Oct 2004 Christian Spirituality      Continued from previous issue By George A Lane SJ

Continue from ...... THE MENDICANT TRANSITION The Dominicans were formally approved as an order in 1216; the Franciscans in 1223. The times urgently needed the friar who could go out of his monastery and combat the evils and errors. Humbert of Romans remarks in his commentary on Dominic's Rule, "Our order has been founded for preaching and for the salvation of our neighbours. Our studies should tend principally, ardently, above everything, to make us useful for souls." St Francis makes the same point when he records that he felt the most ecstatic joy when he heard the voice of God, "that it behoved him by preaching to convert many people. Thus says the Lord, 'Say to Brother Francis that God has not called him into this estate for himself alone, but to the end that he may gain fruit of souls and that many through him may be saved.' This is the essential element in the mendicant transition. Certain aspects of the work of St Dominic and St Francis show how this concept was carried out in action. Dominic's order differed from the monastic tradition chiefly in that it had no vow of stability. The Dominicans did not live in isolation, and they maintained a careful, realistic poverty. The devoted themselves to scripture study and to profane science. The Dominican Rule allows a person to be excused from common prayer for the sake of study. This would be quite unthinkable in a strictly monastic tradition. Even though the Franciscans and Dominicans were founded about the same time and were responding to a similar challenge, the two orders have distinguishing characteristics. Dominic's order was an order of priests from the start; Francis was never a priest. The founding of the Dominicans was altogether unromantic, and it had a very sober and rational attitude from the start. There was much of the romantic tradition in the Italian order of St Francis. The Dominicans devoted themselves to both religious and secular study, while the earliest Franciscans were not generally interested in intellectual pursuits. The Dominicans turned their attention to the universities of Europe, while the Franciscans engaged themselves more in social and pastoral work. The Dominicans were a community of canons regular who lived a monastic common life and performed direct apostolic service. Dominic placed great emphasis on organisation with a high degree of monastic discipline modified, however, so it could fit in with a vigorous apostolic life. The Franciscans were part of a voluntary poverty movement that existed at the time. It was also something of a youth movement which flourished in the cities. The movement was directed against the soft secularity of a Christianity that was making itself quite at home in the political and economic world around it.

- To Be Continued -