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

Preface

vii Spirit and Life, 10 Preface Margaret Carney, O.S.F. They all conferred together as true followers of justice, whether they should dwell among men or go to solitary places (1Cel 35). Lady Poverty asks her mendicant guests in the Sacrum Commercium to show her their dwelling, their enclosure. Her request provokes the answer that has become a modern Franciscan mantra: “The world is our cloister.” This delightful exchange is often quoted to underscore the recent emergence of Franciscan structures from a rigidly conceived institutional model. These words come quickly to mind as one reads the three essays that comprise this volume. The thread that unites the three studies is that of location. Is there a place that can be asserted to be “the” place of the friars when they choose a dwelling, initiate a service, take to the roads in mission, or retire into solitude?. Is the itinerancy of the Friars Minor so fundamental that any form of permanency and possession becomes a defect, an implicit acceptance of mediocrity? More than one volume of Franciscan historiography shows that such convictions have been a litmus test in many eras of striving after primitive ideals. If apostolic necessity and human nature demand some adjustment to the early expressions of the Franciscan Gospel project, how do such adjustments find their warrant? Securing papal permissions—bullaria by the bushelsfull—has always been one road of prudent recourse. Carefully crafted interpretations by internal experts—the magistri serving on the Order’s first committees—was the second such road taken as early as 1241 in the Expositio of the Four Masters. Michael Cusato tackles this recurrent Franciscan question first in a study directed towards dealing with the contemporary need to revitalize the twin aspects of ministry and fraternity. In “Hermitage or Marketplace? The Search for an Authentic Franciscan Locus in the World,” he argues that instead of trying to construct a distinctive Franciscan style of pastoral leadership, the effort of refounding provinces should be directed to re-establishing the friary as a base community of evangelical life. The friary thus becomes a place of viii / Preface penitential praxis that enfleshes the most original insights of the early Franciscan movement. His analysis of the various efforts made to respond to increasing difficulties in providing ministerial service with constantly diminishing numbers will find an understanding audience among those who have wrestled with these questions in recent decades. His insight into the friars’ penitential conversion to minoritas goes to the heart of the motives for actual choices the early movement made when choosing how to relate to the cities from whence the members came. In addition to excellent historical analysis, the author has provided pragmatic proposals for those seeking the solutions for an intractable North American dilemma. The second of Cusato’s contributions, “Wall-to-Wall Ministry in the Cities of Thirteenth-Century Italy,” further develops the study of the early friars’ ambivalence towards the cities. Valuable background on the religious and societal connotations of urban life which the friars inherited functions to prevent facile interpretations of the early movement’s geographic preferences. The author serves us by offering summaries of major research on this question of social location published in other languages. The work of Luigi Pellegrini, Attilio Bartoli Langeli, and Daniel Waley are among the most prominent. Describing the early friars as mediators of an emerging culture, Cusato also reviews their specific pastoral roles with care. Those engaged in contemporary reflection on the same callings will find these observations most useful. Again, practical questions for twenty-first century friars bridge the time warp that separates today’s burning questions from yesteryears’ blessed achievements. Readers will see at once that there is some crossover of material in these two essays. However, the editor’s choice was to print both in full. While addressing similar questions, each essay takes a different starting point, and each develops its own argument including much original handling of the materials. Any “cosmetic” surgery aimed at reducing materials that appear in both might result in a disservice to the author’s intent and many readers’ needs. Thus we offer both essays in complete format, although the first has been published in a previous volume (Franciscan Leadership in Ministry, Spirit and Life, 7 [1997], 125-148.) By bringing the two parts of the whole together, we have tried to do justice to the masterful investigation of this topic by Cusato. Preface...