Constitutions of the Order

CHAPTER I

THE GOSPEL LIFE OF THE BROTHERS

“Jesus said to him, ‘If you would be perfect, go, sell what you possess and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me’”(Matthew 19:21)

“And he said to them, ‘Take nothing for your journey, no staff, nor bag, nor bread, nor money; and do not have two tunics’”(Luke 9:3).

“Then Jesus told his disciples, ‘If any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me’” (Matthew 16:24).

Saint Francis whom God raised up in the Church as a perfect imitator of his Son Jesus Christ clearly testifies that he was divinely inspired to found his religious community. He states: “The Lord thus gave me, brother Francis, the grace to begin a life of penance. . . . And after the Lord gave me charge of some brothers, no one showed me what I should do, but the most high Lord revealed to me that I should live according to the norm of the Holy Gospel” (Testament).

“Blessed Francis wrote for himself and his brothers, both present and future, a simple and brief form of life and rule, especially taking the words from the Holy Gospel, the ideal of perfection that he ardently desired” (1 Celano 32).

St. Francis’ Later Rule of 1223 takes its origin from the Holy Gospel. This Rule forms the foundation of the charism of the Franciscan Missionaries of the Eternal Word. The admonitions of St. Francis further guide our lives as we strive to respond to the grace of our vocation which consists in this: to observe the Holy Gospel which is the power of God unto salvation for every believer and the font of all perfection from which the Brothers learn and choose “to live in obedience, in chastity and without anything of their own and follow in the teaching and footsteps of our Lord Jesus Christ. . .” (Regula non bullata, 1).

“That man leaves all that he possesses and loses his body and soul who makes himself totally available for obedience at the hand of his superior. . . .” (Admonitions, 3). Therefore, let the brothers realize that they are truly obedient only when they habitually “persevere in keeping the Lord’s commands which they have sworn on the Holy Gospel and by their own lives to do; and may they be blessed by the Lord” (Regula non bullata, 5).

Saint Francis became the most faithful imitator and brother of the poor Christ from the very moment he returned all of what he possessed on earth to the Lord God and embraced poverty before the bishop of Assisi in these words: “Now will I be able to say freely: Our Father Who art in heaven” (2 Celano 12). In his last will that St. Francis had written for St. Clare, he wrote: “I, your little Brother Francis, wish to follow the life and poverty of our most high Lord Jesus Christ and his most holy Mother and to persevere in it until the end of my life” (Voluntas Ultima).. Therefore, the Brothers embrace the most exalted poverty with humility and joy. It has made them “heirs and kings of the kingdom of Heaven, poor in earthly things but exalted in virtues” (Regula bullata, 6). Hence, the Brothers in dedicating themselves entirely to the Lord Jesus Christ should not desire anything else on earth.

“Now then, after departing the world, we have nothing to do but to obey the will of the Lord and to please him” (Regula non bullata, 22) in perfect continence chosen for the sake of the kingdom of Heaven, and thereby to experience, as did St. Francis, how holy and beautiful it is and “how delightful, pleasing humble, peaceful, sweet, lovely and desirable above all things to have such a brother and such a son: our Lord Jesus Christ who laid down his life . . . for us (Epistula Fidelibus). The brothers, therefore, “after removing every hindrance and laying aside every thought and anxiety should, as best as they know how, serve, love, honor and adore the Lord God with a clean heart and a pure mind . . . which is what he himself desires above all else” (Regula non bullata, 22).

Saint Francis proposes to his brothers for observance the form and rule of life which he wrote and had confirmed by the Lord Pope, and he recommends it as “the book of life, the hope of salvation, the marrow of the Gospel, the way of perfection, the key to paradise, the seal of our eternal covenant. He wanted everyone to have it and to know it well, and everywhere . . . to speak about it with his own inner self, as a remembrance of the oath he professed” (2 Celano, 208).

“Just as the Lord helped” Saint Francis “to speak and write down” this same rule and life “purely and simply” (Testament) so should we understand it purely and simply and observe it by a holy life to the end. We must do this under the guidance of the Church, so that “always subject and submissive at the feet of the same holy Church . . . we may observe the poverty, the humility, and the Holy Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ which we have firmly promised” (Regula bullata, 12).