Dear Brothers,
As we continue on our journey toward the anniversary of our Order’s founding, we are pleased to share this new and simple contribution with you.
In this special year, we, the sons and brothers of St. Francis, are focusing on the celebration of his transitus: 800 years ago, he concluded his earthly pilgrimage and passed into the eternal dwelling with the Lord. It was a decisive moment for the entire Order of Friars Minor. With the death of St. Francis, in fact, the fraternity lost a living point of reference. Br. Elias, General Minister of the Order, in his Circular Letter on the Death of St. Francis, expresses it in these words: “We have been left without him while darkness envelops us and the shadow of death covers us (…); we have been left fatherless, deprived of the one who was the light of our eyes.” In fact, although the Order already possessed a Rule of Life approved in 1223, in the person of St. Francis it had, until that moment, a living example of its observance. With his departure from this earth, that example loses its direct impact.
What remains is our faith in his constant intercession and in his spiritual guidance of the brotherhood he founded, “for he has not died,” continues Br. Elias, “but has gone to the great market of heaven, taking his bag of money with him, and he will return home at the full moon.” His spiritual experience also remains, imprinted in the memory of witnesses and later expressed in biographies, but above all handed down in the writings of St. Francis himself: in the Testament.
This is his only autobiographical work, and it serves as a primary source for understanding his character and life. It is all the more important because, by providing a deeper and more accurate understanding of his character and life, it allows for a better comprehension of the Rule he wrote. No one, in fact, could have observed it better than he himself, its author. Attempting to understand and observe the Rule by separating it from the life of St. Francis carries the risk of a superficial and legalistic interpretation. One of the original characteristics of the Capuchin Reform, which began 500 years ago, was this new hermeneutics of the Rule of St. Francis, which consisted in understanding it through his person. The Capuchins did not focus solely on the words he had included in the Rule, but also carefully observed his actions and his life as described in the Testament. This writing became so important to them that they adopted it as a norm of life, just like the Rule. Although over time it has lost its normative character, it has nevertheless exerted a significant influence on the concrete choices and daily life of the Capuchins. This distinguishes us within the entire Franciscan family. Therefore, the Testament of St. Francis constitutes a sort of signum distinctivum of the Capuchin Reform.
I therefore encourage all my brothers to study this text more deeply, both personally and as a community, especially in this year marking the anniversary of its composition, since St. Francis wrote it just as he was nearing death. May the attached material assist you in reading the Testament itself, so that we may make it our own in our understanding and in our desire to put it into practice in a more authentically Franciscan way.
Br. Roberto Genuin
General Minister OFMCap
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