Franciscan Charism in Higher Education, The

Do We Owe Francis an Apology for Our Franciscan Educational Tradition?

Do We Owe Francis an Apology for Our Franciscan Educational Tradition? Joseph D. Doino, O.F.M., Th.D.* Some years ago there appeared in the New York Times a review of a fascinating book entitled Exits: Stories of Dying Moments and Parting Words.1 The book contains the parting words of some famous people: Marie Antoinette, Madame de Barry, Oscar Wilde and even the notorious criminal Dutch Schultz. We are asked to believe that a highly-respected French grammarian, Dominique Bouhours, supposedly exclaimed at the moment of death: "I am about to--or I am going to--die: either expression is correct." The reviewer noted that some famous people's in extremis words were omitted from the book because they lacked verifiability. For example, Hegel supposedly complained on his deathbed "that there were only two people who understood his work and he was doubtful about one of them." More mysterious and perhaps more relevant to our topic this afternoon are the words of Gertrude Stein. She supposedly was asked as she lay close to death: "Gertrude, what is the answer?" She looked up and gently whispered, "What is the question?" What indeed is the question we are raising this afternoon? Is it the battered one expressed so many centuries ago by Jacopone da Todi: What does Assisi have to do with Paris? Or is there perhaps something prior, something deeper, more germane---a question * This paper was originally presented at the symposium celebrating the 25th Anniversary of Neumann College, Aston, Pa., March 17, 1990. 1 Scott Slater and Alec Solimita, Exits: Stories of Dying Moments and Partings Words, reviewed by Christopher Lehmann-Haupt, New York Times, January 18, 1990, C, 21. before this traditional one? I would like to pursue the subject inductively and thus, perhaps, by reaching your hearts as well as your minds bring our question to a new level that is at once more exacting and more liberating. Let me begin in what may seem the most unlikely of places to speak about the Franciscan educational tradition: the utterly simple and lowly hermitage of Greccio. In a charming book entitled Pilgrim Walks in Franciscan Italy,2 Johannes Jorgensen, the great biographer of Francis, describes how a certain brother Humilitas was somewhat rushed in serving him coffee and a few slices of bread. "In his haste he accidentally let the bread fall to the ground. On putting it away, he kissed it, as if to ask forgiveness." "Later on," says the great lover of Francis, "I noticed that before every meal the young novices always kissed the piece of bread which was placed under their serviette." Jorgensen's final reflection on all of this is rather unusual: "This reverence for our daily bread, and indeed for all that appertains to our earthly existence, or promotes or benefits life, is truly Franciscan. The spirit of the order is essentially one of reverence; the veneration and love due to God is extended to all his creatures for his sake."3 There is no further commentary or explanation; no effort to justify this rather startling claim. It is all so simple and clear: the Franciscan spirit is essentially and before all else a spirit of reverence. Certainly the stories of Francis in the early sources leave strong indication of this spirit. His was a reverence which reached down to pick up a worm so as not to be stepped on, to pick up a discarded piece of paper with writing on it because it contained the letters used to expressed the word "God." This reverence extends in remarkable ways in various directions. Francis expands our consciousness as we move reverentially with him from inanimate objects, such as stones, to running water, to living trees, flowers, lambs, to humans, to sacraments, to angels and saints and, of course, to God himself. We know how he showed reverence to every human being; 2 Johannes Jorgensen, Pilgrim Walks in Franciscan Italy, St. Louis: Herder, 908, 36-37. 3 Jorgensen, 37. our hearts will never allow us to forget Francis and the lepers. To his brothers he exclaimed: "Be conscious, o man, of the wondrous state to which the Lord God has placed you, for he created you and formed you to the image of his beloved Son according to the body, and to his likeness according to the spirit" [Adm. 5]. Nowhere in the Christian tradition do we find such a...