in the year 1511 there was a young 20 year old soldier who was sitting in a hospital bed whose leg had been crushed by a cannonball it would be weeks and weeks and even months of recovery and during that time this young warrior began reading about different saints and different christians in the church and as he reflected on his life and thought about what his life would be like after his war injury he read the story of another young 20 year old from 300 years earlier who like him had had a life-changing moment as a result of being in war this young man this young 20 year old from 300 years earlier had not been injured war but had been taken prisoner by the opposing side and during his time in captivity began to rethink his life and during that time in captivity this young man whose name was francis decided to abandon the life he had and give his life to the call of god and first pursue him as a monk we'll tell more about that story in a moment but as this young man in 1511 read the story of francis he too felt that god was calling him to a vocation to serving god and doing whatever he called him to do as a monk the man in the 20 year old in 1511 was ignatius loyola the founder of the jesuits and he was reading the biography of saint francis the founder of the franciscans these two men whose lives were transformed by an encounter with god in their early 20s as a result of being momentarily paused in their lives from participation of war both of these men would go on to start into in different centuries start two of the most prolific missionary movements in the world both those orders are still around today and they would both transform the world as we know it in many ways it wouldn't be an exaggeration to say that the largest christian group in the world is catholic because of those two men in the movements they started you know they're protestants catholics or the orthodox the largest christian group is catholic and much of the reason much of the answer to that lies behind the movements that these two men started one in the 13th century the other in the 16th century so this week we're going to look at these two movements separated by three centuries with some significant differences but also some significant similarities that we can learn from these movements that really changed the world so let's begin in the 13th century with saint francis of assisi and just so you know we're going to to try to break these up because there's a lot of interesting history to go through covering several centuries right we'll begin in the 13th century we'll move to a 16th century movement we're going to break these up into smaller lectures so this lecture this video will be focused on francis and the franciscan missionary movement and the next one will be focused on ignatius and the jesuit missionary movement but they have many many times as we'll see first the franciscans i think it's important to recognize that francis who was born in 1182 and uh would work primarily in western europe right in the medieval period the context that he was born into was that of the crusades in that high medieval period the crusades were this remarkable movement right where the papacy and local kings from western europe mobilized pilgrims and warriors and people to travel on pilgrimage but also in war parties to the holy land there's so much more we could say about the crusades don't get me started but what i will say is that one of the out there are two major outcomes of the crusades during this time right it was a two century two three century movement one there's a greater connectivity between the eastern and western mediterraneans you begin having more ships more overland transport moving people from western europe to the middle east and even parts of southern and eastern europe and even north africa the mediterranean becomes more connected through transportation transportation of soldiers but once if you bring a ship of soldiers over you're going to bring merchandise back so there's a lot more connectivity back and forth across the mediterranean and one of the results of this increased connectivity was a greater awareness in western europe of both eastern christian groups they hadn't been connected with for a while but also muslims and other non-christian groups just beyond western europe they began to be exposed to a wide variety of non-christians and non-europeans that were just really just beyond the shores of the mediterranean there's a greater exposure to the to the globe if you will through the world beyond western europe world beyond christian europe but there's also a major economic boom that happened as a result of the crusades there was much more trade between east and west the mediterranean trade boomed a lot of the famous italian port cities we think about venice pisa genoa these cities all boomed in the air of the crusades partially because they kind of were this midway stopping point between western europe and uh the eastern mediterranean and there was just lots of shipping and goods going back and forth and people going back and forth so context increased global trade increased awareness of people beyond christendom uh increased connectivity and the rise of cities right where you have major economic when you have the rise of cities so many european towns like paris or london or pisa begin to grow and they become cities in this period and that sets up the context keep that context in mind that's the big context that was our one dabble in the medieval period yes i love the medieval period but that's our one spat you're