The Perfect Joy of St. Francis

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Melchior said:
In Canada I’m seeing something similar happening. When I inquired about the SFO, the gentleman told me that to get involved it would require time, sacrifice, and energy. I have these, but it would have conflicted with my parish work. Essentially, the fellow was telling me that part of joining with the greater family is that I would need to dedicate myself to the ideals of that family, and focus on that family This was one of the reasons why I was so hesitant to join, because I still feel that God is calling me to work within the Parish I’m at.

Contrast this with the Lay Dominicans, who in Ontario are also starting to try and make a comeback. I was told that, yes, community was important. But the big things were bringing Dominican spirituality to your parish, and getting involved in ministries that Dominicans would do (RCIA, youth ministry, sacramental education, Rosaries misc etc). Still a family (you’re still a Dominican, complete with the “OP”], but living out the vocation is still different than you would with the SFO.
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That’st the fundamental difference between Francis and Dominic. Look at the name of the Dominican Order, the Order of Preachers. It was founded with a mission, to go out and preach.

Now look a the names of Francis’ three orders; The Lesser Brothers, the Poor Sisters and the Brothers and Sisters of Penance. The words brother and sister are deliberately built into the name and that is followed by a virtue to be cultivated, not by an apostolic activity. For Francis, apostolic activity begins within the fraternity and it done as a fraternity, because you’re joining a family, not an order with an apostolic mission.

That’s probably the best way to discern a vocation between the two mendicant orders. Do you want to be a brother/sister or do you want to preach?

If your call is to be part of a family that does things together and grows from being one mind and heart, then you go Franciscan.

If your call is to be part of a family that is called to a particular work and grows from its work, then you go Dominican.

Dominicans have fraternity, but it’s not their primary apostolate. Franciscans do preach, but it’s not their primary apostolate. That’s why the two compliment each other so nicely.

Fraternally,

Br. JR, OSF 🙂
 
JReducation said:
That’st the fundamental difference between Francis and Dominic. Look at the name of the Dominican Order, the Order of Preachers. It was founded with a mission, to go out and preach.

Now look a the names of Francis’ three orders; The Lesser Brothers, the Poor Sisters and the Brothers and Sisters of Penance. The words brother and sister are deliberately built into the name and that is followed by a virtue to be cultivated, not by an apostolic activity. For Francis, apostolic activity begins within the fraternity and it done as a fraternity, because you’re joining a family, not an order with an apostolic mission.

That’s probably the best way to discern a vocation between the two mendicant orders. Do you want to be a brother/sister or do you want to preach?

If your call is to be part of a family that does things together and grows from being one mind and heart, then you go Franciscan.

If your call is to be part of a family that is called to a particular work and grows from its work, then you go Dominican.

Dominicans have fraternity, but it’s not their primary apostolate. Franciscans do preach, but it’s not their primary apostolate. That’s why the two compliment each other so nicely.

Fraternally,

Br. JR, OSF 🙂
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How about Benedictines?
 
JReducation said:
That’st the fundamental difference between Francis and Dominic. Look at the name of the Dominican Order, the Order of Preachers. It was founded with a mission, to go out and preach.

Now look a the names of Francis’ three orders; The Lesser Brothers, the Poor Sisters and the Brothers and Sisters of Penance. The words brother and sister are deliberately built into the name and that is followed by a virtue to be cultivated, not by an apostolic activity. For Francis, apostolic activity begins within the fraternity and it done as a fraternity, because you’re joining a family, not an order with an apostolic mission.

That’s probably the best way to discern a vocation between the two mendicant orders. Do you want to be a brother/sister or do you want to preach?

If your call is to be part of a family that does things together and grows from being one mind and heart, then you go Franciscan.

If your call is to be part of a family that is called to a particular work and grows from its work, then you go Dominican.

Dominicans have fraternity, but it’s not their primary apostolate. Franciscans do preach, but it’s not their primary apostolate. That’s why the two compliment each other so nicely.

Fraternally,

Br. JR, OSF 🙂
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You’ve distilled what I discovered in nearly seven years of discernment into that post, which one of many reasons that you’re awesome.

