to their vision? This was part of what Perfectae Caritatis called us to do, to recover that vision.
I can see the Carmelites doing this process a little differently, becaues you don’t have an indentifiable founder. But you’re in a very interesting situation, which is not that common. Most of us have a founder who is considered the patriarch or matriarch, depending on gender.
I know that the Carmelite men do not have as many branches as the Benedictine and Franciscan men do. This is less of an issue for you too. But for us, because we have so many branches and are still expanding, the founder is very important, because be it Benedict or Francis, he is the unitive point of the entire family.
The question boils down to the same thing. How important is the original vision and mission?
Fraternally,
Br. JR, OSF
