History of Religious Life
St. Francis of Assisi and the
Witness to Evangelical Poverty - Part 3
by Fr. John A. Hardon, S.J.
The Institute on Religious Life and the Daughters of St. Mary of Providence of Chicago,
bring you the third and last tape in a series of conferences given by Father John A. Hardon on
the subject, Saint Francis of Assisi and the Witness to Evangelical Poverty.
History of Franciscan Theology
Fr.Hardon: As I mentioned earlier there's so much to talk about in speaking on Francis that I thought we'd take one more chart, the analysis of Franciscan theology, and then, stop there, otherwise we never go onto the others. By Franciscan theology we mean of course
the reflection on the faith as has been done over the centuries by the great
masters of theology in the Franciscan
order. So Franciscan theology is the theology of the Franciscans, but who have been true to the spirit of Saint
Francis. The four
great names always after Saint Francis, that may be said to be the founders
of Franciscan theology, are Alexander
of Hales, who are the earliest, blessed Raymond Lily, Saint Bonaventure, and
Duns Scotus. Among these four, St.
Bonaventure of course towers above everyone as most faithfully reflecting the
mind of his own master, St. Francis. Why
is it important to know Franciscan theology and not just what we have so far
seen as Franciscan spirituality, especially his poverty? The reason is the theology spans in this case
seven centuries,1221 the date of the
first rule of Francis that is over 700 years since that rule was drafted. There
have been many great minds, saints, men and women, the Franciscan calendar just the list of all the
blessed and saints fills a book, each one of whom added his or her own nuance
and perspective. Secondly, it's one thing to hear about
something concretely, it's something else to have the reflection on that. Theology
is the reflection of the faith.
Francis’
insight into the person of Christ, especially Christ’s humility to be shown by
my practice of poverty is a concrete, personal, and sensibly perceptible experience.
The theology reflects on that experience, analyzes it and makes it intelligible,
not only for practicing but for understanding and I think one of the
greatest needs in religious communities today is not just more exhortations
but a clearer and deeper understanding. The theology reflecting on the spirit
of St. Francis is rich, and as I mentioned to you when we began this course
my first exposure for years was to St. Francis long before I discovered Ignatius.
My mother was a Franciscan tertiary and without getting me in, she did the next
best thing. And I just hope she's pleased with what I'm doing. While she was
a small woman she had a very clear idea of when I was doing something wrong. In any case, while I am teaching theology, all the theology I've taught
for 25 years has been colored by St. Francis.
Foundations of Franciscan Theology
First, the basis of Franciscan theology is St. Augustine.
Francis was
no great literature, he was literate of course, he was a profoundly intelligent
man. He was no student of St. Augustine but
without having studied Augustine he imbibed the spirit of Augustine, which has
especially three features: first, in Francis as
in Augustine there was a preoccupation with God's sovereignty with God's running this
world, God's in charge have no doubt this
is God's world, as Augustine that's Francis. Augustine couldn't have given
another name to his greatest work except "The
City of God". And second, in Augustine as in Francis a profound
awareness of human sinfulness. Now Augustine on this level had experiences that
Francis knew not of, Augustine had
drunk deeply of the chalice of sin. He was a sinner and a real one. When Augustine wrote about sin he wrote
from experience. Francis, unlike
Augustine was no great sinner, if you
read Francis' own writings you'd think he was worse than Judas. But Francis has much to teach us because while
Augustine understood sin in a way
that Francis never could and he was the better for it, but Francis had an awareness
of man's sinfulness and of the least
deviation from the will of God especially interior deviation. I don't know of any great saint whose
conscience was so sensitized to God's will as that of Francis, as a result of which he really meant it when he said he was the greatest sinner on earth, he meant it, he
really was, in his own eyes, he really was! And thirdly and logically,
if I am such a sinner then I need grace
I need grace to be forgiven my sins, I need grace to expiate my sins, I need
grace to avoid sin. And this is the
incredible awareness of man's total helplessness and of God's power that
Francis revealed to the world. Second, volunteerism,
the word itself is technical as we shall see when we look at Saint Dominic and a Dominican spirituality.