going to get and we'll look at francis right francis was the son of a wealthy italian cloth merchant so his father becomes wealthy through this mediterranean trade in cloth and he's from the city of assisi and francis really his aim in life was to be one of those noblemen warriors who participated in in sort of the small clan warfare in italy and the surrounding areas and kind of be one of those uh heroic knight type figures he begins as i alluded to earlier uh in his in his late teens early twenties but in a in a local wharf bit of warfare in northern italy he's taken captive by an opposing side and finds himself in captive for quite a while during his imprisonment he rethinks his life and his calling and we'll talk about a series of turning points in his life but in uh in 1205 so he's in his early 20s he renounces his family's wealth and he renounces his military goals sort of puts away his sword and decides he wants to commit his life to serving jesus as a monk and there are three stories that three moments in his life that really functioned as not just key turning points for his life but for the entire franciscan movement it's vague the exact chronology of when they happen it's vague some of the details but there are three things that happened in his early 20s that really changed him this again is this after his captivity after he's begun thinking in this direction first he hears this voice and i'll just go ahead and say some of you may know others not francis is the quintessential mystic in church history he has visions dreams miracles all sorts of things happen but this is one of the first ones francis hears this voice calling him he feels the voice of god and it's calling him to repair this dilapidated church the church of san damiano in his town and he feels he walks into this dilapidated church he's praying there it's a church in ruins and he hears god calling him to repair it so he goes okay that's what i need to do so he literally begins taking up tools and gathering with him and begins repairing this church in ruins in his city but then he begins to get a deeper sense spiritually that not only had god called him to physically or not even primarily called him to physically repair church buildings he was going to do whatever god called to do but to bring renewal and repair to the church at large and in many ways the franciscan movement saw itself as a renewal movement within the church bringing a renewed spiritual life to the church what began for him as this project of literally rebuilding a church in his hometown became a larger metaphor for his calling and the calling of his order to bring renewal and repair to the western european church which many at the time thought was in quite a bit of decay and decline another significant turning point in his early 20s and this is a really interesting one it's perhaps one of the most famous francis stories francis was the son of a wealthy merchant and he was a wealthy high class person and wealthy people did not mix with poor people and perhaps the poorest of the poor the low so low in any society in that period would be lepers it didn't have the same understanding of how disease was spread so if you saw leopard you'd never wanted to be near a lep lepers stayed away in their own leper colonies not that dissimilar from the time of jesus so francis was on a horse on his horse walking outside the city of assisi and on the road he saw a leper and francis later writes in his autobiography how leprous would not only did he disassociate himself with them but they would give him this feeling of physical nausea and and just and he never wanted to see them just seeing them made him ill and this is in his time in his life in his early 20s where god is calling when he feels come at the moment he feels that sort of disgust at seeing a leper on the road he feels god telling him get off your horse and embrace that man so francis out of obedience and this desperate oh desire to obey the holy spirit jumps off his horse runs to this leper and embraces him and kisses him which no one would have done in that time and francis for him that was his major turning point of crossing this threshold and francis was so transformed by that moment he he says something in fact i'm paraphrasing the very person or kind of person who brought me the greatest disgust became an object of great sweetness and joy and beauty to me again i'm paraphrasing there's a variety of francis quotes on his administrative lepers francis not only engaged that one leper but he ended up moving into a leper colony outside of assisi where he would serve lepers in his city and helped take care bandaged their wounds and helped serve them he gathered many to help him do that and francis would later look back and see this as in many ways his characteristic call to serve the poor the sick and the marginalized and this would this would ripple out for centuries in the franciscan movement finally perhaps the the nail in the coffin in francis calling he was sitting in church and he heard matthew 10 being read and he felt as though jesus wasn't just speaking to his disciples jesus was speaking to him and commissioning him and here's what he heard it's matthew 10 verse 7 through 10. as you go preach say in the kingdom of heaven is at hand heal the sick cleanse the lepers raise the dead cast out demons freely you have received freely give provide neither gold nor silver nor copper in your money belts nor a bag for your journey nor two tunics nor sandals nor staffs for a worker is worthy of his food for instance we've