The year is 1221 and at the request of the “cardinal protector” of the friars, Cardinal Hugolino, Francis and several of his brothers have taken up the task of writing a formal rule of life. It was not clear that the Franciscans were actually a “religious order.” When Francis visited Pope Innocent III in 1209, the pope verbally approved (or did he?) a Rule of Life that was written down in few words. In 1216, the 4th Lateran Council ruled that no new religious orders could be formed: all new groups would be absorbed into existing religious orders. Hugolino recognized the uniqueness of the charism of St. Francis and his brothers and was determined that it not be lost to the church. Continue reading
An Approved Rule of Life
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Is the Bread of Life Discourse (John 6), metaphor or sacramental? There are many commentaries and religious traditions that insist on a metaphorical interpretation of “eat” and “drink” and thus “eat” and “drink” as metaphors for belief. There are some Catholic commentators (e.g. LaGrange) who insist there is no metaphor, that the entirety of Jesus’ discourse is sacramental/Eucharistic. As Fr. Raymond Brown and Fr. Francis Moloney point out, the truly Catholic position is “both-and.” What begins in John 6:22-50 as metaphor for belief, is ultimately answered in John 6:51-58 as Eucharist. With that in mind let us consider (a) a “big picture” view of this core question of John 6, but (b) fair warning: it does get a bit technical and dense in places. But give it a go!! 
Off the shores of the Philippines, a fisherman discovered a very large, misshapen pearl. It was not pretty.
When I left my home in Orlando to attend the US Naval Academy back in 1970, I arrive in a completely foreign land inhabited by football teams about which I had no knowledge. My plebe (freshman) year our first game was against Colgate. The place where Colgate toothpaste was invented? It had a recognizable name so I assumed it had a reasonable football program. What did I know? I knew that there was SEC football and who cares. Saturdays in the South are about as sacrosanct as Sundays. Football is tradition, loyalty, identity, passion an, to borrow a title from the 
Continuing our look into the gospel for the 
Two Parables. Matthew apparently intends the parable of the treasure to be interpreted together with the parable of the pearl, which immediately follows. The two parables do have common features: (I) In each case only a brief vignette of a crucial situation is given, without enough details to evaluate them as realistic stories. The interpreter should, therefore, be wary of filling in the gaps from pious imagination, but concentrate on what the parable does, in fact, portray. (2) The primary common feature is surely central to the meaning of each: The protagonist goes and sells everything for the sake of the one thing. This is the action of both the plowman and the merchant. This movement of the story as a whole is to be compared with the kingdom of God, for the kingdom is “like” neither the “treasure” of v. 44 nor the “merchant” of v. 45, but in each case somehow like the story as a whole. In each case, the protagonist acts with the single-minded response of the “pure in heart.” From the story in Mark 10:17-31, Matthew and his community had long known of the kingdom’s demand of “all,” and of one who had failed (cf. esp. Mark 10:21, where selling everything and giving it to the poor is connected with true “treasure”). 
The parable of the “pearl of great price” and “treasure buried in a field” are well known. Did you know that these are unique to Matthew’s gospel? ““The kingdom of heaven is like a treasure buried in a field, which a person finds and hides again, and out of joy goes and sells all that he has and buys that field. 45 Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant searching for fine pearls. 46 When he finds a pearl of great price, he goes and sells all that he has and buys it. ” 
Continuing our look into the gospel for the 
friarmusings 