It even shows canonically how important family is to the Franciscans. With the Franciscans, a Brother is on the same level as a Priest as a Laymen (as we find with Bonaventure). A non-Priest Brother can do most of the preaching in several cases or run the household. With the Dominicans, this is rarely the case. Dominic wanted to help the preachers, especially from the pulpit. So the Brothers work primarily to assist the Fathers (not saying the Brothers can’t use their own preaching skills mind you, but again, this is still different than the Franciscans). Laymen such as myself work to bring Dominican spirituality into the world and parishes, but again; this helps out the Priests from the diocese, so we’re still helping our Fathers.

All of this stuff great. I’m giving a talk this weekend on God the Father, and I’ll probably incorporate several elements of how Francis and Dominic treated their respective Orders.

I’ll be meeting with the local head of the Dominican Priory soon to discuss the beginnings of my formation with the Lay Dominicans. I long for the day that I can look towards two of my heroes and call them Holy Father Dominic and Holy Father Francis.

True Light, Benedictines fascinate me in several areas, in the sense that I greatly respect them but I know their spirituality isn’t for me. You may have heard Brother JR talk about Franciscan obedience, well the Benedictines take this to a whole new level 🙂

I think, if I had to summarize them quickly; community through contemplative. If I understand correctly, there’s a lot of silent prayer, yet they do so as a community. So picture being in a room with several people, all of you prayer the same things, yet doing so silently. Those who have anything resembling the gift of discernment could probably drive past an Abby and sense the prayer. Walking into an Abby would feel like running into a wall of prayer.

For a layman, the life of a Benedictine would involve following a life of contemplative prayer. In a group setting you’re more likely to silently intercede and pray while someone does the talking.

EXAMPLE:

In a prayer group setting, someone asks to be prayed over by multiple people. The following could happen:

The Franciscan would have probably invited the guy to come in the first place, and is also very likely the first person to talk to him after the meeting. Depending on where the spirit takes things, may or may not say a prayer out loud.

The Dominican would probably have a turn at leading the prayer, and would certain inquire after with the fellow if he had any questions about what happened.

The Benedictine would silently pray the whole time, and would also pray for the fellow later on that night for continued spiritual growth.

The Saelisian would do a combination of the Dominicans and Franciscans, and are probably the most likely to ask the guy if he wanted to hit a pub or McDonalds later to talk things over,

The Jesuits would build a school for the guy or something. In all seriousness, the Jesuit would look at things and try to discern what course of action the guy should take next and make some recommendations.

We should almost make a spin off thread for this, so y’all can still talk about Francis without me dragging Dominic into things (I can’t help it!).
 
Melchior said:
True Light, Benedictines fascinate me in several areas, in the sense that I greatly respect them but I know their spirituality isn’t for me. You may have heard Brother JR talk about Franciscan obedience, well the Benedictines take this to a whole new level 🙂

I think, if I had to summarize them quickly; community through contemplative. If I understand correctly, there’s a lot of silent prayer, yet they do so as a community. So picture being in a room with several people, all of you prayer the same things, yet doing so silently. Those who have anything resembling the gift of discernment could probably drive past an Abby and sense the prayer. Walking into an Abby would feel like running into a wall of prayer.

For a layman, the life of a Benedictine would involve following a life of contemplative prayer. In a group setting you’re more likely to silently intercede and pray while someone does the talking.

EXAMPLE:

In a prayer group setting, someone asks to be prayed over by multiple people. The following could happen:

The Franciscan would have probably invited the guy to come in the first place, and is also very likely the first person to talk to him after the meeting. Depending on where the spirit takes things, may or may not say a prayer out loud.

The Dominican would probably have a turn at leading the prayer, and would certain inquire after with the fellow if he had any questions about what happened.

The Benedictine would silently pray the whole time, and would also pray for the fellow later on that night for continued spiritual growth.

The Saelisian would do a combination of the Dominicans and Franciscans, and are probably the most likely to ask the guy if he wanted to hit a pub or McDonalds later to talk things over,

The Jesuits would build a school for the guy or something. In all seriousness, the Jesuit would look at things and try to discern what course of action the guy should take next and make some recommendations.

We should almost make a spin off thread for this, so y’all can still talk about Francis without me dragging Dominic into things (I can’t help it!).
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Yeah let’s make a spin off thread! There have been small threads here and there about the different orders, but nothing that productive. And I don’t want to look at it from a “Vocation” perspective. More of a traditional Catholic/traditional order perspective.

