The Evangelical Counsels and the Secular Franciscan Order

Chastity

Obedience

Conclusion

Chastity

Apart from the mention of the vow in the first chapter of the Rule for the First Order, St. Francis does not mention chastity in his other writings. Rather, he focuses on the need for the brothers to seek for the kingdom of God and to have a pure mind and spirit.

In several of his exhortations he stresses that God seeks, or desires, people who, with pure heart and mind, are willing to serve, love, honor, and adore him. In the Rule of 1221 he writes:

I beg all my brothers, both the ministers and the others, after overcoming every impediment and putting aside every care and anxiety, to serve, love, honor and adore the Lord God with a pure heart and a pure mind in whatever they are best able to do, for that is what He wants above all things… And let us adore Him with a pure heart. (ER XXII: 26, 29)

St. Francis repeats this challenge in the Second Letter to the Faithful, a document addressed to the tertiaries and most likely written during the time that the Saint was writing the Early Rule for the friars. He states,

Let us love God, therefore, and adore Him with a pure heart and a pure mind, because He Who seeks this above all things has said: True adorers adore the Father in Spirit and Truth. (2LtF: 19)

According to Francis, the only appropriate response to God is adoration, love, and a focusing of one’s attention on the Divine will.

In Admonition XVI, after quoting from Mt 5: 8, “Blessed are the pure of heart for they shall see God,” he writes:

The truly clean of heart are those who look down upon earthly things, seek those of heaven, and, with a clean heart and spirit, never cease adoring and seeing the Lord God living and true. (Adm XVI: 2)

For St. Francis, every relationship should be based on a love and adoration of God and guided by a pure mind and spirit. This is basis for a life of chastity, a life that should make one more loving.

Following the Saint’s lead, the Rule of the SFO does not specifically deal with chastity. It does, however, echo his exhortation to the friars and to penitents to love and adore God and to allow that love to flow out to others. Article 12 states,

Witnessing to the good yet to come and obliged to acquire purity of heart because of the vocation they have embraced, they should set themselves free to love God and their brothers and sisters.

As Article 17 points out, the first place this love should take root is in the family. It states that,

In their family they should cultivate the Franciscan spirit of peace, fidelity, and respect for life, striving to make of it a sign of a world already renewed in Christ. By living the grace of matrimony, husbands and wives in particular should bear witness in the world to the love of Christ for his Church. They should joyfully accompany their children on their human and spiritual journey by providing a simple and open Christian education and being attentive to the vocation of each child.

The General Constitutions are even more specific - it points out that secular Franciscans “should love and practice purity of heart, the source of true fraternity.” [1] And, in their families they,

should concern themselves with respect for all life in every situation from conception until death. Married couples find in the Rule of the SFO an effective aid in their own journey of Christian life, aware that, in the sacrament of matrimony, their love shares in the love that Christ has for his Church. The way spouses love each other and affirm the value of fidelity is a profound witness for their own family, the Church, and the world. [2]

Both the Rule and the Constitutions challenge secular Franciscans to love - love God, love their spouse if they are married, love the brothers and sisters in their fraternities, love the Church and its ministers, love all people, and love all creation. This is basically a challenge to love as God loves, with a pure heart and mind. What a tremendous challenge!

Of course, for the married brothers and sisters of the Order, one of the distinguishing characteristics of the secular embrace of the Franciscan vocation is more properly called conjugal chastity. The Catechism of the Catholic Church points that,

Conjugal love involves a totality, in which all the elements of the person enter - appeal of the body and instinct, power of feeling and affectivity, aspiration of the spirit and of will. It aims at a deeply personal unity, a unity that, beyond union in one flesh, leads to forming one heart and soul; it demands indissolubility and faithfulness in definitive mutual giving; and it is open to fertility. In a word it is a question of the normal characteristics of all natural conjugal love, but with a new significance which not only purifies and strengthens them, but raises them to the extent of making them the expression of specifically Christian values. [3]

The Pontifical Council for the Family put it this way:

Human sexuality is thus a good, part of that created gift which God saw as being “very good,” when he created the human person in his image and likeness, and “male and female he created them” (Gen 1:27). Insofar as it is a way of relating and being open to others, sexuality has love as its intrinsic end, more precisely, love as donation and acceptance, love as giving and receiving. The relationship between a man and a woman is essentially a relationship of love: “Sexuality, oriented, elevated and integrated by love acquires a truly human quality.” When such love exists in marriage, self-giving expresses, through the body, the complementarity and totality of the gift. Married love thus becomes a power which enriches persons and makes them grow and, at the same time, it contributes to building up the civilization of love. [4]

The document goes on to state that without this love men and women become objects and children become a hindrance. It is only through respectful love that human sexuality can find its fulfillment. For this reason, an active and mutually respectful sex life can be seen and embraced as an essential element of conjugal chastity.

