Is the Franciscan spirit of poverty at odds with the building of churches?

Is the Franciscan spirit of poverty at odds with the building of churches? Do we still beg for stones? John Paul Haskins touches the issue with clarity.

“When the San Damiano Crucifix spoke to St Francis in 1205, its words were:

Non ne vides quod domus mea destruitur?
Vade igitur et repara illam mihi.

Do you not see that my house has fallen into ruin?
Go, therefore, and restore it to me.

Francis initially took this command to mean the physical state of the church building in which he was then praying, and so he sold some of his possessions to fund its restoration. He also sold some of his father’s possessions, which created a spot of bother. Thus one of the first major publicly visible acts of poverty undertaken by St Francis—and the immediate cause for his disowning of his father’s wealth—was architectural.

However, the command expanded in meaning for St Francis as that “domus” came to have meaning beyond the destitution of a particular church building. The dual meanings of church (people and building) and all of the dwelling images scattered throughout our theologies and liturgies (“Lord, I am not worthy that you should enter under my roof…”) should never be considered unfortunate or accidental or a problem to be solved.

The foundation of the Franciscan Order, especially its reformational aspects, more fully answers that command. And that is a good perspective to have when approaching church-building activities: it is but one aspect of the turning-over of our common life that is the church—and the dwellings it begets—back to the Lord.

The moral of this story vis-a-vis church-building is not the condemnation of edifice-making (St Francis’s first response was not incorrect, just incomplete); however, there are those who make that argument using St Francis as a model for better ways to allocate church funds. I have sympathy for that inclination, and it is a good check for those of us who are active in the profession not to simply assume that a building is the answer to any and all problems.

A better moral is that it does require we consider the place of a building in the context of the whole complex life of the church with its needs variously practical and impractical. We must never build for its own sake or attempt Beauty without seeking the Truth and Goodness that comes before it and issues from it.

Read on… http://locusiste.org/blog/2013/10/non-ne-vides-quod-domus-mea-destruitur/

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St. Francis beggar of stones over bread, of God’s will over our own comforts, pray for us!