Quodlibet 34 - The differences between Dominicans and Franciscans?

We have been asked to explain the differences between the Dominicans and Franciscans. Brother Andrew Brookes writes as follows in response to this request:

I think for the most part it is best to locate any differences in the context of what we hold in common, points which are far more substantial. Thus both orders were started in the opening years of the 13^th century in southern Europe. Both are said to be friars, meaning brothers. In simple terms both were inspired by the desire to live the apostolic life in following Jesus. Thus they wanted both to live in community (in fraternity), owning things in common and having a shared prayer life, but also to go out and preach the gospel, living simply and trusting God to provide for their needs. As such they were not to be monks who traditionally stayed within a monastery, but they adapted monastic life to combine it with apostolic mission. Again, in both cases a central group of consecrated men arose but linked to this were enclosed women who prayed for the work and a wider network of lay people. (Active women religious were added to each later in their histories.) Both are Roman Catholic groups approved by the papacy and now international in distribution. Although Francis is remembered for his love of creation, this also marked Dominic and his followers who were committed to defending the goodness of all creation and also human nature against the Cathars. Both groups now undertake a wide range of apostolates.

Some differences emerge from the specific characters and lives of their respective founders. At the time of becoming a founder, Dominic was a priest and he had a focus on good, clear preaching and teaching of the Gospel. For this reason he stressed study as a means to prepare his friars for preaching and teaching that was clear, true and of a good standard. It has meant that Dominicans have since taken part also in the academic life of the church in marked ways. Francis was a lay person, eventually made a deacon, and he stressed a simple life of repentance, of compassion for outcasts, and his preaching was of a much simpler style. This and some subtle theological points have led Dominicans to be associated more with God as Truth and Franciscans with God as Love, but, in my view, far too much can be made of this and really truth and love go together in God and in any authentic Christian life. Although both Dominic and Francis both lived very poor personal lives, Franciscans are seen to place a higher value on poverty as an end in itself in following Jesus whereas Dominicans tend to see it as helping us to live simply and be free to preach and to love and to trust in God, so it is more of a means to an end, perfection consisting in love of God and neighbour.

There have sometimes been historical tensions between the groups but there are also strong links binding us together as parts of the one body of Christ.

Litany of Loreto - Cause of our Joy

It was a Friday morning, I was late for my course, running down the stairs thinking of whether I had remembered to turn off the light in my room or not, and whether I had brought with me my books and locked the door. In the stairways I met one of the brethren. I do not know if he saw my stressed state of mind, but as I continued down the stairs with my cappa flying around his legs, he said ”may the Spirit be with you”. I started to smile as I couldn’t help thinking of Yoda, the little green man in the Star Wars films, always greeting his colleagues by saying ”may the force be with you”. Well. Yoda soon disappeared from my mind, but the words of my brother remained throughout the day. May the Spirit be with you! So much more than a wish to 'have a nice day'! I realized that the reality of being followed and upheld by God’s Holy Spirit reaches far beyond my limited thoughts. Our life is anchored in Him who holds the whole of the cosmos in his hands.

A few minutes after having received this early morning blessing, I sat around a table face to face with Anglicans, Baptists and Evangelicals, and Paul’s word of being living stones building each other up became so alive, so clear. Being united in the body of Christ, we are enjoying God’s own presence within us, as a fruit of Salvation given us in the Son. There is a Holy bond between all who have received the Lord, a bond throughout the world and across history, reaching all the way back to the first fruits of this salvation, Mary, who even before carrying the seed of God’s Messiah to the world, had been blessed and destined to bring forth the reason of our everlasting joy. It seems very simple: Jesus, our Lord, is our joy, Mary is the Mother of our Lord, and so Mary is 'cause of our joy'.

Litany of Loreto - Seat of Wisdom

Wisdom is more active than all active things; and reaches everywhere, by reason of her purity. For she is a vapour of the power of God, and a certain pure emanation of the glory of the Almighty God: and therefore no defiled thing comes into her (Wisdom 7:24-25).

The Virgin Orans at St. Sophia Cathedral, Kiev

For centuries Christians have prayed to Our Lady that they might be guided in wisdom. At Blackfriars, we'll often begin meetings with the prayer: 'Our Lady Seat of Wisdom, pray for us.' There is a very special relationship between Our Lady and wisdom. In the Old Testament, wisdom is personified as a female figure who brings God's plans to perfection. Whilst the New Testament never applied these texts directly to Mary herself, early Christians began to ask who this figure was. One possibility was to identify this figure with Christ himself, but this was slightly problematic, not only because wisdom is a female figure, but also because the Old Testament described wisdom as a mother who had been created (Sirach 24). So who was this person, so near to God without being God, associated with him in the role of mother of the whole world, this female figure that fulfils His plans to perfection? It was the analogy between this image and that of the woman in Revelation 12 clothed with the sun and crowned with twelve stars, that led Christians to apply the wisdom texts to Mary.

