The Franciscan Moral Vision

Responding to God's Love

Thomas A. Nairn

• Publisher: Franciscan Institute Publications
• Year: 2013
• eBook ISBN: 9781576592090
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Denominations

In the last half century, contemporary Catholic moral theology has developed at a rapid pace. Franciscan scholars have played a major part in this renewal of contemporary moral theology. Yet, these moral insights from the Franciscan tradition have, to a great extent, been overlooked by the English speaking world since many of the works have not been available in English. The authors of this volume of essays hope that this contribution on the Franciscan moral vision will help to broaden the conversation regarding moral theology and continue the work already accomplished by the many authors working in non-English languages. Scholar contributors to this volume of essays include Joseph Chinnici, Kenan Osborne, Thomas Shannon, Thomas Nairn and Mary Beth Ingham.

PART I

1

THE CENTER OF THE SPIRITUAL VISION
OF FRANCIS AND CLARE:
THE PROFOUND RELATIONSHIP
BETWEEN GOD AND CREATION

KENAN B. OSBORNE, O.F.M.

The Franciscan moral vision

emphasizes a dynamic realization

of creative and loving freedom in response to God’s love.

The goal of this opening chapter can be stated in a simple way: to describe the spiritual vision of Francis and Clare. The foundation of their spiritual vision centers on three issues: the Triune God, the created world, and the profound relationship between the Triune God and creation. It was through this relational approach between God and creature that both Francis and Clare viewed the incarnation of the Logos in Jesus, the presence of the Spirit of God throughout all of creation, the blessing of the church, and the morally correct way of Christian living.

In time, the spiritual vision of Francis and Clare became the seedbed of the Franciscan intellectual tradition.1 Their spiritual insight into the relationship of created reality and the beauty of God gave rise to the Franciscan tradition, which Alexander of Hales, Bonaventure of Bagnoregio, and John Duns Scotus began to develop in a scholarly way during the thirteenth century and the beginning of the fourteenth century.

Neither Francis nor Clare had been trained in a scholarly way. Rather, their faith had been nourished in the ordinary medieval and European traditions of Christian teaching and spirituality of the late twelfth and early thirteenth centuries. Nonetheless, the eventual form of their religious life and their understanding of God occasioned a powerful spiritual movement as well as a distinctive theological approach to Christian life and thought, which has lasted down to the beginning of the third millennium.2

Francis’s and Clare’s understanding of the church and of spirituality was not rural but urban. Their leaders in Assisi were not only the clergy but also the educated and financially independent lay people. Francis and Clare were both literate and had read, at least to some degree, not only the Gospels but also other spiritual writings. In their view, a monastic or clerical vocation was no longer the only way to develop spiritual insight and spiritual life. Given all of this, one can conclude that the spiritual vision of both Francis and Clare was shaped in large measure by the theological, economic, and political changes of their age.

The vision of Francis, as mentioned above, was deeply centered on the Triune God, the created world, and the profound relationship between the triune God and creation. Let us consider each of these in detail.

I. THE TRIUNE GOD

In almost all of his writings, Francis mentions God, often using descriptive language. The adjectives and phrases he uses to describe God help us to see the ways in which Francis understood God. For instance, in his Exposition of the Our Father, he writes:

Our Father most holy: Our Creator, Redeemer, Consoler, and Savior. Who are in heaven: In the angels and the saints, enlightening them to know, for You, Lord, are light; inflaming them to love, for You, Lord, are love; dwelling in them and filling them with happiness, for You, Lord, are Supreme Good, The Eternal Good, from Whom all good comes without Whom there is no good.3

However, it took a lifetime for Francis himself to reach a deep understanding of God, and his life-journey had many high points and many low points. In 1204, Francis decided to join the imperial forces at war in Apulia, but on his way to Apulia he had a religious experience which began to change the goals of his life. In 1205, while praying in the chapel of San Damiano on the outskirts of Assisi, Francis again experienced the presence of God, and his goals became somewhat clearer. On this occasion, he chose to live in a manner of life which replicated the poverty of Jesus.

If we look at his writings chronologically, we can see how Francis’s understanding of both God and creation developed over the years of his adult life. In 1205, Francis perceived God as the “Most High and glorious God.”4 In 1206, Francis, in front of the Bishop of Assisi and his own father, gave up his family relationship and began a life of gospel-poverty. In 1209, he wrote an exhortation for those who wanted to follow him. In this exhortation, he writes about God in a familial and inclusive way.

All those who love the Lord with their whole heart, with their whole soul and mind, with their whole strength and love their neighbor as themselves – how happy and blessed are these men and women…. They are the children of the heavenly Father whose works they do, and they are spouses, brothers and mothers of our Lord Jesus Christ.… We are spouses when the faithful soul is joined by the Holy Spirit to our lord Jesus Christ. We are brothers to him when we do the will of the Father in heaven. We are mothers when we carry him in our heart and body through a divine love and a pure and sincere conscience and give birth to him though a holy activity which must shine as an example before others.5

In Francis’s Rule of 1221, we hear a series of words in which he depicts the God in whom he believed as a loving and generous parent.

All-powerful, most holy, almighty and supreme God, holy and just Father, Lord King of heaven and earth, we thank you for yourself for through your holy will and through your only Son with the holy Spirit you have created everything spiritual and corporal and, after making us in your own image and likeness, you placed us in paradise.6

In the Praises of God, written by Francis in 1224, we hear that this familial and parental God is a God of unbelievable height, depth, length, and breadth.