all heard this text read this text and even preach this text francis heard this sitting in church and he felt he heard the voice of god speaking those words directly to him this is what he was called do preach the kingdom of god heal the sick cleanse the lepers but here's the most important part we often neglect but francis zero provide neither gold nor silver nor copper in your money belts no bag not two tunics no sandals for a workers worthy of his food and francis took this quite literally he saw this as the call to preach and minister to the poor and the sick but it called to do it in poverty francis took this so seriously what jesus told his original disciples to do not only did he go and preach not only to go and minister to lepers but he took a very extreme poverty vow perhaps the all monks take a valve of poverty but i'll explain how they differ from francis uh definition and what he did quite literally was he would only take one tunic when he traveled he'd only take uh he would go barefoot and he wouldn't take any other belongings with and he believed this was the apostolic call to preach and it was a call to itinerant preaching ministry right the apostles would go they were sent out and they'd go from city to city town to town so when you think about these major turning points the call to bring renewal to the church the call to serve the poor and the sick and the outcast and the call to preach but do it in the context of extreme poverty and do it in the context of itinerant ministry those early experiences and encounters with god in france's 20s utterly ruined him and completely turned his life upside down and i would say the world upside down this was 800 years ago by 1210 francis again is in in his 20s he gathers this small group of like-minded followers who decided to join him in serving the poor and itinerant gospel preaching the main values of the of his early group what were poverty simplicity and humility and and i i want to take a quick note here all monks you know we've had monks throughout church history all monks take a valve poverty but there are different ways you can take about poverty in many ways of our poverty typically means you renounce all private or personal wealth so you join you sell what you have and join the monastery but different monasteries were uh had more money than others right some monasteries that were well endowed people ate well and you know you got got several outfits of clothing you lived well in certain monasteries and there was a joke that certain monasteries if they were so successful with their vineyard or their brewery or their bread baking you have this joke about drunk or fat monks because they were just living in the monastery baking with their bread or living in the monastery making their beer and they weren't struggling that much they may have given up all their personal wealth but things are pretty good in the monastery and there's this problem of what happens when monasteries become really wealthy francis knew that context and he had an extreme view of poverty and it wasn't merely that you announced personal wealth but you would never take anything with you and you go on the road not having enough money to get to the next place knowing that you would have to beg or work for food and they were so strict he didn't want any franciscans having money did not want them to have coins you know jesus says to them don't take gold copper silver don't have any money belt francis took that seriously so in the early days the franciscans would work for food but they couldn't work for money right there was this there was this strong aversion to the money economy that early franciscans had and their radical poverty uh was something that would actually become both their hallmark a mark of honor but also a bit of quite a bit of controversy even among monks right all monks have a poverty but they're sort of differing degrees and most thought the franciscans were over the top and people thought the franciscans because of that uh not providing for themselves beyond their daily bread they were going to become a burden on whatever community they went to they didn't have any money it's an interesting it's a really interesting thing to think about another mark of the the early franciscan movement was they really avoided hierarchy and organization and even planning so because they valued humility right they didn't want too much power invested in any in individual persons hands so just to give you an example uh the in the in the earliest day of the franciscans when there are only eight of them including francis and show you uh how little they planned or strategized they just thought we need to preach we need to go from city to city like jesus told us to so they paired up in twos and they literally walked in four separate directions that was their strategy francis said me and me and this guy are going that way y'all are going that way they went four different directions and whatever towns they happened upon they would preach and work and beg and that was the franciscan way francis was so reluctant to be harpical and organized to organize as a group that only 10 years after finding the order he resigned so he could be a missionary he didn't want to stay in charge or stay the boss for very long they actually after forming in 20 in 12 10 by 12 16 they received official papal approval in order to get a a uh new monastic order approved you take it to the pope at the time and here's what's crazy by the year 1221 just 11 years after beginning to gather only five years after