Random Middle Ages fact of the Day

[ivyfic]

My apologies to the Catholics, but...St. Francis of Assissi was a nutter. It is likely that he only got permission from the pope to preach because the last wandering mendicant preacher who asked for permission (a guy named Waldo--no really) was turned down and went on to found one of the most powerful heretical movements of his day. The pope did not want a repeat of this, so poof! Francis is officially sanctioned by the church.

Francis was very much against the accumulation of wealth, not just by monks, but by the church (unlike the Benedictines). There are stories of him harshly punishing followers for even touching money, even if it was to give it back to someone who had dropped it. As a result, Francis and his followers were completely dependant on charity for every meal they ate.

Francis was also very much against planning for the future. In any way. If you planned things, you did not have enough faith in God. His followers are said to have, at the beginning of each day, spun around in a circle until they got dizzy and fell over, and then walked in whichever direction their head was pointing and preached to whatever they found, whether it be a town, a shepherd, or assorted farm animals.

There's even a story of a bunch of Franciscans wandering into what is now Germany without learning the language. This did not go well. Not only can you not preach to people who don't understand you, you can't beg for food either. They learned one word--ja--because sometimes when they said this people gave them food. Presumably when they said it after being asked if they were hungry. Unfortunately, they also said their one word of German after being asked if they were heretics, which meant they got the crap kicked out of them and were sent packing.

I have met a few modern-day Franciscans, but don't know too much about the order. They must have toned some of this teaching down, though, right? I mean, how can an organization last for almost a thousand years if no one ever plans anything?

Comments

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

My friend does a bunch of volunteering with the Franciscan brothers and sisters. What is amazing is how little their lives have changed--they are still entirely dependent on charity and cannot plan for hardly anything. When her mother died, two of the brothers tried to be around as much as possible--wanting to make the wake and funeral and all that--but it was entirely dependent on what was demanded of them by the order. Sometimes, they couldn't regularly get to the phone to even let her know what their plans were. Obviously, a funeral was an exceptional circumstance, and they could try to plan around it as much as possible--or just drop other things with the valid excuse that they were ministering to my friend and her family. But it still seemed very higgely-piggely to me.

[ivy03.livejournal.com]

I worked at a soup kitchen run by a group of Franciscans before college. I wasn't aware of the never planning part of their vows at the time, but I could tell they took the vows of poverty and humility very seriously. The soup kitchen was in a slum in Philadelphia, and the monks who worked there weren't so much outsiders come to help the community as members of the community. They were just as poor as the people they helped and just as reliant on the donations to the soup kitchen. They lived in housing loaned to them by the people that they served, and really owned nothing themselves.

I could see how this actually helped their ministry. Since they were part of the community, there was no perception that they were better than anyone else. The community, in fact, reached back to help them. Most of the volunteers were homeless themselves.

I could see the point of this way of life, of really stripping down to the very basics, so you can see how very little you actually need, and see how you can put your faith in god and not worry about controlling your life. And I can see how that way of life helped them to help others. But it is so alien to me. I simply can't imagine living my life that way.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

One of the saddest pieces to me is that they never have time for themselves at all. Forget the material comfort issue: they are never not "on." My friend explained that one of the Fathers she knows couldn't even extricate himself from a conversation to come talk with her because the person talking with him was basically someone who supported him. He was expected to be "on" as a minister and advocate and that meant never saying no to a conversation with anyone who approached him on those grounds. Very sad.

[chuckro.livejournal.com]

I have a hard time understanding how some people survive on as little planning as they seem to do. No planning whatsoever seems like it would require a Zen state or a frontal lobotomy.