True Followers of Justice: Identity, Insertion and Itinerancy among the Early Franciscans

Pilgrims and Stangers

63 Spirit and Life, 10 Pilgrims and Strangers: The Evangelical Spirituality of Itinerancy of the Early Franciscan Friars Keith Warner, O.F.M. Introduction The poor brothers led her to the top of a nearby knoll, and, indicating the whole world with a sweeping gesture, said to her: “All this is our cloister, dear Lady” (Sacrum Commercium, 63). Geography: does it have anything to do with spirituality? The short epigraph above, taken from the end of an early Franciscan text, captures one of the essential distinctions between the spirituality of the monks and of the friars, and it seems to suggest that geography might have some implication for the study of Franciscan spirituality. Unlike the monks, for whom the monastery was the locus of spiritual practice and who were prohibited from leaving the monastery without permission of the abbot, the early Franciscans practiced their spirituality equally well “on the road” as in a stable religious house. The early Franciscan friars were not prohibited from traveling. Francis expected it of them and gave them instructions on how they were to go through the world. The first Franciscans did not dwell permanently in a religious enclosure but understood the whole world to be the locus of their spiritual expression. This ideal is a part of Francis’s broader vision of his evangelical understanding of Christian discipleship and the pursuit of holiness. He wanted to follow Jesus in as literal a way as possible. Francis understood Jesus as one who emptied himself to do the will of the Father, who became incarnate as a human being, and who dwelt among us, serving as an example of obedience for us. In Francis’s understanding, Jesus was a traveler, a pilgrim on the way, one who brought Good News from God the Father to us. For Francis, the incarnation of the Son was the ultimate expression of poverty, yet through his birth, life, passion, death, and return to the Father, 64 / Keith Warner, O.F.M. Jesus expressed this poverty by movement. Francis’s vision of discipleship was dynamic, and one of the primary ways he expressed this was through his spirituality of being “on the road,” of being a pilgrim and stranger in this world. This study explores an evangelical spirituality of itinerancy among the early Franciscans. It seeks to establish itinerancy as an essential component of the spirituality of the first followers of Francis. It will demonstrate that Francis understood Jesus as a traveler and a transient on this earth, one who was born, lived, and died in via, along the way. The first work written on the life of Francis, Thomas of Celano’s Vita prima sancti Francisci (hereafter, 1 Celano), develops this theme of being in via, presenting Francis as living in the way of perfection, but also encountering others along the road as he traveled through life. Francis, in his own writings, clearly articulated his desire that his brothers go through the world as pilgrims and strangers, following in the footsteps of Jesus, and he implied a spirituality of encounter with the socially marginalized. The evangelical way of going through the world is an essential dimension of the spirituality of Francis and his first brothers. A preliminary examination of the Franciscan primary sources uncovers strong themes of movement with a religious motivation, and they are the focus of this essay. Several questions concerning the spatial expression of spirituality suggest themselves in the original texts: How did the friars perceive the world through which they traveled? How did they make meaning of its various constituent parts? How were different geographic spaces evaluated? What was the relationship between the physical world they experienced and the spiritual world in which they believed? How did they understand their own physical journey to follow in Jesus’ footprints? Although these questions are not the focus of this study, the reader might do well to ponder them as corollary considerations. This investigation is divided into three major sections. The first surveys pilgrimage and itinerancy in the religious movements of medieval Christianity. We will examine itinerancy among the monastic, eremitic, and lay penitential movements, and then discuss the importance of defining Francis’s vision of the itinerant dimension of spirituality as evangelical. Pilgrims and Strangers / 65 The second delves into itinerancy as a dimension of the vocations of Jesus, of Francis, and of the early friars. From Francis’s writings, especially the Office of the Passion...