Richard Rohr's Daily Meditation
Image credit: Saint Francis of Assisi Is Wed to Lady Poverty (detail), Fresco attributed to Giotto di Bondone, c. 1330, Basilica di San Francesco (lower level, over the altar), Assisi, Italy.
Franciscan Spirituality:
Week 1
SolidarityThursday, June 8, 2017
Francis went beyond voluntary poverty in his effort to find a way out of the world of comparison, competition, greed, and the violence that comes with it. He also felt that he had to live in close proximity to and even solidarity with the excluded ones in his society. If we are not marginalized ourselves in some way, we normally need to associate with some marginalized group to have an enlightened Gospel perspective and to be converted to compassion. We call this “the preferential option for the poor.” Jesus himself both lived and taught this quite explicitly. Francis was one of the first well known Christians to make this practice clear, and this very phrase is now included in the official documents of many religious communities around the world.
Francis literally changed sides or teams. He was raised in upper Assisi, as one of those who considered themselves the majores or upper class. In the lower part of town lived the minores or the lower class. Francis actually moved even further down, into the plain below Assisi where there was a leper colony. (The word “leper” generally refers to the excluded ones. “Lepers” did not always have the contagious disease of leprosy, but they were the people society deemed unacceptable, unworthy, or shameful for any number of reasons.)
On that plain was an abandoned, ruined church, which Francis physically rebuilt. The “Portiuncula,” or “little portion” of the large Benedictine holdings, is the birthplace and home of the Franciscan Order. Although Franciscans do not legally own the church, each year, on August 2, we piously pay the good Benedictines with a basket of fish to be allowed to “use” it for another year.
Members of religious communities usually place initials after their names to indicate their particular Order. We Franciscans use O.F.M., Ordo Fratum Minorum—Latin for the little brothers, or the “Order of the Minor Brothers.” Francis told us to move down the social class ladder. We were not to identify with the upper class, nor with the climb toward success, power, and money. We were to find our place not in climbing but in descending. This Franciscan vision is utterly countercultural to the worldview of Western society. We were to be mendicants, or beggars, which would help keep us as humble receivers rather than ecclesiastical consumers and producers.
Francis resisted priesthood because, I believe, he was deeply aware of all that invariably comes with priestly ordination (education, titles, privilege, human respect, income, special clothing, and the need to protect the establishment or institution). He wanted his followers to be “blue collar” ministers who lived close to the people in every way rather than “white collar” superiors. However, poor Francis was not long in his grave before the Church started ordaining as many Franciscan men as possible—who soon wore stiff white Roman collars. It gave us access, credibility, status, and stipends in academia, church, and society. I know that it was probably inevitable, and not all bad, but it is indeed dangerous for the soul.
Gateway to Silence: Who are you, God? And who am I?
Reference:
Adapted from Richard Rohr, Eager to Love: The Alternative Way of Francis of Assisi (Franciscan Media: 2014), Chapters 2, 3, and Afterword.
Richard Rohr's Daily Meditation for Wednesday, 7 June 2017: "Rule of the Gospel" The Center for Action and Contemplation in Albuquerque, New Mexico, United States
Richard Rohr's Daily Meditation
Image credit: Saint Francis of Assisi Is Wed to Lady Poverty (detail), Fresco attributed to Giotto di Bondone, c. 1330, Basilica di San Francesco (lower level, over the altar), Assisi, Italy.
Franciscan Spirituality:
Week 1
Voluntary Poverty
Wednesday, June 7, 2017
Francis was born in 1181 in Assisi, Italy. Europe and the Muslim world had already endured two crusades. The third crusade began when Francis was a boy, and the fourth when he was twenty-one. In short, the world was obsessed with war, fear, and security. Assisi itself joined in an ongoing war with Perugia, a neighboring city. Francis rode off to fight and was taken prisoner by the Perugians in 1202. In 1204, the Christians of the West sacked and looted Constantinople (present day Istanbul).
Shortly after that, Francis came out of prison dazed, disillusioned, and feeling there must be something more than all this cruelty and aggression. Francis seemed to realize that there is an intrinsic connection between violence and the need to protect one’s possessions, perks, and privileges. His own father was one of the first generation of propertied businessmen in the new trading class of Europe. One biographer found city records of twelfth century Assisi showing that Pietro De Bernadone, Francis’ father, was indeed buying up the lands of the poor. Francis recognized that his father’s obsession with money had in many ways destroyed his father’s soul. And so, in some ways overreacting to his father, Francis set out on a radically different path.
Francis concluded that the only way out of such a world was to live a life of voluntary poverty, or what he called a life of “non-appropriation,” and to simply not be a part of the moneyed class. Franciscans wear a rope around their waist as a sign that they carry no money, since the leather belt in Francis’ time also served as a wallet. Francis knew that once you felt you owned anything, then you would have to protect it and increase it. That is the inherent nature of greed—there is never enough. For some reason this is no longer considered a capital sin in our capitalist society. In fact, I have never heard anyone confess an offense against the tenth commandment. “Coveting our neighbor’s goods” is the very nature of our society.
Today the need for simplifying goes beyond an avoidance of violence. Our planet is in grave peril largely due to greed, overconsumption, and reckless exploitation. While most of us are not like Francis, willing to dive into a life of voluntary poverty, we must all make choices and decisions to do our part to follow these wise words of an unknown speaker: “live simply so that others may simply live.”
Gateway to Silence: Who are you, God? And who am I?