It may be characterized as intellectualism, not Francis. For Francis
though of course he recognized that man
is a composite of mind and will of intellect and volition, of a capacity
for knowledge and a capacity for love, but
with Francis all the weight was on the side of the will, the affections,
of love. Never to the exclusion of the intellect
but certainly emphasizes the role of the will. What are the implications? First, the
primacy of the will. For Francis it
matters little frankly, how much I know about God. It matters a lot how
much I love God. Now, part of my love of God will be that I will want to know
more about God but even there it's only that
I might love him more. Moreover,
surprisingly for a man who so stressed the absolute need of grace, Francis
was terrifyingly aware of the power of human freedom. So I need grace, so I do, but even the Almighty as incredible as it may seem, even the
Almighty can not save me, let alone
sanctify me unless I want to. I hold in my hands my own destiny. Then Francis
stressed the freedom of the will by freedom of course he meant first and most
importantly internal freedom. That as I have so often said we can be in prison without being behind bars, in other
words freedom from our passions, freedom from unruly desires, freedom from inordinate fears. Freedom from myself,
free from that part of me that would
enslave the better part of me. And why be free? In order that I might love God more , but freedom of the will also in that I will be beholden to no
one. This as we saw earlier was one
of the main reasons for his insistence on poverty. All I know and I know it, that rich people are not free people. They have at least one terrifying fear and
that is of losing their wealth. Third, and we need not dwell on this except
to state it. Primacy of poverty and the pursuit
of holiness. As you can see, not only
in the time that I spent on poverty and the raising of the volume
that I noticed that I occasionally did in speaking
on the subject, there is no question that unless we look to our poverty the
pursuit of holiness is the pursuit of a dream.
The Prominence of the Blessed Virgin
First, Francis himself had a very tender personal devotion
to our Lady,
no doubt one reason was, that he was so aware of Christ's humanity. He was the one , as you know, who gave
the modern world its
great devotion to Christmas and not just the Christmas crib, but Christmas. And one reason be it said,
remember these two dates, oh, I can use this board, let me...(writing on the board) . Two dates that we should keep
in mind, the major
heresy of the fourth Lateran Council condemned in 1215, was the heresy of Albigensianism.
The heresy that seduced something upwards of a thousand major cities in Europe. It seems to have been a large part of Europe, in
fact, the highest peak
of holiness reached by the Perfecti among the Albigenses was to die of starvation by self inflicted suicide.
In other words,
now that's not easy to commit suicide. I don't suggest trying it (laughter), I'm just saying, it's a painful
process to starve yourself. Talk about
being misguided. We miss or would miss one
of the principal thrusts of Francis and why
God raised a man like Him (Fr. Hardon drinking water,) "as you can see I'm no Albigensian". Francis'
stress on Christ's poverty was that
we are to use this world's goods but use them according to the will of God, but his stress on our Lady was to make sure that no one made any mistake
that God became, GOD became man, and
was born of a woman, that God had
a mother in order to emphasize for all times what the church wants us to be so clear in believing that God took
on real human flesh
and that as a consequence that humanity of Christ
is adorable, that humanity of Christ is imitable, that humanity of Christ is lovable and that when I love Jesus
I am loving God , though the one I love from
all external evidence is a human being. When
Francis talked about Christ for example, I'm sure you've read it as much you've read of the omnibus. But, he would tell his followers, and he would be
lost in ecstasy at the bright sun
overhead to think of it, "The same sun that is warming us warmed Jesus. The water that we're drinking
is the water that God took, the food
we eat, the earth we walk on the air we breathe was breathed by God." You
can see why he has great devotion
to our Lady, it was to make clear to all who inherited his spirit that the God they are worshiping
is a God who is a man, being born as the rest of us are, of a woman.
Union with God through Meditation, Prayer and Contemplation.
