Wednesday, November 5, 2008

Fraternitas Minorum: The Franciscan Spirituality of Fraternity

ABSTRACT:
In the last days of the second millennium, as in the time of Brother Francis, a great ecumenical council was convened to reform the Church. At the great second council of the Vatican the members of religious orders were called to return to the inspiration of their founders to guide them in the process of reinvigorating each charism for life and service in the contemporary world. However, even before this great undertaking was embarked upon, let it not be said that the original inspiration of Brother Francis and his fraternity had grown cold in his brothers and sisters. Taking incidents from both the lives of Franciscans in the modern age, and examples from the tradition, this paper provides a nuanced and interdisciplinary meaning of the concept of fraternitas in Franciscan tradition.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Stephen King is a doctoral student at the Graduate Theological Union at Berkeley. He has completed a Master's degree in Franciscan Studies at the School of Franciscan Studies, St. Bonaventure University.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

One of the interesting aspects of the study of Christian Spirituality, as an academic discipline, is the notion of self-implication. Any consideration of spirituality is challenging and transformative to the one doing the study. What we study should have an impact on who we are. Such is the case in the work posted here.

This examination of a Franciscan spirituality of fraternity was inspired by the title of the final chapter in John Moorman's history of the Franciscan Order: "The Triumph of the Observants." Is that what it means to be Franciscan? "Triumphing"? Winning and losing? This troubling insight was the impetus to my own study of the place of fraternity in Franciscan Spirituality. The article that is posted here is based on work I did while I was a student at the Franciscan Institute. This work played a major part in my Integration Project, and is a subject that continues to interest me. I am hoping to continue this work during my doctoral studies in Christian Spirituality at the Graduate Theological Union at Berkeley, California. For that reason, I am hoping you, kind reader, will offer your reflections on what you read here -- in a spirit of fraternity.

I invite you to join the conversation!

Peace and Good,
Stephen

Unknown said...

This article brings up some interesting points. There should be more Franciscan fraternity between the clerics of the "Order" and the non-clerics, between non-secular and secular Franciscans, and between female and male Franciscans. This can be a good starting point. Francis unsuccessfully took on the male Church hierarchy of his day, trying to re-install a sense of primitive Christian fraternity. The feudal age in Europe has long faded into history and never even took place in the rest of the world. The Church often pretends it is still living in that place and in that time. Franciscans should not imitate the Church but should instead imitate Francis by establishing his concept of Christian fraternity within the 3 “Orders.” By doing so, it can greatly aid the Church in nudging it towards a more acceptable version of Christianity, a fraternal one, to a secularizing world.