St. Francis of Assisi Issue 42 | 1994 Purchase this issue

ARTICLE TOOLS

Find similar articles E-mail this page

This document was approved in 1223 as the official rule, or charter, of Francis’s followers, the Order of Friars Minor. Three of its passages soon led to bitter controversy.

How literally were these injunctions to be obeyed? Did they apply in all times and places? What if a superior ordered a brother to obey something seemingly contrary to the Rule, such as to receive money or to buy property to build a hospital?

I firmly command all the brothers that they in no way receive coins of money, either personally or through an intermediary.

The brothers shall not acquire anything as their own, neither a house nor a place nor anything at all. Instead, as pilgrims and strangers in this world who serve the Lord in poverty and humility, let them go begging for alms with full trust. Dedicate yourselves totally to this, my most beloved brothers, do not wish to have anything else forever under heaven for the sake of our Lord Jesus Christ.

The brothers who are the ministers and servants of the other brothers should visit and admonish their brothers and humbly and charitably correct them, not commanding them anything which might be against their conscience and our Rule. On the other hand, the brothers who are subject to them should remember that they have given up their own wills for God. Therefore I strictly command them to obey their ministers in all those things which they have promised to observe and which are not against conscience and our Rule.

In this document, dictated just before his death, Francis encouraged his brothers to observe his Rule. Though formally it is only an “admonition,” a few sentences seem like commands. ...