With all the far-flung and breathtaking apostolic achievements
that rose
in the Franciscan tradition no matter what their community may have been, have achieved in seven centuries,
might obscure
the main purpose that Francis had in, well, leading people to Christ. The main purpose was that they
might by following Christ
the via, might learn Christ the veritas and possess Christ the vita. Christ therefore is the way, is
the way to the possession
of Christ and the only way we can speak of possessing Christ is possessing Him as Augustine said preceding
Francis, possessing Him with the two arms of our spirit, the arms of the mind
and the heart or the intellect and the will. Now the means towards this possession of God were and Francis emphasized
this as few
other founders of religious institutes did, through meditation, prayer and contemplation. What's the difference?
I'm now
using Francis' vocabulary. Meditation is thinking, thinking about God, prayer is asking God, invoking God and
contemplation is looking at God whom
I love. So meditation is using the intellect,
not much, but using it. Prayer is asking God and contemplation then is, as the
word implies, looking at, beholding the Love whom I love. Christian perfection
for Francis was contemplative love, and
by now centuries of theology have
excavated the meaning of that. This as we shall see is not quite the language of St. Ignatius, for
Ignatius who was not a soldier for nothing, and of course when Ignatius fought
our principle enemies would be who? Who would you think? The world, the flesh and the devil, so if Ignatius were to define Christian perfection, Christian perfection
is victory over the world, flesh and the devil. Now Francis would not
deny that, but Francis was no soldier, not
at least in Ignatius' sense. For
Francis we become as perfect as we grow in contemplative prayer. A great deal
of what is now being written out embodied in so many volumes can be seen very clearly once you realize what some of these things meant for the men, in
this case Francis, or women as later
on in the case of St. Teresa of Avila. Some
of the deepest problems in theology can be resolved once you see how these people understood them. You are
as perfect as you love God. That's it.
Stress on the Mystical Over Acquired Knowledge.
In Franciscan
theology therefore they did not deny nor do the Franciscans today who write in their tradition, deny that
there is a great deal we
can and should learn by study and dint of our own human effort to know God in His mind and will better
than we do. But, in the
Franciscan tradition the principal source is not
study but prayer.
If I come to know God, because notice when we say contemplative
love (writing on the board) this of course has to do with the mind, this has
to do with the will. I love with the will and I contemplate with the mind and because we're all
rational beings,
we cannot love what we don't know. The question
before the house therefore is, where do I get this knowledge? In the Franciscan
tradition the primary source of this
knowledge is not human effort but divine grace, ok? Now that doesn't mean that a person can say well, I won't open
a book or I won't
study. God is God, he's got all kinds of grace, I'm sitting, waiting, let Him
pour it in. What do you do if he won't
pour it in? So we must do something, but in terms of what the principle source
of that knowledge is-- it is grace. Grace infused, mystical
knowledge.
Faith as Light and Understanding
Next feature, faith as light and understanding. Let me
tell you , these dozen or so features that I've listed here are not just casually
picked out of , well, the hat that needs to be repaired that I'm embarrassed wearing. These are the result of years
of reflection on Franciscan
theology. It is quite possible to look on faith as mainly mystery, where we believe in humility, accepting on God's word what we don't understand. Is that
true? It sure is,
you name the mystery and it's a mystery. There are many things, deep things that we just don't comprehend.
But, that's
not Francis, he would not deny that you cannot comprehend the Trinity or the Incarnation or the Real Presence.
He would
say of course, of course you cannot, but that's not what I want my followers to think about. I want them to
think about what they
can understand. For Francis faith is light. Francis did not coin this definition, but he could have.
A mystery is not
something we do not understand at all, a mystery is something we do not understand entirely, it's not something
we know nothing
about, it is something about which we don't know everything, but we can know plenty. All I can tell
you, that single perspective
can change your life, as I have been telling,
especially contemplatives, when I preach to them or give them retreats. I tell them, if you're going to spend
the 8, 10, or 12 hours
a day in prayer you better have something on your
mind. Otherwise you're going to be thinking in circles or you're going to be thinking about yourselves and that's
not meditation, that's
Zen Buddhism. By the way, if you haven't heard
of a good homemade definition of Zen- you are teachers, you know I teach Zen Buddhism to appropriate audiences.
