Let’s not get carried away here. Europe, during the lifetime of Francis and Dominic, was not the most godly world. I think that there was a fear of the Church’s power. That fear kept many people towing the line. Pope Innocent and Honorius had a lot of temporal power.
I don’t believe that either of these great men would deviate from their teaching and their approach to the faithful. I can speak about Francis better than I can about Dominic. For one thing, Dominic never wrote a rule. Dominic did tell his Friar Preachers to remember that they must exercise great charity in all things, especially their preaching.
Francis did write a rule. His rule is very clear on questions about obedience to the local bishop, the pope, himself and his elected successors. He is very tough on this issue. He demands obedience, even when one knows that one is right. He was so serious about this that in his final words to the order he reminds us that we can forfeit our eternal souls if we fail to obey. Francis never left any room for doubts as to who was in charge of the order and the Church.
You are absolutely right! I do remember though in the 50’s vocations were honored by the parents. Some went to seminary right after eight grade, although I believe that was much too early.
But if you look at history, I don’t believe that Francis’s parents were too keen on him renouncing all of this riches either. If parents don’t understand this, it is up to the ones who believe they have these vocations to stand firm. It must be heartbreaking to say “no” to your parents, but I believe many of our saints had to do just that.
A good thing may be some missions or lectures in some of the churches by Franciscans aimed at some of these parents, and the good they accomplish.
No parish priest has the time to do any of the things you mentioned. By the way, my deceased parents were third order Franciscans.
His second great teaching to his sons and daughters is about poverty. Francis included detachment from oneself, not only from material things, in his teachings on poverty.
Francis certainly taught great love for the Eucharist. There is no question about it. He also taught the importance of the entire liturgy: Eucharist and Hours. He loved the Sacraments and taught his brothers to love them and to teach others to love them.
If he were alive, these would be the messages that he would deliver today. The world still needs to learn about obedience, to detach from self and attach to Jesus and his Gospel, to draw closer to Christ in the Eucharist, Liturgy of the Hours and other Sacraments.
He would certainly remind both sides of the aisle to remain faithful to the Church, to the bishops, the Holy Father and to help evangelize the world. Francis was a great promoter of the lay evangelist. That’s why he founded a Secular Order. He wanted them to build a fraternity outside of the cloister. We need people to buid fraternity outside the cloister. The divisions among Catholics are contrary to the Gospel.
We have seen a contemporary Francis of Assisi and there is no lack of charity in her, Mother Teresa of Calcutta. There is no criticism of the Church, her bishops or a condemnation of one side for being too right or too left. Teresa of Calcutta preached a universal call to love Jesus. She did so in a very Franciscan manner, through her example.
Here is an interesting aside, if you will. We founded a new community, the Franciscan Brothers of Life. The community’s mission is to spread the Gospel of Life while living in the same manner as St. Francis lived. What has been most interesting in our experience is that we have young men who want to enter the community and their Catholic parents are discouraging them. They don’t want them to be brothers. They want them to be either married or become priests.
What we have is Catholics who want to repair the liturgy, fix the Church, get past child abuse, and much more, but they stand in the way of young men who want to become consecrated religioius. There is a bigger problem here than liturgical abuse.
Our experience is not unique. The Francisan Brothers of the Primitive Observance get the same reports from their candidates. Parents who object to their sons becoming brothers in that community because they don’t have computers, TV, cell phones and they sleep on the floor, they beg for food on the streets, they don’t run parishes, but instead they spend endless hours with the sick, the addict, the poor and homeless.
There was a time when parents would have been very proud of their sons. Today, we see a resistance to the consecrated life. This begs the questsion. Who will convert the world?
How many parish priests can:
- walk the streets talking to people?
- run soup kitchens?
- run homeless shelters?
- preach healing retreats to those who have had abortions?
- run chastity days for youth?
- sit all night with a person who is drying, praying him into heaven?
- write and teach on the Gospel of Life?
- run pregnancy centers?
- teach theology to laity, seminarians and laity?
- teach the Gospel of Life to children, youth and adults?
- run ministries via internet, TV, radio?
Parish priests do not have the time or the training to do these things. You need the religious brother. The Holy Father has made this very clear in recent days. I believe that Francis and Dominic would agree that the reforms and healing that we need won’t happen unless there are two changes in modern Catholics:
- greater reverence in liturgy and prayer
- recovery of traditional religious life
They go together because they are both sources of grace for the Church. We can’t just ask for the one without the other. Francis and Domnic were well aware of this. That’s why they promoted both.
Fraternally,
Br. JR, OSF
