Liturgy 3.2: Traditions of prayer (1) seminar, readings on Benedictine and Franciscan prayer

Stained glass windows in the Franciscan chapel in Gormanston College, Co Meath (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

EM8824: Liturgy, Worship and Spirituality

Year II, 14:00 to 16:00, Thursdays, Hartin Room:

Liturgy 3: 11 October 2012

Liturgy 3.2: Traditions of prayer (1) seminar, readings on Benedictine and Franciscan prayer.

The Benedictine tradition of prayer

You all have a handout from Columba Stewart, Prayer and Community: The Benedictine Tradition (London: Darton, Longman and Todd, 1998), pp 31-52.

Next Monday morning, in our “Spirituality” session in the chapel, we are looking at Benedictine Spirituality. This afternoon, we shall look in particular at Franciscan Spirituality, but I shall post my notes on Benedictine spirituality next Monday as part of this module too.

It links in directly with Monday’s exercise in lectio divina. But it is also important because:

1, it could be said that Anglican spirituality has its roots in Benedictine spirituality, so an introduction to Benedictine spirituality and prayer life is going to be an important contextualisation;

2, Benedictine prayer has become more accessible in popular culture since the BBC’s television series, The Monastery, accompanied by a best-selling book by Abbot Christopher Jamison;

3, Many of you are likely to make your pre-ordination retreats at either Glenstal Abbey, Co Limerick, and the Benedictine Abbey in Rostrevor, Co Down.

And so, in this afternoon’s seminar, we are going to pay particular attention to Franciscan spirituality, which continues some of the threads from this afternoon’s lecture, and looking at Creation themes in the Liturgy.
The Franciscan tradition of prayer:

The Cross of San Damiano

To give an appropriate Anglican contextual setting to discussing Franciscan spirituality, let me say first of all that there are at least six families of Franciscan religious communities within the Anglican Communion.

They include the Society of Saint Francis, which has 11 houses, priories, friaries or convent in England, and other priories or houses in Australia, Brazil, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands and the US (New York, California); the Community of Saint Clare, near Witney, Oxfordshire; the Community of Saint Francis, Birmingham; the Sisters of Saint Francis in Korea; and the Third Order of Saint Francis, which is found throughout the Anglican Communion.

Some of you already know Brother David Jardine in Belfast, who is a canon of Saint Anne’s Cathedral, and who is a Franciscan friar, and there is a Franciscan Third Order within the Church of Ireland.

A foundational story in Franciscan spirituality tells how on a summer day in 1206, Saint Francis of Assisi was walking close to the crumbling church of San Damiano when he felt an inner call from the Holy Spirit to go inside the church to pray. In obedience, Francis entered the church, fell on his knees before what is now a familiar icon cross, and opened himself to what the God might have to say to him.

In eager anticipation, Francis looked up into the serene face of the crucified Lord, and prayed this prayer: “Most High, glorious God, cast your light into the darkness of my heart. Give me, Lord, right faith, firm hope, perfect charity, and profound humility, with wisdom and perception, so that I may carry out what is truly your holy will. Amen.”

Ever more quietly he repeated the prayer, lost in devotion and wonder before the image of his crucified Lord.

Then, in the stillness, Francis heard Christ speaking to him from the Cross: “Go, Francis, and repair my house, which as you can see, is falling into ruin.”

A plaque in Cloister Court in Sydney Sussex College, Cambridge, recalls Duns Scotus and the early Franciscan community in Cambridge (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

As the tradition of religious communities was being explored once again, rediscovered, revived and rebuilt in the Anglican Communion in response to the Anglo-Catholic revival in the 19th century, many of those involved turned for inspiration to the Franciscan tradition.

The gentle approach to obedience in the Franciscan tradition has been described as a “middle way” in the monastic tradition, and so the Franciscan tradition has an immediate appeal to Anglicans of the Via Media.

The Daily Office, which is the office book of the Society of Saint Francis, was among the first to be fully updated with the Common Worship Lectionary, and so came into use throughout the wider Anglican Communion. But it has also provided the model for the offices of Morning Prayer and Evening Prayer in Common Worship.

Francis and Franciscan values also have a relevance to the wider, international and global community. This is a world that has never been more in need of those Franciscan values of Peace, Poverty, and respect for the environment.

The Church exists to call the world into it not so much that the world may become the church, less so that the church may become the world, but that through the Church the world may enter into the Kingdom of God.

In the age of a nuclear overkill, climate change and global poverty, Francis and his rule for his community, first shaped 800 years ago in 1209, continue to call us back again to the true values of Christian community and lifestyle.

Closing Prayer:

The Lord be with you.
And also with you.

Let us pray:

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
and where there is sadness, joy.
O, Divine Master,
grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console;
to be understood as to understand;
to be loved as to love;
for it is in giving that we receive;
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life. Amen.

Additional reading:

Anglican Religious Life 2010-11 (Norwich: Canterbury Press, 2009).
franciscan, three times a year from Hilfield Friary.
Nikos Kazantzakis, Saint Francis (Oxford: Bruno Cassiver, 1962).
Alister E. McGrath, Christian Spirituality (Oxford: Blackwell, 1999).
Brother Ramon, Franciscan Spirituality (London: SPCK, 1994), pp 111-125.
Nicolas Stebbing CR (ed), Anglican Religious Life: A well-kept secret? (Dublin: Dominican Publications, 2003).

Next week:

Liturgy 4.1: The development of the liturgical year and the daily office;

Liturgy 4.2: Traditions of prayer (2): seminar readings on Reformation Prayer.

Canon Patrick Comerford is Lecturer in Anglicanism and Liturgy, the Church of Ireland Theological Institute. These notes are based on introduction to a seminar on 11 October 2012 as part of the MTh module EM8824: Liturgy, Worship and Spirituality