Francis of Assisi, the founder of the movement that took his name, was not someone identified with higher education. He himself had no more than the normal formal education of a person born in the 12th century, nor was he initially an advocate for his followers to be highly educated. Francis wished that he and his followers would be known as frati minores, lesser brothers, who would minister to and among the poor and marginalized of society.
People often ask “How did the Franciscans get involved in education – isn’t education the work of the Jesuits or the Christian Brothers?”
Yes, the Jesuits and the Brothers do a good job with education, but the Franciscans have been involved in education since the time of St. Francis when medieval universities were established in the 13th century.
Here is a brief introduction to the Franciscan Friars in education.
With more and more of his brother friars engaging in public ministries of preaching, celebrating sacraments, and evangelizing in the burgeoning cities of early 13th century Europe, it became apparent to Francis and others in the Franciscan movement that some means of preparation and formation of the friars for ministry was necessary.
Thus, we have a short letter written by Francis in 1223 to a fellow friar, Anthony of Padua, who was a gifted preacher and teacher before he joined the Franciscan movement. In his letter Francis wrote, “I am pleased that you teach sacred theology to the brothers providing that, as is contained in the Rule, you ‘do not distinguish the Spirit of prayer and devotion’ during study of this kind.” What Francis wanted was learning that led to love, love of God and love of others.
It was St. Bonaventure, an early follower of Francis who eventually came to lead the Franciscans as its general minister, who embodied the Franciscan outlook on higher education. A professor of theology at the University of Paris for a time, Bonaventure wrote about the nature of God as diffusive love, a love that goes out of itself. For Bonaventure, God freely creates in order to expand the realm of love. All that is, exists because of the free love of God that is diffusive throughout creation. In articulating this understanding of the Trinity and creation, Bonaventure was expressing the fundamental vision of Francis.
In his famous poem, the Canticle of the Creatures, Francis addressed the various elements of the created world as he knew them – sun, moon, earth, plants and vegetation, fire and water, wind and chill – as his brothers and sisters. This was not simply poetic license for Francis, because he saw that he and all other human beings were more like than unlike the rest of creation. There was, one might say, a strong family resemblance between all created beings and that was due to their common state of creatureliness. Francis saw and Bonaventure knew everything that exists, exists because God loved it into being.
Within a few decades after Bonaventure, another Franciscan came on the scene to further promote the Franciscan mission of higher education. John Duns Scotus focused on the theme of love at the center of creation. He proposed the idea that from all time the plan of God’s creative love was to unite Creator and creature. The incarnation of God’s son in the person of Jesus of Nazareth was the always intended high point of creation. For Scotus, it made no sense that God became human as an afterthought, as a remedy for human sinfulness. Rather, from the beginning there was to be the union of God and creation in the human person we know as Jesus.
In the Franciscan worldview the human person is the place where Creator and creation become one in Jesus of Nazareth. When God determined to enter into the mystery of creation, God became a human being. There is something about the finite human that is capable of receiving the infinite God. Jesus of Nazareth revealed not only what God is like, but what a human being is like, a creature open to receive the diffusive love of God in an intimate way.
This hallmark of the Franciscan tradition has led to friars throughout the centuries joining with others in developing a rich tradition of Christian Humanism. The Franciscan tradition understands the Christian faith as authentic humanism, and as such, it is able to interact fruitfully with much of the humanistic agenda of higher education.
Acceptance of education as humanization is seen in the example of another Franciscan friar, Roger Bacon. He believed that all education, not just theology and philosophy is for the purpose of exploring and appreciating what is truly human; education is capable of inspiring devotion to the Creator through wonder and love of the things of the created order. And so the physical sciences, the liberal arts, the social sciences, the study of the professions – any insight we can gain into the meaning of being human is welcomed in the Franciscan understanding of higher education.
Inspired by Francis, Anthony, Bonaventure, Scotus, and Roger Bacon, the Franciscan tradition embraced education as a ministry whereby the ‘lesser brothers’ of Francis might serve others. As fellow travelers on the journey to God we have learned that nothing which is authentically human is foreign to our faith in the God who moves the stars and planets, as well as the ideas in our minds and the blood within our hearts.