Rule of Life

Our spiritual heritage is Franciscan led by the former Sr. Maryann Berard, OSF (now Sr. Mary Anne, a schema-nun of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia), who entered a Franciscan convent in 1962.

Our tradition's founder-father also sought the early Church such as he could in Italy a century after the Great Schism. As was the case in his time, it seemed that the Church would collapse. 10% of the population in France (to take one country) loudly protested the widespread depravity of the Roman Catholic Church. Cardinal Peter Damian's The Book of Gomorrah (1051) had been circulating for a century decrying sexual perversion in the monasteries, which was spilling over into the parishes. Rampant child abuse touched every family.

We recall that Anthony of Padua fled the Augustinian Canons, it is said, for reasons of corruption and depravity. And where did he flee? He joined a group renown for its rejection of this life. That is, the Franciscan apostles were refugees, not so different from our own time. Like us, their instinct was to go back to the primitive Church and to seek the purer air of the Gospel age.

It has become obvious that radical innovations in the West, including a celibate (unmarried) priesthood, have gored the Western Church permanently. Our lives, about a thousand years later, continue to face the same issues, and we now see the effective collapse of the Roman Catholic and Anglican Communions.

St. Francis rejected this world: the pretensions of the upper social classes, a general lack of sincere Christian faith, and corruption and depravity within the Church — an entire lifeworld separated from God.

Born little more than a hundred years after the Schism, Francis saw the ancient Church around him everywhere: in Italian ruins, in nearby Greece, and in Asia Minor. He longed for its proximity to the early Church and thence to Gospel life. In the year 1205, he sat in a deserted wayside church gazing upon an Orthodox icon Cross and staring into the Byzantine past, he heard a voice, the Master!

          "Francis, Francis, go and repair my House, for you see it is falling into ruins."

We have heard this story so many times that it is hard to hear it afresh. Yet, there are clues that waken us. The disjunction between the words repair and ruins stands out. How can one repair a ruin? A ruin, by its nature is beyond repair, a total loss. It must be restored.

Francis set about refresh the Chapel of San Damiano where his encounter with Christ had occurred. But his real work would be the restoration of an Orthodox ruin — a church built in the 350s, truly a vestige of the ancient and the original. This church, later known as Portiuncula (Little Portion), had been built by Orthodox hermits of the Valley of Josephat in the Holy Land as a shrine to the Mother of God. To Francis that ruin was a virginal remnant of the Church's former wholeness.

We laugh at the idea that Francis responded to the divine command he heard by restoring the ruins of a little fourth-century chapel. Would not the Founder of the Church, rather, see a vast ruin crying out for re-founding? This famous scene, written by Tommaso da Celana, focuses on the verb riparare meaning to set right a wrong (especially a grave wrong) and to protect. Tommaso da Celano, who is the only source for this story expressed it in this way:

In this passage, the verb repair is equated to restore, which, Francis soon realizes, signifies restoration of the original, Apostolic Church. And this he sets about doing, this time turning to "living stones." The first religious order he founded with his feet striking out to live the original Church life saying, "Preach of the Gospel always! When you must use words." A group of friends he would call the "Fratelli" joined him. He would found three more orders: one for woman (Second Order), one for people in all walks of life (Third Order), and a special Rule for Hermitages (1217-1221).

As Francis was drawn to the ancient Church, he thought of pure spirituality in terms Eastern Orthodox eremitic life. The spirit of his Rule for Hermitages is summed up in a few statements:

• An eremitic community of three is ideal.
  
• Two should be nurturers to the one who has need, whether it be spiritual or material, understanding that these roles are fluid.
• These nurturers are to lead a life of Martha while the one leads a life of her sister, Mary.
• They are to pray Matins and Vespers.
• They should say Compline alone in their cells before turning off the light.
• Sundays are devoted to the usual prayers as well as the Divine Liturgy and a community meal. Sunday afternoons are for rest.
• They must be careful to keep silence until rising for Matins.
• Their first care should be to strive first for the Kingdom of God and His righteousness (Mt. 6:33)
• They are forbidden to allow anyone to enter the enclosure where they live, and they must take their meals there alone.
• They are not to establish relationships with others.
• They are not to leave the Hermitiage except for delivering produce, obtaining supplies, or receiving medical care.
• Hospitality offered to monastics, clergy, and volunteers will necessarily abridge this eremitic ideal from time to time.
• Let them strive to observe conscientiously and eagerly everything mentioned above.
  

The Superior of Na Pua Li'i Hermitage, Sr. Mary Anne, has led monastic communities for past forty years.

NPLH strives to conform to the Statutes for Monasteries of our Diocese.