Mary cannot be said to be wisdom without qualification. Only Christ is the eternal uncreated wisdom of God, and only the Church made perfect at the end of time, is to be the final created realisation of this divine wisdom. But Mary is the one who was predestined to be the first created realisation of wisdom. For creation was only able to fully engage with the wisdom of God when Mary in her total receptivity to the divine will, allowed herself to be that seat in which wisdom would makes its home.

Litany of Loreto - Mirror of Justice

After a series of titles addressing Mary as Mother and Virgin comes a series of thirteen, Mirror of justice, Seat of wisdom, Cause of our joy, Spiritual vessel, Vessel of honour, Singular vessel of devotion, Mystical rose, Tower of David, Tower of ivory, House of gold, Ark of the covenant, Gate of heaven, and Morning star. Some of these are clearly found in the Old Testament whereas the origin of others is obscure, but it has been argued that they all belong in Jewish Wisdom literature and in the mystical and theological ideas associated with the Temple in Jerusalem. Mary is being acknowledged as the place of the presence of God, more specifically as 'Wisdom', the consort or companion of God in the creation and government of the world. The English biblical scholar and proponent of 'Temple theology', Margaret Barker, says that these titles all originate in the Wisdom tradition, both the texts accepted by the Church as canonical scripture and in other Jewish writings that were preserved only by the Church, indicating their importance to Christians. She argues that they come from a rich tradition of spiritual and theological thinking centred on 'the Lady' of Solomon's Temple, and that this much older tradition was later used by Christians - when exactly we don't know - and applied by them to the Mother of the Lord in what has become the Litany of Loreto. (See Margaret Barker, 'The Images of Mary in the Litany of Loreto', published in Usus Antiquior 1 (2010) pages 110-31, and available here.)

On the title 'Mirror of Justice', Barker writes as follows:

"In the Litany of Loreto, only one title, Mirror of Justice, speculum iustitiae, clearly resembles a title in the Wisdom Literature. In the Wisdom of Solomon 7.26 she is described as the spotless mirror of the power or Glory of God, speculum . . . Dei maiestatis. The Greek text here has the spotless mirror of the ἐνέργεια of God, the ‘working’ of God, and there is no Hebrew. This line is, however, one of a triplet in the Hebrew style, suggesting a Hebrew cultural context at the very least: she is a reflection of eternal light, a spotless mirror of the working of God, an image of his goodness. Why is Mary the mirror of iustitia? The Vulgate uses this word to render the Hebrew şedaqah, and the Greek δικαιοσúνη, both of which mean ‘righteousness’, and so this is perhaps a better way to understand the word. Now righteousness, in its Hebrew context, describes exactly the role of Wisdom. Righteousness was the process that brought peace, šalom, and Wisdom joined all things together, held them in harmony, ἁρμόζουσα (LXX Proverbs 8.30). ‘Mirror of Righteousness’, the One who shows how God works to bring peace, fits well with the triplet in Wisdom 7.26: reflection of eternal light, mirror of the working of God, image of his goodness. Mary as the speculum iustitiae links her to Wisdom" (p.113).

The Magnificat (Luke 1:46-55) teaches us that God's righteousness involves a radical re-creation of the order of this world. This re-creation is underway in the womb of Mary as she carries the Word of the Eternal Father. Mary's holiness, the work of God's grace preparing her to be the bearer of the Sun of Justice, means that we can fittingly call her the 'mirror of justice', the clearest possible reflection of divine wisdom and righteousness because she is closest to that wisdom and righteousness.

Artefacts from the Provincial Archives

The Province's website now has a new page with a digital exhibition of some interesting items from the Provincial Archives. A commentary on the items has been provided by fr. Neil Ferguson OP, the Provincial Archivist. Among the artefacts on display is a 14th-century English book of collected works by St Thomas Aquinas including his disputed questions On Evil (De Malo). To visit the page, click on this link.

Litany of Loreto - Virgin ...

The title ‘virgin’ introduces a series of titles under which Mary is invoked in the Litany of Loreto. More specifically the words ‘Virgin most …’ identify Mary as prudent, venerable, renowned, powerful, merciful, and faithful, all in the fullest degree.