Zen Buddhism is meditation on the self, honest, honest. I'm sure it's a delightful
enterprise for some people, but that's not Christian meditation. Right? So I must know God better than I know
Him now if I'm going
to love Him the way I should . Faith gives me light, insight, penetration, stages as purification, illumination
and perfection.
Francis had no doubt that in the spiritual life there is such a thing as beginning and though many of his
followers were
already fairly well advanced in virtue, nevertheless,
he realized that all of us required to be purified, then enlightened and then
perfection. For the contemplative, love comes only after I
have especially been purified of my self love. Now, we've all heard that ‘tirade’,
purification, illumination and perfection.
Let me tell you something though, you read Francis and especially those great minds like Bonaventure for example, who knew Francis well and
analyzed him in a way that Francis
could never have done himself . There
is a great deal of illusion possible in the religious life. There is all kinds
of pseudo mysticism. All sorts of alleged sanctity because and how important it is to say this now a days. For example for the rage for Pentecostalism how
this needs to be said. The genuine Christian perfection, the contemplative love
which in Francis's vocabulary was sanctity, must, and there is no substitute, must pass through the stage
of purification. And you do not ask for example Fr. O'Conner, one of
the leading Catholic Pentecostals in the nation. In his book, a good man, a
good, good Catholic, he said "for too long we thought with John of the Cross and Theresa of Avila that to become a mystic you must first be an ascetic. That
to reach the gifts of prayer they
experienced, you must go through the long process of purification. Well,
after four centuries we've learned better."
No, Fr. O'Conner we have not learned better and Francis long before the modern instant mysticism became the vogue, tells
us you either go through these stages or what you think is perfection, what
you think is mysticism, is not. God, Francis
will tell us, enters only a purified soul and that means suffering, self
surrender and sacrifice.
Grace
is divine indwelling of the Holy Spirit and with this I think I should finish
because I'm looking at the clock over there, 12 minutes to - . Divine grace
can be variously understood as we know in theology.
In our 700 years of Franciscan theology
this is the one feature of divine grace that we
can thank the Franciscans for giving us, the stress on grace as the uncreated spirit of God dwelling in the soul
of man. Now, we know the same word grace well, it's spelled the same
way, can mean and does mean both God and
the gift of God. Both are grace. But the one of course is the creator Himself
and the other is His Creation. What
then is divine grace? Well, you have to distinguish in what sense do you mean? What is supernatural grace?
That's the gift. What is actual grace? That's a gift. Supernatural grace is the permanent abiding
gift that we have when we are in God's
friendship. Actual grace is the transient, periodic and constant inspiration and illumination that God gives us that's a grace, it's a gift. Supernatural
grace is a creature, actual grace
is a creature. Ah, but in the Franciscan theological tradition the only reason we got sanctifying
grace or receive actual graces is
because God the author of grace first abides in the human soul. For Francis one of the favorite passages in the gospels is the promise of Christ
at the last supper, "if you keep my word my Father will love you
and we will come and make our home in your
soul." And finally Christ, and
this is almost fundamental to Franciscan spirituality, Christ is the God whom we are to imitate. Now, the word imitation
has a variety of meanings, some that
are totally irrelevant to our discussion, but when God became man He did not obviously cease to be God,
so it is God plus man who then is Christ. What we directly imitate is Christ the man but in as much
as in the exemplarization of creation
is at its highest in the humanity of Christ, the most perfect creation which
most perfectly exemplifies, manifests,
shows, depicts, illustrates, makes knowable the divinity in the human nature of Christ, so that by imitating Him we are necessarily
imitating the God who became man. It is
in this sense that Christ called himself the way, it is his humanity that is the via, the way
to His divinity which is the life, then we possess by going as it were
through Christ the man to Christ who is
God and with that I think reluctantly
we will leave St. Francis and now pick up St. Dominic.
Conference transcription from a talk that Father Hardon gave to the
Institute on Religious Life
Institute on Religious Life, Inc.
P.O. Box 410007
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www.religiouslife.com
Copyright © 1998 by Inter Mirifica
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