Archives by: Gary Hoag

II. Concerning those who wish to adopt this life.

“Let them go, sell all they have, and attempt to give it to the poor. If they cannot do so, their good intention will suffice. Let the brothers and their ministers beware of becoming concerned about the new brothers’ temporal possessions, for they should freely dispose of their belongings as God inspires them. If they ask advice, the ministers may refer them to some God-fearing brothers through whose counsel their possessions may be distributed to the poor.”

I. In the name of the Lord, the life of the lesser brothers begins.

“The rule and life of the lesser brothers is this: To observe the holy gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, living in obedience without anything of our own, and in chastity.”

The Rule of the Franciscan Order: An Introduction

“Francis left behind not only a legend but a religious order. Popularly known today as the Franciscan order, its real name is the ordo fratrum minorum, “the order of lesser brothers.”

The Franciscans proved enormously popular because, like Francis himself, they fulfilled a desperate need, in fact a whole series of them. Unlike the older monastic orders, they were not bound to a cloistered life within the confines of a monastery. Thus they and the other great mendicant order created at that time, the Dominicans, constituted a mobile striking force which the church could utilize wherever it seemed necessary.

At that very moment there was a need for pastoral care in the cities, which had grown so rapidly that the old ecclesiastical structures were no longer adequate. The mendicants settled in the cities and developed a program of preaching and pastoral guidance so effective that the regular clergy were soon extremely jealous.

At that moment the universities were growing and the translation of Aristotle into Latin was challenging Christian scholars. The mendicants took up the challenge with gusto, and by the end of the thirteenth century most of the lead the scholars in the major universities were either Dominicans or Franciscans.
A religious order is based on a rule. The first rule of the Franciscan order, submitted to the pope in 1209, has long since disappeared from history. It was the rule of 1223, the third produced by Francis, which became the definitive one. It is still in use today.”

To read the complete Rule of the Franciscan Order translated by David Burr and to locate the source for these notes by Paul Halsall, visit: www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/stfran-rule.html

“The Lord asks of us only two things: love of His Majesty and love of neighbor…The most certain sign, in my opinion, as to whether or not we are observing these two laws is whether we observe well the love of neighbor.”

Teresa of Avila (1515-1582) Spanish saint who along with John of the Cross helped reform the Carmelite order. See The Collected Works of St. Teresa of Avila translated by Kavanaugh and Rodriguez 2:351.

“The heart must be empty of all other things; because God will possess the heart alone; and as He cannot possess it alone without emptying it of all besides, so neither can He act there, and do in it what He pleases, unless it be left vacant to Him.”

Brother Lawrence (1611-1691) was born as Nicholas Herman in Lorraine, France. He became known as Brother Lawrence when he joined a Carmelite Monastery in Paris, There he served as a cook and learned to make his daily routine an occasion for ceaseless prayer. See Practice the Presence of God, and the Spiritual Maxims (New York: Cosimo, 2006) 26.

“All guests who arrive should be received as Christ for he himself will say, I was a stranger and you took me in.”

Benedict of Nursia (480-547) Founder of Twelve Communities and Author of the Rule that governed them. From The Rule of St. Benedict 53.

“We should not be mean and calculating with what we have but give with a generous hand. Look at how much people give to players and dancers–why not give just half as much to Christ?”

John Chrysostom (349-407) Archbishop of Constantinople in Homilies on the Epistles of Paul to the Corinthians 19.23. NPNF 1 12:369. ACCS.2C.281.

“A love of riches or of grandeur is a cold and selfish temper; it concentrates a man’s attention upon himself, and of course withdraws his affections from the church.”

John Angell James (1785-1859) English nonconformist and clergyman in The Christian Professor addressed in a series of Counsels and Cautions to the Members of Christian Churches (New York: Appleton, 1838) 158.

“We have no right to our possessions; they have been entrusted to us for the good of all. Let us then invest with the Lord what he has given us, for we have nothing that does not come from him: we are dependent on him for our very existence. And we ourselves particularly, who have a special and greater debt, since God not only created us but purchased us as well; what can we regard as our own when we do not possess even ourselves?”

Paulinus of Nola (354-431) Roman Senator whose family had great possessions. He converted in 394 and eventually became Bishop of Nola. Excerpt from Common Prayer: A Liturgy for Ordinary Radicals by Shane Claiborne, Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove and Enuma Okoro (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2010) 96.

“As to the care of these early Christians of their poor; of this we have a famous example in the conduct of the Church of Rome, in the earlier and better period of her history. The Emperor Decius demanded their treasure. A deacon answered for the whole church, and required one day to comply with the order of the tyrant. When the term was expired, he assembled all the blind, and the lame, and the sick, that were supported by the church and pointing to them, told the Emperor, “These are the riches of the church, these it’s revenues and treasure”

Emperor Decius (249-251) and a Deacon from the Church in Rome in Lectures on the Nature and Dangerous Tendency of Modern Infidelity by Rev. Levi Tucker (Cleveland: Francis B. Penniman, 1837) 155.