Interesting stuff you posted!
 
Interesting observation.
How about a Carmelite? What will the Carmelite do when the person ask for a prayer?
I’m interested to know because the Benedictine response is what I thought a Carmelite would give.
 
I have now created another thread for the discussion of spiritualities! You may now continue to talk about St. Francis 🙂
 
The solemnity of St. Francis is coming up. It begins on October 2 and goes through October 4. In the new Franciscan calendar it’s a solemnity in the old Franciscan calendar its a First Class Feast. Either way, it’s a major holy day for the Franciscan family and a holy day of obligation for us. The liturgy is celebrated with all the bells and whistles on the morning of October 4.

Everything begins with the re-enactment of his life at the evening mass on Oct 2. Then we follow with the Liturgy of the Transitus on Oct 3, which is not a mass. It follows the same pattern as the Liturgy of Good Friday, beginning with opening prayers, the veneration of the relic, proclamation of the passing of St. Francis, the Gospel of John, which he loved, psalms and more prayers. From there, everything goes into mourning mode until the morning of the 4th when everything wakes up to celebrate Francis’ entrance into Glory.

Of course, there is a lot of feasting, great food, all of our ministries are suspended for the day and it is spent in fraternity.

There are 9 days of prayer and novena that lead up to it. This year, because we have the week of fasting and prayer for Life which coincides, we do not fast on the 4th and cotinue on the other side.

In many communities, we renew our vows that day and renew our oath of allegience to Francis. It’s also the day when the Secular Franciscan novices make their first profession.

All in all, it’s an exciting three days with a lot of prayer, remembering, fraternity and thanksgiving to God for what he has done for the Church through the Seraphic Father.

Fraternally,

Br. JR, OSF 🙂
 
Hi brother,

This is interesting. Do all the branches of the Franciscan family do the re-enactment?🙂
 
choliks said:
Hi brother,

This is interesting. Do all the branches of the Franciscan family do the re-enactment?🙂
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It goes by house, not by obediences. Some houses can’t do it, because they don’t have the resources. It takes a number of people to put it on and a lot of practice or it loses something. You go back and forth between readings from his life - prayers - maybe a part of a hymn and then it repeats. You need readers and actors. You have to put the program together.

The Franciscans of the Renewal do the best one that I’ve seen. It’s very elaborate and very long. The mass lasts almost two hours. It’s usually done after the final prayer and before the blessing. In most places they do it the Sunday before the 4th. I’ve seen a short version done on the 4th itself with the Sequence instead. Other places do not do the re-enactment, but have the readings from his life and writings as part of the mass or as part of the Transitus. The Transitus is a must. We can’t get out of that one.

If you’re in a parish, the faithful are always encouraged to attend or the friars will wish 12 plagues on them. 😃 Just kidding.

The mass on the 4th is always beautiful. Friars in a parish celebrate it on the evening of the 4th to allow as many parishioners to attend.

The idea is to saturate the parish, school or whatever ministry you’re in with the Franciscan spirit and to draw the people whom you serve into the spirituality of the family. This is never a hard thing to do.

All of this was started by St. Bonaventure about 20 years after Francis died. We’re talking 765 years of tradition. The people loved it, because there were no books on Francis’ life. All they had was oral tradition. The few writings that were available, were not available to the lay faithful for fear that they would be damaged. There was no way of duplicating them except by hand – no scanners or copiers back then. :eek:

Fraternally,

Br. JR, OSF 🙂
 
I’ll be over in Assisi from Oct. 2nd - 7th. I’m very excited about it. It is my first Franciscan pilgrimage.

Oct. 2 - Sunday Mass at St. Mary of the Angels Basilica
Oct. 3 - San Damiano in the morning, Transitus procession at the Porziuncula, Night prayer service at the Basilica.
Oct. 4 - Mountain hermitage of Laverna, afternoon procession there
Oct. 5 - Mass at Sacro Convento Basilica, visit Chiesa Nuova, Saint Mary Major, and the Basilica of St. Clare
Oct. 6 - Visit Rivotorto, lunch with the Poor Clare Sisters in Camerino, visit another community of sisters in San Severino for evening prayer and dinner.
Oct. 7 - Hermitage of the Carceri on the slopes of Mount Subasio
Oct. 8 - Visit Greccio on the way to Rome

Brother JR, do you have any recommendations on places to visit or other things to do in Assisi? I don’t think I’ll have another opportunity like this again for many years.
 
jm0rr0w said:
I’ll be over in Assisi from Oct. 2nd - 7th. I’m very excited about it. It is my first Franciscan pilgrimage.