Obedience

Through an often difficult and painful conversion experience, St. Francis discovered that life had meaning only when he listened attentively to the voice of God and followed his will. This attentive listening desire to follow the will of God in concrete and practical ways is what Franciscan obedience is all about.

In his Testament St. Francis reflected on the effects this kind of obedience had in his own life. It is clear that the Saint experienced God as an active presence and guide that led him beyond his own narrow view of the world to something newer and greater. He writes that, “The Lord gave me, Brother Francis, thus to begin doing penance… the Lord Himself led me among them (the lepers)… the Lord gave me faith in churches… the Lord gave me, and gives me still, such faith in priests… the Lord gave me some brothers… the Most High Himself revealed to me that I should live according to the pattern of the Holy Gospel… the Lord revealed a greeting to me… the Lord has given me to speak and write the Rule…” St. Francis reports that it was always the Lord who showed him what to do in the most important and decisive moments of life. The Saint responded to this Divine action with obedient collaboration.

St. Francis found in the life Jesus the fundamental example of obedience to God. As the writer of the Letter to the Hebrews points out so well, when Jesus came into the world he said, “Sacrifice and offering you did not desire, but a body you prepared for me; holocausts and sin offerings you took no delight in. Then I said, ‘As is written of me in the scroll, Behold, I come to do your will, O God” (Heb. 10: 5-7). Every aspect of the life and ministry of Jesus was shaped by his intense desire to follow the will of the Father. Even when he faced a painful and humiliating death his obedience, his attentive listening, to the Divine will gave him resolve and courage: “Abba, Father, all things are possible to you. Take this cup away from me, but not what I will but what you will” (Mk. 14: 36).

The foundation of Franciscan obedience goes beyond adherence to our rules of life or to the constitutions and statutes that guide our Orders. It flows from an intimate and loving following of Jesus, is empowered by the Holy Spirit, and leads to an intimate relationship with the Father. It is only with this in mind that the practical dimensions of obedience can be understood.

For St. Francis, one of the primary places where obedience is lived out is in the fraternity. The Franciscan fraternity is not just a group of people who have agreed to live together or share life. It is a reality born out of obedience to divine inspiration and an attentive listening to the Gospel. It is only then that it can become the “privileged place for developing a sense of Church and the Franciscan vocation and for enlivening the apostolic life of its members.” [5]

It is important to emphasize the profound evangelical character of Franciscan obedience. Both for individual Franciscans and for the fraternity as a whole, it requires a constant search for the will of God and a willingness to embrace that will and follow it - even when it is difficult and requires sacrifice. Obedience is nothing more than listening attentively and devotedly to the will of God as it is mediated to us through a variety of channels and a willingness to follow it. Foremost among these are, of course, the Sacred Scriptures, the tradition and Magisterium of the Church, the rules and constitutions of our respective Orders, the ministers of our fraternities, the brothers and sisters in our fraternities, and the spouses and families for our married brothers and sisters.

Once again, the Rule of the SFO captures the spirit of St. Francis in its presentation of obedience.

Uniting themselves to the redemptive obedience of Jesus, who placed his will into the Father's hands, let them faithfully fulfill the duties proper to their various circumstances of life. Let them also follow the poor and crucified Christ, witness to him even in difficulties and persecutions. [6]

This article of the Rule is expanded in a wonderful way in the General Constitutions:

“Christ, poor and crucified,” victor over death and risen, the greatest manifestation of the love of God for humanity, is the “book” in which the brothers and sisters, in imitation of Francis, learn the purpose and the way of living, loving, and suffering. They discover in Him the value of contradictions for the sake of justice and the meaning of the difficulties and the crosses of daily life. With Him they can accept the will of the Father even under the most difficult circumstances and live the Franciscan spirit of peace, rejecting every doctrine contrary to human dignity. [7]

These documents are clear in stating that Jesus, who was always attentive to the Father’s will, is the exemplar of Franciscan obedience. He is the “book” that directs and guides the lives of Franciscans, seculars and religious alike.

Conclusion

The evangelical counsels challenge Franciscans to live a life based on the Gospels and the example of Jesus - who himself lived a poor, chaste, and obedient life. What better way to go “from gospel to life and life to the gospel”? [8]

With this in mind, and without simplifying this essential foundation too much, we can say that poverty, chastity, and obedience are constitutive elements of a Gospel centered life. They help define our relationship to God and the way we live our lives in the world.

Even though the way that they are lived out by religious and seculars are different, the understanding and spirit behind the evangelical counsels are the same for all Franciscans. Flowing from an intimate relationship with God they provide wonderful guidance for how to live our lives.

Poverty encourages us to value the world - and every one and every thing in it - as God does. It leads us to recognize the inherent dignity in all people and to a loving and respectful use of the world’s goods.

Chastity encourages us to love as God loves, with a purity of heart and mind, and challenges us to express our sexuality in ways that are consonant with our vocation and state in life. It leads to right loving.

Obedience encourages us to listen attentively to the will of God and to have the courage to allow that will to guide and inform every area of our lives. It leads to right living.