being official they had 3 000 monks join the group and a certain way of life there's a certain mission they committed themselves to and in such you think about recruiting campus missionaries you think about recruiting pastor church members three thousand they went from one to eight to three thousand in ten years that is a remarkable movement and these just represent the leaders who are going to go out and preach and it's a remarkable thing that they did what's interesting is they recruited monks from every class every segment of society but francis was particularly interested in targeting wealthy kids like himself wealthy people who it would cost the most to take that vow our property would cost the most to renounce their stats it would cost the most to leave behind something and francis really enjoyed tarting people like him and bringing them on the journey of following jesus in this radical way one of france's earliest followers was actually a daughter of wealthy noble in assisi named claire just a few years in in 12 12 years after he got his first group together and there were almost no followers she heard him preaching and felt this deep call from jesus after hearing francis preach to do something similar so she came and began to ask as a young woman she was actually engaged to be married what can i do and much to the anguish of her father who had arranged her marriage and was hoping she'd marry and kind of have a a life in assisi with her new family she decided to take a vow of chastity like all monks did about poverty francis set her up with some monastic connection so she could be mentored and she ended up though starting a parallel order that was still under the franciscan umbrella uh for women the order of saint claire she didn't name after herself it would later be called the order of saint claire but clare of assisi was this close associate of francis they're from the same town she was one of the earliest followers of his movement and this reminds us that there there were often these these movements would engage both men and women they would both be wrapped up in this monastic call when we think about what characterized the work of the franciscans and we'll talk about their global spread in in just a moment like all monks they're committed to prayer meditation and work right the classic benedictine prayer and work there are certain prayers you pray during the day there are certain periods you fast there's a certain discipline segmented way you live your life there's a lot of solitude uh there's sort of commitment to obedience of a certain rule of life led by a certain uh monastic leader every monk did that but one of the things that marked the franciscan movement particularly compared to previous monastic movements was their call to preach remember matthew 10 they felt like they were called to preach and preach as itinerant preachers to go from place to place town to town city to city remember we're having this type of emerging cities so there's these new collections of people in european towns and they feel called to go to those cities to preach they're often known as wandering preachers even though they may have had a a monastery where they would go back their home their home many of them would just go from town to town and not know where they'd live not know where they'd stay when we think about the mission work of franciscans and this missionary movement that still is moving in the present day 800 years after its founding the main things we want to consider is that called the preach you see in matthew 10 but that care for the sick and the poor that you see also elucidate in matthew 10 but in in france's experience meeting that leper on the road francis evening was known for praying for healing it wasn't just serving the sick but praying for the sick as jesus said heal the sick preach that the kingdom is near as i said in the beginning one of the great missionary frontiers of a western european would have been going to muslims that was the nearest other religious other they could imagine and that horizon have been opened up during the crusades and they weren't very far away you think in the iberian peninsula there is significant muslim population north africa and in the eastern mediterranean so almost anywhere you go from western europe there are muslims not that far away just across the mediterranean for francis it was for him a personal ambition to preach to the muslims he's a man from italy and he probably heard stories from the crusades he knows that there's this there's this military conflict and political conflict between christian and muslim nations and he wants to preach the gospel over the early years of the french since he tried several times to reach there once he had a shipwreck once he got caught up once he got sick but finally during the fifth crusade in 1219 francis who already his his renown as a preacher a noun as a missionary had already really begun to swell in europe he is able to get on a crusader ship to egypt during the fifth crusade and he has no interest whatsoever in the military outcome of the battle but he is believing for a chance to preach to the sultan in egypt and this is his goal so they they try to work out the diplomatic negotiations and you actually get safe passage he crosses enemy lines in egypt and is able to meet with sultan al kamil and he actually preaches to him for several days and there's this very interesting moment in the history of missions in the history of diplomacy in his crusades where francis is sitting there with the sultan and there