FOLLOWING FRANCIS, FOLLOWING CHRIST

A Monthly Reflection on the Life and Teachings of Saint Francis of Assisi as They Relate to the Rule and Constitutions of the Confraternity of Penitents

May 2012 

HAPPY DEATH SOCIETY

Many years ago I heard a person in the Secular Franciscan Order (SFO) say that the group used to be a “Happy Death Society”. I believe that this was meant to be a sarcastic comment implying that the people in the Franciscan group were more concerned with the salvation of their souls than with humanistic values and building up society and people in this life. This comment reveals a shift that has occurred in many religious orders and even in some lay orders from a “religious spirituality” to a “secular spirituality” since the 1960’s. This means that the emphasis has shifted in some religious and lay orders from personal sanctification to an emphasis on social action apostolates.  

Can the CFP be accused of being a “Happy Death Society”? I believe that the answer is a definite “yes”since the CFP is certainly oriented to a “religious spirituality”. The goal of the CFP rule of prayer, fasting, and dress is the personal sanctification of members and all others who heed the call to a life of penance. This does not mean that we are unconcerned or cut off from the concerns of society. It means that we understand that any “good” we do is empty and meaningless without God. 

To understand the goal of a “religious spirituality” we just have to look at the Transitus or “Happy Death” of St. Francis. At his death, St. Francis was enduring great physical suffering as well as the spiritual anguish of seeing the Friars Minor slipping away from the vision the Lord had given him. Yet he died in peace. Why? In the maturity of his life, Francis had totally endeavored to please and obey the Lord. He had loved, served, and sought the Will of the Lord. Now, Francis was about to experience the Lord on an infinitely higher level. Why should he not be in peace?  

The spirituality of Francis, oriented toward prayer, poverty, and joy was certainly a “religious spirituality”. Yet St. Francis was definitely concerned for his fellow humans as manifested by many events in his life. Francis did not go about making laws to remedy the many injustices which were rampant in Assisi and many other places at that time. Instead, he and his friars preached by word and example about living a life converted to the Lord. This transformed medieval society more than any social reforms ever could. Francis saw and experienced the evils of medieval society. The Church and religion were very powerful in thirteenth century Italy, and yet many had lost the Love of the Lord in favor of money, power, or other idols. He knew that the evil lay in the unconverted human heart and not in this or that structure of society. St. Francis saw that a society which has forgotten God was a degenerate and decaying society. St. Francis and his friars showed people that the “religious spirituality” of a converted life could be a joyful, fruitful, and fulfilled life. A life totally oriented to this world, no matter how affluent or comfortable, was ultimately empty. Francis experienced this emptiness in his “carefree” life before his conversion. 

In our modern world, many who have lost faith in God have tried to replace the love of God with love of the world and the building of a peaceful, prosperous, and just world. This is understandable, since once you destroy the cohesion that faith in God brings to society, you need to replace it with something else. Unfortunately, many who profess faith in God, including some in religious orders and the clergy, also have embraced this “secular spirituality”. Any spirituality or religious practice is done for the sake of building a “better world”. Some of these well-meaning people even reject the moral teachings of the Church in favor of those embraced by many of those who lack faith. 

The “secular spirituality” of the 1960’s has been around for almost 50 years. Has it worked? Have people cast aside the old divisions of religion, culture, and nationality to embrace peace, freedom, and justice? Traditional religious faith and practice certainly has declined since the coming of the “secular spirituality”. Has Western society become more cohesive and harmonious since that time? It does not look like it. 

In 1972, the academic theologian, Joseph Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI wrote: Man needs politics, social and economic planning and activity. But when that becomes all-encompassing, when politics purports to be the redemption of man, it is trying to play the role of theology or of faith and then becomes the total enslavement of man. Without a meaning that goes deeper than the ordering of the economy, man perishes. Since that time he has written many similar warnings. It seems as though Joseph Ratzinger has a similar understanding of what we need as did St. Francis. We need God. Life is ultimately empty without Him. We have to look “above” to God to know what we need to do in this world.

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