At the core of the experiences of Francis of Assisi stands the Jesus of the Gospels, whose footprints and teaching must be discovered and followed without compromise. Jesus is not so much someone who performs miracles and speaks in powerful words but the poor Christ: without possessions, naked in the manger and naked on the Cross. Francis sees the world, humankind and God from this point of view. He does not need the interpretation of theologians in order to discover the Christ of the Gospels.
With this attitude, conflict with the church is unavoidable. The tension with the radically understood Gospel and the ecclesiastical institution is not sustained in many poverty movements in the middle ages and leads time and time again to a break with the church. Francis avoids this by requesting a cardinal protector to protect his brothers from external and internal dangers (cf. LR 12:3). The brothers beg, not as an exercise of humility, but out of necessity. Begging is a consequence of their option to be poor and small. The poor and small ones experience that their salary is withheld. This is expressed in Francis’ Testament: “And when we are not paid for our work, let us have recourse to the table of the Lord, asking alms from door to door” (Test 22).
In the hermitages, Francis wanted that the brothers, in solidarity with the poor, beg food from their own brothers (cf. RH 5).
Francis turned the humiliating experience of having to beg into something positive by indicating that Christ and Mary were poor themselves and experienced the same fate (cf. ER 9:5).
CCFMC, Lesson Unit 19, C 2.2
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