In Solitude and Dialogue: Contemporary Franciscans Theologize

“Hold Back Nothing of Yourselves”: Contexts for a Franciscan Theology of the Eucharist

101 “Hold Back Nothing of Yourselves”: Contexts for a Franciscan Theology of the Eucharist Regis A. Duffy, O.F.M. In the crowded and narrow streets of the Latin Quarter of Paris, thirteenth and fourteenth-century Franciscan Masters of Theology at the University of Paris shaped a distinctive theology of the eucharist in their lectures and writings. Some of these names, such as Alexander of Hales, Bonaventure, and John Dun Scotus, are familiar. Other Franciscan masters, such as William of Militona, Richard of Middleton, Peter Aureoli, and Nicholas of Lyra, are less well known. Each of these masters was required to lecture on the Sentences of Peter Lombard, including his questions on the eucharist, as part of their final requirements for being promoted to the mastership in theology. Their responses, therefore, necessarily focus on such issues as the change of the bread and wine and real presence rather than the celebration of the eucharist and its pastoral corollaries. Within these theological limits, some of their theories represent a sophisticated and distinct contribution to eucharistic theology. Although they did not always agree with one another on every point of that theology, these early Franciscan masters generally held certain common theological concerns that would identify them for later generations as the Franciscan school. The Pastoral Situation in the Thirteenth Century But there is a second less well-known historical contribution of the friars—a praxis theology of the eucharist fostered by their pastoral mission. The early friars’ main work was the reevangelization of the people, as urged by the reforming council, Lateran IV, in 1215. In the early part of the thirteenth century, the pastoral situation in Europe was grim. Europe had taken several centuries to recover 102 Regis A. Duffy, O.F.M. from the economic, political, and cultural chaos that followed the barbarian invasions of Goths, Visigoths, and Vandals, among others. This chaos had a direct impact on the pastoral mission of the Church. One of the most damaging effects was a generally uneducated local clergy and, as a result, large areas of unevangelized Catholics. The lack of educated clergy also fostered the lack of preaching with its attendant effect—superstition often replacing sacramental participation. When the practice of Irish tariff penance was brought to Europe by the Irish monks as part of their reevangelization of the Continent in the early Middle Ages, the Irish rule of confession of serious sin before the reception of the eucharist only exacerbated the pastoral situation—the dearth of qualified confessors who could hear such confessions. The practical consequence was the infrequent if not rare reception of the eucharist at mass by the vast majority of Catholics. Lateran IV addressed this discouraging pastoral situation with several interconnecting reforms. In canon 10 the Council addressed the problem of preaching—the bishops were to provide credible preachers who could effectively instruct by word and example.1 Canon 21 mandated that every Christian from the age of reason should receive the sacrament of penance at least once a year and receive the eucharist during Eastertide.2 That same canon also called for confessors who would be true “doctors” treating the wounds of sin. Francis of Assisi took up the reforms of Lateran IV with characteristic zeal. The results can be seen in the earlier and the final version of the Rule he gave the friars. There he gives special importance to the friars’ mission of preaching penance wherever they went. In other words, the friars were to reevangelize people and thus make possible the reception of the sacraments of penance and eucharist as Lateran IV had decreed. Perhaps more important for the early friars was the praxis of Francis himself. He considered the preaching of the gospel as a mission given him by God. He 1 Alberigo, J. et al., eds., Conciliorum oecumenicorum decreta (Freiburg: Herder, 1962), 215-16. 2 Alberigo, 220-21. “Hold Back Nothing of Yourselves” 103 received the sacraments of penance and eucharist often as part of his own ongoing conversion. A Franciscan theology of the eucharist should be faithful to the insights of this heritage and reappropriate its insights for our contemporary pastoral situation. Therefore, the methodology of this essay is, in a first and shorter section, to see the Franciscan theological heritage on the eucharist contextualized in the historical pastoral mission of the friars. This pastoral heritage has several parts among which are: first, a preached call to conversion which...