Marian Friars Minor
"This is the Rule and Life of the Friars Minor, namely: to observe the holy Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ by living in obedience, without property, and in chastity." (Rule, Chapter I.)
Way of Life
The vows of religious life consecrate the person to God. To be consecrated to God is to serve Him alone, allowing oneself to be set aside for His exclusive use. As Friars we learn this best from the Liturgy itself.
Liturgy is the public worship of God, which in the first place is the recitation or chanting of the Divine Office, forming a union with the Holy Sacrifice. The Office structures the whole of religious life while preparing the Friar for assisting at or offering the Divine Liturgy, and also helps the Friar to continue in a spirit of thanksgiving for throughout the rest of the day. This is what sets the rhythm of our religious life as it allows the Friars, in some small way, to become extensions or continuations of the liturgy itself so that their very lives become acts of adoration, thanksgiving, petition, and especially reparation offered to God. In this way, the Friary is to be like the house of the Holy Family at Nazareth, a true house of prayer.
Franciscanism
is Marian
An authentic form of the Franciscan observance, is in first place Marian, permeating every aspect of the life of the friar but found essentially in evangelical prayer, poverty, and penance, as the means of fulfilling our unlimited consecration to the Blessed Virgin Mary.
Who is Saint
Francis of Assisi?
"In union with the numerous Franciscan brotherhood call to mind and praise the works, the virtues, and the spirit of the Seraphic Patriarch. While doing this, they must reject that purely imaginary figure of the Saint conjured up by the defenders of modern error or by the followers of luxury and worldly comforts, and seek to bring Christians to the faithful imitation of the ideal of sanctity which he exemplified in himself and which he learned from the purity and simplicity of the doctrines of the Gospels." (n. 1)
"It seems necessary for Us to affirm that there has never been anyone in whom the image of Jesus Christ and the evangelical manner of life shone forth more lifelike and strikingly than in St. Francis. He who called himself the “Herald of the Great King” was also rightly spoken of as “another Jesus Christ,” appearing to his contemporaries and to future generations almost as if he were the Risen Christ." (n. 2)
A Franciscan Vocation
It is the Franciscan vocation to arrive, by means of living the apostolic manner of life in common, at a Seraphic and consummate love of God.
We struggle to make ourselves worthy servants of Our Lord and His Church by applying to ourselves the "Marrow of the Gospel": The Rule of Holy Father St. Francis.
