In Christ`s footsteps

Altamirando Carneiro, author of the special report in this issue, discusses the environment in which Jesus lived. Bearing this in mind, we have the following reflection on what it means, in fact, following Jesus.

"The rule and life of these brothers is this: to live in obedience, in chastity and without property and follow the doctrine and the remains of our Lord Jesus Christ, who said: If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell that thou hast and give to the poor and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me. And: If any man will come after me, self-sacrifice himself and carry his cross and follow me." (Friar Francis of Assisi, Rule not spoilt).

Happy are the poor of spirit. Francis exalts poverty could not by itself, as a virtue, but simply because Jesus was poor. We must follow the traces of Christ. We must therefore live in poverty, if we want to follow his example. Francis had wealthy friends. He never demanded of them to dispose of their property. Renunciation of goods was the privilege of those who chosen to follow Jesus in extreme act.

I also find it lawful, and even virtuous, begging, but always ordered those who knew how to work, and that work was worthy, working for himself and his brothers, with the restriction never receive salary in cash. The salary was a coat, a shoe, food and even books, provided that the recipient could read. Francis allowed brothers to have breviaries, a novelty at the time.

"Poverty, fundamentally, is not only about not having things, because man always has: his body, his intelligence, his clothes, his being-in-the-world. Poverty is a way of being in which man lets things be; renounces master them and subject them to be the object of human will power. Abdicates be on them to put up with them. This requires an immense asceticism stripping ownership instinct of mastery over things and the satisfaction of human desires." (Leonardo Boff, St. Francis of Assisi: tenderness and vigor).

But Sister Poverty was at the center of activities. The whole doctrine of Jesus, according to Francis, was seated on the virtues of poverty, humility, devotion and charity. We highlight the Franciscan doctrine because it is historically the best documented and most significant Christian life after early Christianity. His followers have reformed the church and restored the Christian life in the imagination of the people. Unfortunately, in a few decades after the death of Francis, the Order of Friars Minor was absorbed by organized priesthood and schools, degenerating to serve the Holy Office alongside the Dominicans.

"The experience of the heart makes you know [God] better than the reason of considerations (...)." (Friar Bonaventure, Route of God mind)

This thought closes really well the Franciscan attitude towards asceticism, knowledge, reason and devotion. Francisco did not see with good eyes the activities of schools; it is lacked of humility. Paul had taught him that "knowledge puffs up, and charity builds up" (1 Corinthians 8: 1). In a few years, however, the Franciscans became an order of people educated enough, as the Dominicans, who were also "mendicant" ready to fight heresies.

But this is another story. However, Christ's footprints were again ignored, and science has shaken the religious structures, destroying them in many points. But just as the reconstruction of Francis was forgotten, although it remained in the popular imagination, this new experience of Christianity Revived has suffered injury of complex and sophisticated knowledge of the new scholastics, thus losing with exceptions, primitive simplicity.

It will be a shame to Christianity Revived - Spiritism - happen something similar to what happened to the early church, a fact that Wallace Leal V. Rodrigues so well described in his book The stone corner, published in 1975 by the Publishing House The Bugle (O Clarim).