Oct. 2 - Sunday Mass at St. Mary of the Angels Basilica
Oct. 3 - San Damiano in the morning, Transitus procession at the Porziuncula, Night prayer service at the Basilica.
Oct. 4 - Mountain hermitage of Laverna, afternoon procession there
Oct. 5 - Mass at Sacro Convento Basilica, visit Chiesa Nuova, Saint Mary Major, and the Basilica of St. Clare
Oct. 6 - Visit Rivotorto, lunch with the Poor Clare Sisters in Camerino, visit another community of sisters in San Severino for evening prayer and dinner.
Oct. 7 - Hermitage of the Carceri on the slopes of Mount Subasio
Oct. 8 - Visit Greccio on the way to Rome

Brother JR, do you have any recommendations on places to visit or other things to do in Assisi? I don’t think I’ll have another opportunity like this again for many years.
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There is the big solemn mass on October 4th at the Basilica of St. Francis. Don’t miss it. It’s awesome.

If you can get to Subiaco,you can visit the Benedictine monastery where Francis trained. If you have a chance, you can take a quick trip from Assisi to Ferenze.

Fraternally,

Br. JR, OSF 🙂
 
rainbow1 said:
Happy Solemnity of St.Francis!!!
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Thank you. We started today with a wonderful get together and a beautiful re-enactment of the Seraphic Father’s life and teachings. The mass took about 1:45 It was beautiful. Tomorrow, we’ll have the Transitus in which we commemorate the passing of Francis. That will be after sunset. The Transitus is like the Good Friday service. It’s very solemn and very quiet. Then on the 4th we have a solemn mass with all the bells and whistles. I have to preach tomorrow night. I’m almost finished with my sermon.

Fraternally,

Br. JR, OSF 🙂
 
JReducation said:
Thank you. We started today with a wonderful get together and a beautiful re-enactment of the Seraphic Father’s life and teachings. The mass took about 1:45 It was beautiful. Tomorrow, we’ll have the Transitus in which we commemorate the passing of Francis. That will be after sunset. The Transitus is like the Good Friday service. It’s very solemn and very quiet. Then on the 4th we have a solemn mass with all the bells and whistles. I have to preach tomorrow night. I’m almost finished with my sermon.

Fraternally,

Br. JR, OSF 🙂
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Br Jr, will any of these masses be on EWTN?
 
TrueLight said:
Br Jr, will any of these masses be on EWTN?
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There is a page where they have the specials for this week. They have been doing both Franciscan and Carmelite programs, because it’s also the feast of St. Therese.

ewtn.com/tv/index.asp

I’m sure that they will televise the mass of October 4, since they always televize the daily mass. They’re running a special right now on Franciscans in China.

On Oct 3 and 4 they have all kinds of specials on Franciscans and Francis. I notice that they have set aside 90 min for the mass, instead of the usual 60. That would mean that the friars are going to celebrate it for the public. If it were a guest priest, it would not be as long.

ewtn.com/tv/NA_2011_Oct_02_week.asp

Fraternally,

Br. JR, OSF 🙂
 
JReducation said:
There is a page where they have the specials for this week. They have been doing both Franciscan and Carmelite programs, because it’s also the feast of St. Therese.

ewtn.com/tv/index.asp

I’m sure that they will televise the mass of October 4, since they always televize the daily mass. They’re running a special right now on Franciscans in China.

On Oct 3 and 4 they have all kinds of specials on Franciscans and Francis. I notice that they have set aside 90 min for the mass, instead of the usual 60. That would mean that the friars are going to celebrate it for the public. If it were a guest priest, it would not be as long.

ewtn.com/tv/NA_2011_Oct_02_week.asp

Fraternally,

Br. JR, OSF 🙂
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Great! Thanks.
 
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