and he's sharing the gospel and france's whole posture was we don't want to be confrontational we want to be there and sort of be this presence of jesus but we also need to preach the gospel make it really really clear so he does that he ultimately doesn't convert the sultan but he actually is allowed to pray for the sultan and they have this very and you know francis thought he might be martyred on this exhibition he's not murdered he's able to go back and it was a remarkable moment where he models and embodies and goes right into the the most extreme situation what he's believing that his followers will do very early on there are five franciscans who did a similar thing inspired by francis and went across the mediterranean north africa and they were martyred almost immediately trying to preach the gospel in north africa there's another famous franciscan shortly after francis named raymond lowe who studied arabic for nine years and established several franciscan training centers to learn arabic and learn about islam to mobilize this army of missionaries to go to north africa go to the eastern mediterranean and preach the gospel raymond lol took three short mission trips to north africa i think 10 days style two of them he was immediately expelled from the city where he went and then the next the third one at the age of 83 he was stoned to death so lol became kind of this both of his heroic martyr figure in franciscan lore but also he was much more antagonistic than francis i think had francis done what lol did france spy would have been killed by sultan as well lol would intentionally go to a city square and try to do a public disputation with muslims and really press the issue he but it shows whether you like his tactics or not it shows the franciscan ethos of taking the gospel in the hard places and risking your life and saying that's where god's called me to go preach i'm gonna go doesn't matter what happens not only were franciscans energized by this call to take the gospel beyond western europe to the muslim world they went eating farther this is a time where there's increased trade along the silk road primarily because the mongolian empire spreads so far and wide east to west so you have franciscans going along the silk road at preaching the gospel they're connecting with eastern christians i i i from a previous lecture talked about the gospel spreading along the silk road with the church of the east so franciscans are going on they're actually meeting eastern christian groups and being surprised that in central asia they're finding communities of christians but they went as missionaries along the silk road across central asia we even have missionaries in the late 13th century in china in mainland china and what's unique here is that this is the first time we have missionary christian missionaries in china since the seventh century remember we talked about the nestorian mission movement the church of the east getting to china in the seventh eighth ninth centuries it it was a really remarkable time but then there was persecution begin to die in the 10th 11th centuries now we're in the 13th century there's another way there's a second wave of missionaries coming to china it wasn't as comprehensive and it wasn't as successful as the historian mission movement but it is noteworthy that just a few decades from the death of saint francis we have franciscans in china that is a remarkable thing that is a remarkable thing that you have such a global horizon for these this group of monks from northern italy so john of uh monte corvino in 1289 he was sent to china uh and he preaches locals he actually converted and baptized six thousand mongols instead of churches in different parts of central asia so franciscans would continue right if you think about this beginning in western europe spreading all over western eastern europe having ambitious and uh often martyr filled campaigns to north africa and the instrument are training going to central asia china they were going to the ends of the earth and they believed god had called them to to be itinerant preachers and preach the gospel and serve the sick wherever they went and they would literally go anywhere they did they weren't these rooted people they were wanderers who would go where their open doors to preach the gospel later a few centuries later uh in the 16th 15th and 16th centuries during the age of expiration which we'll talk about in the next lecture franciscans would find their ways on to find around the merchant and explore ships and they'd end up in asia africa and the americas franciscans you'll find begin popping up everywhere when you have this second age of globalization in the atlantic and the indian ocean so i can say much more about the franciscan missionary movement but today there are over 30 000 franciscan monks in every continent in every imaginable context in every nation you can think of and they're growing their numbers are growing in africa and latin america and asia they're shrinking in western europe and in north america as you can imagine and still to this day 800 years after francis first began having those encounters with god that shaped his vocation shaped his calling they're still preaching the gospel they're still still serving the sick and the poor and the marginalized and they are doing it all over the world so it's a remarkable moment to learn from you'll do a little more reading about them and in the next lecture we're going to look at another movement that was inspired by the franciscan movement 300 years later [Music]