You are the holy Lord who does wonderful things. You are strong. You are great. You are the most high. You are the almighty king. You holy father, king of heaven and earth. You are three and one, the Lord God of gods; You are the good, all good, the highest good, Lord God living and true.7

In these descriptions of God, Francis tells us that God is someone who is far above all creation. We may experience another person as mighty, but God is all-mighty. We may find someone who is holy, but God is the all-holy Lord. We may admire someone who is good, but God is all-good and the highest good. These superlative words indicate that God, for Francis, was above anything that we humans can really understand. God, in this approach, is simply “the totally Other.” Francis slowly realized our human limitations: if God is above everything we know, then how can we human beings have any notion of God at all? Francis answered this question by rediscovering the reality of creation. For Francis, God’s love was now seen more clearly as the birthplace of creation.8

All creation depends on God’s loving will, for God freely willed to create our world. Consequently, it was in and through Francis’s meditation on creation itself that he slowly began to appreciate the height and depth, the width and breadth of God’s presence in creation itself, and that God’s love was indeed the birth place of all creation. In the same Praises, Francis saw other aspects of God from which he glimpsed the deep, loving, and familial relationality of God:

You are love, charity; You are beauty; You are our hope;

You are justice; You are all our riches to sufficiency;

You are our custodian and defender; You are our hope;

You are all our sweetness.9

In 1225, one year before his death, Francis wrote the Canticle of Creatures.10 He could not have written this canticle earlier in his life, since the canticle evidences a deep and mature appreciation of God and God’s presence in creation. The canticle, consequently, evidences in an implicit way an autobiographical aspect of Francis’s own journey to God.

In his phenomenological study on Francis’s Canticle of Brother Sun, Eloi Leclerc cites the opening words of the poem:11

Most high, all-powerful, good, Lord.

Yours are the praises, the glory, and the honor,

and all blessing.

To you alone, Most High, do they belong.

Leclerc comments that Francis usually describes God in transcendent terms, using the adjective “all.” The word “all” appears twice in the above litany of who God is.12 However, in the Canticle, Francis immediately adds an important caveat which Leclerc describes in a sharp way:

At this point, the movement toward the Most High is jarred by self-awareness: ‘No mortal lips are worthy to pronounce your name.’ This is not a phrase intended merely for edification or tossed out in passing. It expresses a basic attitude of innermost poverty before the transcendent God.13

The phrase, “no human is worthy to pronounce” God’s name, included the human Francis himself. In other words, no human being, not even Francis, has a direct knowledge of God. No one has an immediate and infused knowledge of God. In Francis’s approach, God is far too infinite for any man or woman to comprehend who and what God is. As a creature, Francis himself is unable to know in a direct way anything of God. Only the God who relationally creates, nourishes, and is present in our world reveals divinity to us. Accordingly, Francis places himself within creation, for it is only from that vantage point that one can ask: who and what is God? Consequently, for Francis and for all men and women, in order to know anything about God, one must contemplate creation in a deep and intensive manner. This is why Francis, in the very next line of the Canticle of Creatures, changes his point of view:

Praise be to you, My Lord,

with all your creatures.

Francis directs our thoughts, our will, and our vision to the created world, whose beauty we can see and whose creatures we can love. For Francis, God does not play a game of hide-and-seek in creation, since God is brilliantly present for those who open their eyes, their minds, and their hearts. In this brief canticle, Francis directs our attention not to God’s own self, but to the created world, to Brother Sun, Sister Moon, Sister Star and Brother Wind. To the question, “Does God exist?” Francis replies, “Contemplate creation.” To the question, “Can a human person know anything about God?” Francis again replies, “Contemplate creation.” If God’s love, power, goodness, praise, beauty, honor, and blessing are the birthplace of creation, then all of creation reflects, in a limited way, God’s love, power, goodness, praise, beauty, honor, and blessing.

Francis studied creation, but he did so in a special way. Francis did not view creatures, such as the sun, moon, stars, wind, air, water, fire, and earth, simply as useful tools. Francis did not use creation in order that Francis himself could praise God. Francis is not saying “I, Francis, praise you, God, when I see my Brother Sun and my Sister Moon.” Rather, Francis in his contemplation of creation sees that the sun, moon, stars, wind, air, water, fire, and earth are themselves already praising God. These creatures give praise to God simply by their own existence. In Francis’s spirituality, he realized that all creatures are praising God, and in the creatures’ praising of God, human beings are able to catch at least a brief glimpse of the beauty, majesty, and love which describe who God truly is.

As we shall see throughout this book, Franciscan theologians such as Anthony of Padua, Alexander of Hales, Bonaventure of Bagnoregio, Peter John Olivi, and John Duns Scotus wrote sermons, theological essays, and scholarly volumes containing statements and lengthy descriptions on Christian theology. In their writings, they deliberately made the spiritual vision of Francis and Clare regarding God and creatures a major and centralizing element of their scholarly syntheses.14

For these Franciscan scholars, knowledge of God’s existence is not based on a special intuitive knowledge or on a ...

Table of contents

• COVER
• TITLE PAGE
• COPYRIGHT
• TABLE OF CONTENTS
• INTRODUCTION
• PART I
• PART II
• PART III
• CONCLUDING COMMENTS
• GLOSSARY
• BIBLIOGRAPHY
• AUTHORS' BIOGRAPHIES
• FOOTNOTES