VERBUM SERAPHICUM
PAX ET BONUM JULY -- 2003 A. D. AVE MARIA
"If thou wilt be perfect, go,
sell what thou hast, and give to the poor,
. . . and come follow Me." Matthew 19:21
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O Mary, Mediatrix of every Grace, pray for us! The Sacred Power of the CrossThe Light that Enkindled St. Francis When the human mind considers anything it does so through either of two powers: either through its own unaided by grace, or through its own aided by grace. And when it considers anything it does so in either two manners: either in worldly manner or with the eyes of faith. These two ways of looking at things with our minds give rise to two entirely different experiences of knowing: one that is clear and darkening, the other which is obscure and enlightening. This difference gives rise to a divergence; and hence it is that the spirit of the world persuades differently than the spirit of God. St. Francis of Assisi, our glorious Founder and Patriarch, was a man wholly and thoroughly infused and imbued with the Sacred Power of the Cross, the light that has enkindled him forever and made him, as it were, a glorious, stained-glass window in the Cathedral of the Heavens, a empyrean signal to call and direct his sons along the authentic path out of this world to the life to come. When we gaze at St. Francis with the eyes of flesh, in a worldly way, all seems clear enough, but our spirits are weighed down with darkness. We see a medieval man, who in a very radical and foolish manner reduced himself to such poverty and abjection, that he stunned his age with a radical renunciation of many of its values. But we are weighed down, because we see something so much |
different from our own age and culture as to make the very thought of doing the same thing utter folly. So we smile and amuse ourselves with the Saint, and leave it at that, deriving no more fruit than this. In this manner St. Francis has been depicted by Protestant scholars since the 19th Century; especially by one disciple of Renan, who to imitate his master's debunking of Jesus Christ, debunked St. Francis by portraying him as another pre-reformation reformer. Uncritically and unwisely many scholars in the Catholic Church accepted this view of St. Francis, so much so that today even in the Order and among the Hierarchy this view of St. Francis prevails. This opinion of St. Francis is enshrined in such ideas as, "But St. Francis was forced by the Pope to write the Rule; everyone knows that as a Franciscan one's duty is not to observe the Rule but rather the 'spirit of the rule', and seek to be as radical and charismatic to the people of today, as St. Francis was in his own day." On the other hand, when we gaze at St. Francis with the eyes of faith, though his self-sacrifice still seems to our lower nature radical and extreme, we draw from his example and teaching a certain illumination of soul, an inspiration to a life of virtue, a call to repentance for our sins, and a resolution to live a supernatural life, to take the words of Christ as Divine Teaching and to keep ourselves pure and unsullied by all that is contrary to the Faith and the spirit of God. Today this view of St. Francis still exists among a few authors in the Catholic Church, even among some writers in the Orders he . . .(turn over) St. Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle! |
VERBUM SERAPHICUM
PAX ET BONUM JULY -- 2003 A. D. AVE MARIA
"If thou wilt be perfect, go,
sell what thou hast, and give to the poor,
. . . and come follow Me." Matthew 19:21
|
St. Francis of Assisi, pray for us! founded; but for the most part it is in danger of disappearing all together. The onslaught of modernism, which enured Catholics and Franciscans to view the world, the Church and St. Francis in a carnal manner, has made it very difficult, or even impossible, for many to understand and see St. Francis for what he really was. It does this by denying a priori that the supernatural can impinge upon history, that God truly exists, that Jesus Christ is God and ought to be treated in Person and in Sacrament as God, and that St. Francis was, as St. Bonaventure declared him to be, the Fourth Angel of the Apocalypse: a very great Saint sent by God to preach penance and repentance before the Day of Doom falls upon all who dwell upon the face of the Earth. This is the fundamental reason why, for example, the new Constitutions of the OFM (1983) explicitly require every friar minor to receive, handle, and use money, even though St. France explicitly and firmly forbade this; and Popes Nicholas III, Clement V and St. Innocent XI confirmed this as the authentic and correct interpretation of his Rule, and to be observed forever, until the end of time. That the Order of Friars Minor is very rapidly dwindling in numbers is reported each year in the Vatican Year Book: the Pontificio Annuario, as can be seen from at www.catholic-hierarchy.org. Now as St. Francis taught, and as all sound theologians hold, a religious Order is a work of the Holy Spirit who sustains it in every age. If it walk away from His paths He will not support it in its sin by sending it |
sound vocations. For the grace of a vocation is the work of God and not of Man; and it comes from God and is strengthened and grows only in obedience to His will. But the will of God for the Order of Friars Minor is well known: the Rule of St. Francis observed according to the Pontifical decrees. This was the norm of interpretation in the Constitutions of 1953. When the Order returns to it, authentic vocations will return. Until then, may St. Francis enlighten and convert his sons, so that they may not be lost forever! Again: by departing from the distinctive observance of the Rule of St. Francis which has characterized the Observants from St. Francis until Vatican II, the Order of Friars Minor is doomed to transmogrify into just another religious community, who observes poverty no differently. Vocations seeing this will invariably be confused: why not join the Conventuals or the Capuchins or the Third Order Regular? But with a more supernatural outlook let us recall that Our Most High Lord, Jesus Christ has given the friars minor of the observance to the world and the Church as a covenant: if they keep the Rule with all its historical and spiritual rigor, as the Popes say they ought and can, then the Lord will bless the world and the Church with the graces of penance, repentance, authentic renewal and conversion and true spirituality. On the other hand, the Church will wobble so long as the Friars are unfaithful: as the last 40 years have amply shown. Published by The Franciscan Archive |