Our Franciscan tradition speaks to the idea of unity through community. In St. Francis of Assisi, the Mirror of Perfection, written by Brother Leo, we are told the story of Francis waking up the brothers in the middle of the night to sit for a meal with one brother who cried out in hunger. Francis made it abundantly clear that it was “great necessity and charity [that] compelled” him to do what he did “out of love for [their] brother.” Francis went on to say, “Let each one provide his body with what it needs as our poverty will allow.”
This act of compromise came from a place of love without loss of identity or values. He wasn’t asking all the brothers to bend to the need of a single brother; he was asking that judgment be set aside so that each may have only what they needed. He was simply acknowledging differences. It seems the divisions of our time have caused us to lose the ability to make room for differences due to strict adherence to laws over compassion—something Jesus often warned the Pharisees against.
—from St. Anthony Messenger’s “Dialogue over Division“
by Sara P. Marks