Reference:
Adapted from Richard Rohr, The Art of Letting Go: Living the Wisdom of St. Francis, discs 1 and 2 (Sounds True: 2010), CD.
Richard Rohr's Daily Meditation for Tuesday, 6 June 2017: "Christ: An Archetype of Hope" The Center for Action and Contemplation in Albuquerque, New Mexico, United States
Find additional meditations by Richard Rohr and CAC faculty Cynthia Bourgeault and James Finley in the online archive.
Richard Rohr's Daily Meditation for Tuesday, 6 June 2017: "Rule of the Gospel" The Center for Action and Contemplation in Albuquerque, New Mexico, United States
Richard Rohr's Daily Meditation
Image credit: Saint Francis of Assisi Is Wed to Lady Poverty (detail), Fresco attributed to Giotto di Bondone, c. 1330, Basilica di San Francesco (lower level, over the altar), Assisi, Italy.
Franciscan Spirituality:
Week 1
Rule of the Gospel
Tuesday, June 6, 2017
In the beginning of the Franciscan Rule, Saint Francis says, “The Rule and the life of the Friars Minor is to simply live the Gospel.” [1] In fact, the first Rule that he started writing around 1209 is simply a collection of quotes from the New Testament. When Francis sent it off to Rome, the pope looked at it and said, “This is no Rule. This is just the Gospel.” You can just hear Francis saying, “Yes . . . that is the point. It is just the Gospel. We don’t need any other Rule except the Gospel!”
To be a Franciscan is nothing other than always searching for “the marrow of the Gospel” as he called it. [2] Francis said the purpose and goal of our life is to live the marrow or core of the Gospel. Honestly, the core is so simple that it’s hard to live. It’s so clear that the mind almost insists on making it complicated. It is so nondual that the only way you can get control of it again is to descend into some little dualistic, divisive right or wrong—and that is what most individuals and groups do.
When Francis read the Beatitudes, Jesus’ inaugural discourse, he saw that the call to be poor stood right at the beginning: “How blessed are the poor in spirit!” Henceforward, Francis’ reading of the Gospel considered poverty to be “the foundation of all other virtues and their guardian.” [3] The other virtues receive the kingdom only in promise; poverty, however, is invested with heaven now, without delay. “Theirs is the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 5:3). Present tense!
As a result, Franciscan spirituality has never been an abstraction. It is grounded in Jesus’ specific instructions to his disciples, not ideology or denominational certitudes. Francis’ living of the Gospel was just that: simple lifestyle. It was the Incarnation continuing in space and time. It was the presence of the Spirit taken as if it were true. It was being Jesus more than just worshiping Jesus. At its best, Franciscan life is not words or even ethics. It is flesh—naked flesh—unable to deny its limitations, unable to cover its wounds. Francis called this inner nakedness “poverty.”
This pure vision of life attracted thousands to a new freedom in the Church and in ministry. Religious communities had become more and more entangled with stipends and rich land holdings. Members lived individually simple lives but were corporately secure and even comfortable. The begging, or mendicant, orders were born to break that dangerous marriage between ministry and money. Francis did not want his friars to preach salvation (although they did that, too) as much as he wanted them to be salvation. He wanted them to model and mirror the life of Jesus in the world, with all of the vulnerability that would entail. Today, many people use the phrase “preach the Gospel at all times, and when necessary use words” to describe Francis’ desire to serve God in every moment.
Gateway to Silence: Who are you, God? And who am I?
References:
[1] Francis of Assisi, “The Later Rule” (1223), chapter 1. See Francis of Assisi: Early Documents, vol. 1 (Hyde Park, NY: New City Press, 1999), 100.
[2] Thomas of Celano, “The Remembrance of the Desire of a Soul,” chapter 158. See Francis of Assisi: Early Documents, vol. 2 (Hyde Park, NY: New City Press, 2000), 380.
[3] From Prologue of “Sacred Exchange between St. Francis & Lady Poverty,” Francis of Assisi: Early Documents, vol. 1 (Hyde Park, NY: New City Press, 1999), 529.
[2] Thomas of Celano, “The Remembrance of the Desire of a Soul,” chapter 158. See Francis of Assisi: Early Documents, vol. 2 (Hyde Park, NY: New City Press, 2000), 380.
[3] From Prologue of “Sacred Exchange between St. Francis & Lady Poverty,” Francis of Assisi: Early Documents, vol. 1 (Hyde Park, NY: New City Press, 1999), 529.
Adapted from Richard Rohr, Franciscan Mysticism: I AM That Which I Am Seeking, disc 3 (CAC: 2012), CD, MP3 download; and
Richard Rohr with John Feister, Hope Against Darkness: The Transforming Vision of Saint Francis in an Age of Anxiety (St. Anthony Messenger Press: 2001), 111-112.
Richard Rohr with John Feister, Hope Against Darkness: The Transforming Vision of Saint Francis in an Age of Anxiety (St. Anthony Messenger Press: 2001), 111-112.
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Richard Rohr's Daily Meditation for Monday, 5 June 2017: "A Prime Attractor" The Center for Action and Contemplation in Albuquerque, New Mexico, United States
Richard Rohr's Daily Meditation
Image credit: Saint Francis of Assisi Is Wed to Lady Poverty (detail), Fresco attributed to Giotto di Bondone, c. 1330, Basilica di San Francesco (lower level, over the altar), Assisi, Italy.
Franciscan Spirituality:
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