Variety: Matthew 5v3
St. Francis of Assisi (1182–1226) began his community with a clear intention: “The Rule and the life of the Friars Minor is to simply live the gospel.” The first Rule (the guide for the community’s way of life) that he started writing around 1209 was little more than a collection of New Testament passages. When Francis sent it off to Rome, the pope looked at it and said, “This is no Rule. This is just the gospel.” You can just hear Francis saying, “Yes—that is the point! We don’t need any other Rule except the gospel!” To be a Franciscan is nothing other than always searching for “the marrow of the gospel” as he called it. Francis believed the purpose and goal of our life is to live the marrow or core of the gospel. Honestly, the core is so simple; it’s the living it out that’s difficult.
When Francis read the Beatitudes, Jesus’ inaugural discourse, he saw that the call to be poor stood right at the beginning: “How blessed are the poor in spirit!” (Matthew 5:3). From then on, Francis’ reading of the gospel considered poverty to be “the foundation of all other virtues and their guardian.” While other virtues receive the kingdom only in promise, poverty is invested with heaven now—“Theirs is the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 5:3). Present tense!
As a result, Franciscan spirituality has never been an abstraction. It is grounded in Jesus’ specific instructions to his disciples, not ideology or denominational certitudes. Francis’ living of the gospel was just that: a simple lifestyle. It was the incarnation of Jesus Christ continuing in space and time. It was the presence of the Spirit taken as if it were true. It was being Jesus more than just worshiping Jesus. At its best, Franciscan life is not words or even ethics. It is flesh—naked, vulnerable flesh—unable to deny its limitations, unable to cover its wounds. Francis called this inner nakedness “poverty.”
This pure vision of life attracted thousands to a new freedom in the church and in ministry. Religious communities had become more and more entangled with stipends and rich land holdings. Members lived individually simple lives but were corporately secure and even comfortable. Mendicant (begging) orders like the Franciscans were created to break that dangerous marriage between ministry and money. Francis didn’t want his friars to preach salvation (although they did that, too) as much as he wanted them to be salvation. He wanted them to model and mirror the life of Jesus in the world, with all of the vulnerability that would entail. That is why many people often attribute the saying “preach the gospel at all times, and when absolutely necessary use words” to describe Francis’ desire to live the gospel in every moment.
Richard Rohr