When I was growing up in the USA, fraternity meant only one thing. The word was used to describe the male student associations on various university campuses. These organisations were in my youth and one can assume still are notorious for their parties, their misbehaviour, and for the demands they placed on those wishing to join them.
St Francis did not really create a fraternity in the sense of setting one up, renting or purchasing property, and inventing social events to bring people together. After his conversion, he simply found that others wanted to follow his way of life: poverty, service to lepers and marginalised people, simplicity, prayer and contemplation, focus on the journey to God. Indeed, he said himself :”The Lord gave me brothers.” In other words, there was a common bond formed in terms of intention and way of life. His brothers were to him a gift from God, an undeserved grace.
As secular Franciscans, our rule enjoins us to build a more fraternal world. It also asks us to live out our vocation in union with out local fraternity, brothers and sisters who we did not choose and who often only became known to us when we ourselves felt a call to the Franciscan life.
Fraternity, a sense of the brotherhood and sisterhood of all, is such a central element of Jesus’ message but it is a concept under high pressure today. We prize and preach and live lives devoted to autonomy and individualism. Economic and social dislocation produces in us a fear of even considering a stranger as a brother or sister.
I am always amazed to read about St Francis welcoming his new brothers with open arms and almost immediately receiving them into the fraternity, the brotherhood. Early on in the Franciscan movement, all sorts of people from all sorts of backgrounds and places wanted to live this fraternity and Francis welcomed them all, not setting high bars for qualification or inclusion.
Of course, this fraternity was not an abstract concept or some kind of signal of virtue. It was real. The brothers shared everything and shared life. They were able to do so because Jesus did the same, and because their hearts were filled with the awareness of the presence of God in them which enabled them to recognise the presence of God in each other. It was the reality of their experience of the presence of God which empowered them to be and become fraternal.
When I was growing up in the USA, fraternity meant only one thing. The word was used to describe the male student associations on various university campuses. These organisations were in my youth and one can assume still are notorious for their parties, their misbehaviour, and for the demands they placed on thsoe wishing to join them.
St Francis did not really create a fraternity in the sense of setting one up, renting or purchasing property, and inventing social events to bring people together. After his conversion, he simply found that others wanted to follow his way of life: poverty, service to lepers and marginalised people, simplicity, prayer and contemplation, focus on the journey to God. Indeed, he said himself :”The Lord gave me brothers.” In other words, there was a common bond form in terms of intention and way of life.
As secular Franciscans, our rule enjoins us to build a more fraternal world. It also asks us to live out our vocation in union with out local fraternity, brothers and sisters who we did not choose and who often only became known to us when we ourselves felt a call to the Franciscan life.
Fraternity, a sense of the brotherhood and sisterhood of all, is such a central element of Jesus’ message but it is a concept under high pressure today. We prize and preach and live lives devoted to autonomy and individualism. Economic and social dislocation produces in us a fear of even considering a stranger as a brother or sister.
I am always amazed to read about St Francis welcoming his new brothers with open arms and almost immediately receiving them into the fraternity, the brotherhood. Early on in the Franciscan movement, all sorts of people form all sorts of backgrounds and places wanted to live this fraternity and Francis welcomed them all, not setting high bars for qualification or inclusion.
Of course, this fraternity was not an abstract concept or some kind of signal of virtue. It was real. The brothers shared everything and shared life. They were able to do so because Jesus did the same, and because their hearts were filled with the awareness of the presence of God in them which enabled them to recognise the presence of God in each other. It was the reality of their experience of the presence of God which empowered them to be and become fraternal.
When I was growing up in the USA, fraternity meant only one thing. The word was used to describe the male student associations on various university campuses. These organisations were in my youth and one can assume still are notorious for their parties, their misbehaviour, and for the demands they placed on thsoe wishing to join them.
St Francis did not really create a fraternity in the sense of setting one up, renting or purchasing property, and inventing social events to bring people together. After his conversion, he simply found that others wanted to follow his way of life: poverty, service to lepers and marginalised people, simplicity, prayer and contemplation, focus on the journey to God. Indeed, he said himself :”The Lord gave me brothers.” In other words, there was a common bond form in terms of intention and way of life.
As secular Franciscans, our rule enjoins us to build a more fraternal world. It also asks us to live out our vocation in union with out local fraternity, brothers and sisters who we did not choose and who often only became known to us when we ourselves felt a call to the Franciscan life.
Fraternity, a sense of the brotherhood and sisterhood of all, is such a central element of Jesus’ message but it is a concept under high pressure today. We prize and preach and live lives devoted to autonomy and individualism. Economic and social dislocation produces in us a fear of even considering a stranger as a brother or sister.
I am always amazed to read about St Francis welcoming his new brothers with open arms and almost immediately receiving them into the fraternity, the brotherhood. Early on in the Franciscan movement, all sorts of people form all sorts of backgrounds and places wanted to live this fraternity and Francis welcomed them all, not setting high bars for qualification or inclusion.
Of course, this fraternity was not an abstract concept or some kind of signal of virtue. It was real. The brothers shared everything and shared life. They were able to do so because Jesus did the same, and because their hearts were filled with the awareness of the presence of God in them which enabled them to recognise the presence of God in each other. It was the reality of their experience of the presence of God which empowered them to be and become fraternal.