The Franciscan View of the Human Person: Some Central Elements

PART ONE AUTHOR’S INTRODUCTION

1 PART ONE AUTHOR’S INTRODUCTION The internationally renowned ethicist, Daniel C. Maguire, centers his understanding of Christian moral life on the maxim: “The foundational moral experience is reverence for human persons and their environment.”1 This fundamental insight that underlies Maguire’s ethics sings in harmony with what the Franciscan tradition claims about the human person, and it is through the lens of this insight that I read the Franciscan tradition. More importantly, however, the Franciscan tradition illuminates Maguire’s basic insight. There is a sense of the sacredness of human life, though expressed in numerous ways, which lies at the heart of every human culture around the globe. We assign value to persons as persons. This sacredness is not something that can be proven in a laboratory or through a logical syllogism. The inviolable dignity of the human person is known through the wisdom of the heart. Such wisdom is profoundly intuitive, affective and empathetic. Such is the wisdom of love meeting Love. This is the great truth of the Franciscan view of the human person: God, who is Love and the Source of All Goodness, created humans and called them “very good” (Gen. 1:31). Though humans sinned, that sin did not determine the relationship between God and humans. The God of Love chose to reveal divine love in the Incarnation –God become flesh in the person of Jesus. Subsequently, humanity is graced with the means of salvation made visible through the teachings of Jesus, the example of his love for his Abba and the experience of this transforming offer of love. Some look to the negative side of human experience with revulsion, holding a cynical attitude toward human failures and limitations, stressing sin and death. But even this very revulsion signals the possibility for a deeper goodness. It is possible to learn of the Good by contrast with the evil. But why work so hard to learn what is so obvious? Beginning with St. Francis and St. Clare of Assisi, Franciscans choose to define the human person in relationship to the great Love who is God. In Christ and through the Incarnation, God chose to deify human existence.2 From the moment of their creation, humans 2 Dawn M. Nothwehr, O.S.F. are without equal in the world (Gen. 1:26-27 and Gen. 2:7). They are personal subjects, capable of being self-reflexive; that is, they are able to realize and reflect on the reality that they are conscious beings . They are capable of comprehending that they can make choices to be or act in a certain way and why they choose to do so. This is the primary way that human persons are distinct from other creatures in creation–from plants, other animals, or inanimate things. Most distinctive is the reality that humans can have a “face to face” personal relationship with God, because God chose to communicate with them by coming to live on Earth as a human being, Jesus of Nazareth. Humanity was honored in this way; but most importantly , this condescension of God also made it possible for fallen sinful humans to be restored, forgiven and made whole and holy through Christ. In this sense, because of the Incarnation–God taking on humanness and living among us–humanity was deified (made God-like). It is humankind that now faces the dilemma concerning whether to choose life or to choose death (Deut. 30:15-18). The Franciscan way is to choose life and love. It is to let go of the egotistic pride of individualism and the fear of failure and to open the human heart to God’s longing and loving embrace. Then, as one loved beyond measure, the beloved of God turns outward to the world–to family, friends, associates, the quarrelsome ones, the despicable and the despised, and, yes, even in an age of terrorism, to the enemy–and seeks to love them into life. This is the challenge, the possibility and the great hope that the Franciscan understanding of the human person holds out to the world. This brief volume will discuss several of the central elements or most significant characteristics of human persons as found in those works of the Franciscan theological tradition which, when taken together, most sufficiently describe these qualities. As the tradition developed over the years, the intuitions and insights of St. Francis and St. Clare of Assisi concerning the human person were developed and/or restated in language better understood by...