Why these qualities? The first and last, prudence end faithfulness, point to virtues that help sustain a life dedicated to God, such as Mary had. Those in-between, point rather to the power of her intercession in prayer, something seen as fruitful because of her dedication to and intimacy with God. By her faith-filled and efficacious intercession she is closely linked with the power and mercy of God. It is all this that means she is renowned and venerable. There is perhaps a certain irony here: Mary is recorded as being humble in the Bible (Lk 1:29). However, it is this humility and openness to God, and a transparency that goes with it, that means that God can fill her with his life in a way that has been recognised as profound. Indeed all generations do call her blessed! (Lk 1:48).

Interestingly, many of the preceding titles in the litany under which Mary is invoked as mother - pure, chaste, and especially inviolate and undefiled - also point to aspects of her virginity, thus establishing that her motherhood, both physical and spiritual, flows from and is rooted in her virginity.

Whatever our sexual history and whatever our vocational calling, we are called to a life of dedication to God, and this lies at the spiritual heart of virginity. Let us then look to Mary and ask her to help us cultivate the virtues here linked with her. Dedicating ourselves to God, we also can be so overshadowed by the Holy Spirit (cf Lk 1: 35) that we become spiritual mothers and fathers, forming people spiritually, whether or not we are or become physical parents. Thus we can be amiable, admirable, and give good counsel – to cite other qualities of Mary named in these sections of the litany.

Candlemas - Light and Glory

It has been remarked that the opening chapters of St Luke's Gospel are like a musical, where at high points people spontaneously sing canticles! This observation is rather accurate, but it is noteworthy that the songs are introduced whenever heaven and earth meet, when the presence of God acting in salvation history is made especially manifest. And the composer and conductor of this musical outburst is none other than the Holy Spirit, who in each occasion (except in the case of Mary, for she is already full of grace) fills Zechariah and Simeon, and inspires them to break into song. In today's feast, we recall the event that occasioned the last of these songs, thus bringing to a close the Advent and Christmas scenes of the first Act, as it were, of Luke's Gospel.

In each of these incidents, where Old and New Testaments worlds meet, St Luke is showing the fulfillment of God's promise to his chosen people, Israel, in the person of his Son, Jesus. He is the Messiah, the longed-for redeemer and leader of Israel. But it is also significant to note St Luke's warmth towards Jewish laws, customs and people. His portrayal of Simeon makes clear that he was a God-fearing and pious Jew, who was filled with the Holy Spirit. And this same Spirit who acted in the salvation history of Israel, continues to work in the salvation history of the nascent Church, as we see in Acts, which is St Luke's sequel to his Gospel. Therefore, although Luke himself does not write it, he expresses in his Gospel what St John records the Lord as saying: "Salvation is from the Jews" (Jn 4:22). Thus, the Messiah comes from the Jewish people, and so, as Simeon says, he is "for glory to [God's] people Israel" (Lk 2:32b).

But there has also been a development in Messianic theology between the song of Zechariah (the 'Benedictus') and the song of Simeon (the 'Nunc Dimittis'). While Zechariah speaks exclusively of the redemption of Israel, and the salvation of the House of David (see Lk 1:68-29), Simeon includes the fact that God has prepared his salvation for "all peoples", and that the Christ is "a light for revelation to the Gentiles". For the Messiah did not just come to deliver the Jews, but to deliver all humankind. Because we are all God's people, each lovingly created and held in being by him. And it is precisely because Jesus saves all people that we can say he is the glory of Israel. Because in his person he perfects the mission of God's chosen people, which is to be a sign of God's presence and saving mercy in the universe.

In fact, a sign of this universal mission of the Jews was indicated by the menorah, the eternal lamp that burnt in the Temple. Interestingly, both Zechariah and Simeon's songs take place in the Temple, but only in Simeon's case is Christ physically present. Thus St Luke portrays Christ as the physical embodiment of what the menorah symbolized: He is the true Light that enlightens all nations. Moreover, Christ is called the glory of Israel. Locating this within the Temple, St Luke seems to have the shekinah in mind. In Jewish understanding this was the dwelling place of God's glory or his divine presence, which was manifest above the Tabernacle in the Holy of Holies of the Temple. Hence, Christ is the incarnation of God's glory, the living sign of God's presence among his people. Therefore Christ himself is the Temple (see John 2:19) because he is everything the Temple stood for, and was directed towards: namely the place where heaven and earth meet, and for the salvation of God's people. As Simeon said, Jesus is God's salvation whom he has seen with his own eyes.

We too, as Christians, have seen Christ with our own eyes, present in the Eucharist, and in the Temple of our bodies. Thus, we are part of the salvation that comes from the Jews. On this holy feast day, let us recall that "we too are part of the ageless pilgrimage of God’s people through history. In the footsteps of the prophets, the apostles and the saints, we are called to walk with the Lord, to carry on his mission, to bear witness to the Gospel of God’s universal love and mercy" (Benedict XVI). In short, we are called to bear Christ's light to the world.