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The Franciscan Spirit Through the Ages / 195 CHAPTER 5 POPULAR DEVOTIONS In many countries and in many ages, Franciscans have taught the people of God to pray in their own languages and with succinct yet doctrinally rich formulas. Was it not Franciscans who, in 1250, introduced the custom of reciting the evening Angelus with the words of the second half of the Ave Maria: "Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us"? And in many countries popular greetings are still in use which come from Francis himself: Pace e bene! Praised be Jesus Christ! Questions then arise. How can one blend popular devotion and spirituality? How can one appreciate the spiritual meaning of a pilgrimage to the Portiuncula or of devotion to St. Anthony, when many pilgrims—despite all the explanations they are given—will doubtless never understand what "Our Lady of the Angels" means or who St. Anthony of Padua really was? Far from despising popular religion, the Friars Minor of every age and every country have sought to direct it toward the worship of God through contact with persons closer to human beings: Jesus, Mary, the saints. Devotion to Christ It was St. Bernardine of Siena (d. 1444) who popularized devotion to the holy name of Jesus: I.H.S., "Jesus the Savior of Men." He himself had acquired it from St. Bonaventure and St. Bernard and through them from St. Paul himself. It spread quickly in France after St. Joan of Arc (d. 1431), whose mother was a Franciscan tertiary, placed the name of Jesus on her flag, following her brother Richard's advice. She made it her battle cry and victory song. It was to be her last word on the pyre at Rouen. One result of devotion to Christ was the brotherhoods of flagellants that arose in Italy and Spain. Paul of Chioggia, who founded one of them, died a Capuchin in 1531. But it was more especially the devotion to the Sacred Heart that developed in the Franciscan family. Already begun by St. Anthony of Padua (d. 1231) and further clarified by St. Bonaventure (d. 1274), it was enriched by St. Bernardine of Siena in the fifteenth century, while Bernard of Osimo (d. 1591) made it the 196 / Willibrord C. VanDijk, O.F.M. Cap. subject of his Treatise on the Passion of Christ. Thomas of Bergamo, a counselor to the Dukes of Bavaria (d. Innsbruck 1631), Joseph of Paris (d. 1638), John of Sestola (d. 1646), Leander of Dijon (d. 1667), Augustine of Zamora (d. 1678) and Dennis of Luxemburg (d. 1705) were also apostles of the Sacred Heart in Germany, France and Spain well before the liturgical cult assumed its definitive form in a series of well known developments, especially under the influence of St. John Eudes and St. Margaret Mary. In 1879 Father Bernardine of Portogruaro became the first Superior General of a religious family to dedicate his Order officially to the Heart of Jesus. It is good to recall, too, that the devotion to the way of the cross, the Via Crucis, arose in the Franciscan Order, in particular under the influence of the religious of the Holy Land Custody in Jerusalem. Welcoming pilgrims from every country, from the days of the Crusades on, they reconstructed for them on the original sites the stages of the sorrowful Way from the Garden of Olives to Calvary. This suggested the building of miniature Jerusalems near some European Franciscan friaries, e.g., that of Bl. Bernardine Caimi near Novara at the end of the sixteenth century. Italy in the eighteenth witnessed zealous attacks by the Jansenists against devotion to the way of the cross, which Franciscans like Irenaeus Affo (d. 1797) and Flaminio Annibali de Latera (d. 1813) defended with equal zeal as a Franciscan heritage. On December 27, 1750, St. Leonard of Port Maurice built the way of the cross at the Coliseum in Rome, which continues to be used for a papal ceremony each year on Good Friday. Nor did this devotion lag behind in Germany, thanks to Nicholas Wanckel's book, The Spiritual Way, published in 1521. We cannot treat here of other Franciscan forms of devotion to the passion, such as the Confraternities of the Exaltation of the Cross under the influence of Hyacinth of Paris (d. 1650), devotional books like The Alphabet of the Cross by the Poor Clare Bonne of Marseilles (d. 1652) and The Watch of the Passion by Bl. Angelo of Acri (d. 1739). A...

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