A lack of understanding of what it means to be “minor” threatens the balance of the fraternity, especially regarding the the relationship that can be established with Superiors. If the role of the Superior (Minister Provincial, Guardian, formator, etc.), or any service role (Definitor, Econom, Pastor, etc.), is not performed within the fraternity from a position of minority, it can become a position of power. The Poverello of Assisi knew this very well.
Chapter VI of the Earlier Rule is the perfect synthesis of everything we have reflected on in the previous articles:
If the brothers, wherever they may be, cannot observe this life, let them have recourse to their minister as soon as they can, making this known to him. Let the minister, on his part, endeavor to provide for them as he would wish to be provided for him were he in a similar position. Let no one be called “prior,” but let everyone in general be called a lesser brother. Let one wash the feet of the other.
Once again, Francis gives us the key to a healthy relationship between brothers: “Let the minister, on his part, endeavor to provide for them as he would wish to be provided for him were he in a similar position.” Then, with subtle intelligence, Francis sums up the model that every friar minor should adopt when it comes to living fraternity: “Let one wash the feet of the other.” Again, the Gospel itself forms the Rule and the Life of the Friars Minor. It is the Gospel that shows us how we should live; it is Christ himself who tells us, “The Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve” (Mt 20:28). Of course, we must not serve as slaves, without dignity or freedom, but as equals, as brothers, “Let no one be called ‘prior,’ but let everyone in general be called a lesser brother.”
The only authority the Friars Minor should follow is the will of God, because, whatever service we perform, each of us, when we obey the voice of the Lord, enters into the dynamics of minority by renouncing all self-centeredness and vainglory and thereby submitting ourselves to fraternal discernment. Failing to realize that we are mere instruments within a greater organism, which is fraternal life in minority, can lead us to serious problems, long or short term, inside and outside the fraternal sphere.
Now, it is worth asking: how do we live this in our own setting, within a particular culture, or in our own Jurisdiction?
Certainly, we must respond as individuals in order to carry out this life choice, but we must also respond fraternally, as a community, in order to answer to a concrete reality and to respond to the command of Francis who says, “Be lesser brothers.”
“Let no one be called “prior,” but let everyone in general be called a lesser brother. Let one wash the feet of the other”
(Earlier Rule VI, 4).
Friar Elio J. ROJAS
