Table of Contents Volume 69 Issue 1
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Table of Contents Volume 69 Issue 1 2 Green New Deal: A Franciscan Perspective by Patrick Carolan and Sr. Margaret Magee, OSF 4 Trinity and Creation: Vestigia Trinitatis in Alexander of Hales’s Glossa Sententiarum by Andrew Belfield 9 St. Francis and Mental Health Challenges: From Stigmatization to Stigmata, Exclusion to Exaltation by Ed Curran 15 The Seven Freedoms of St. Clare and the Power of Women in Transformative Health Care Today by David B. Couturier OFM Cap. 23 The TAU paintings of Giuseppe Menozzi by John Martone 27 Hearing the Voice of Our Elder Sister: Ursula de Jesús by Kevin Elphick 30 The Double Entry of God: Bonaventure and Thomas Aquinas by Emmanuel Falque Franciscan Connections: The Cord-A Spiritual Review 1 Green New Deal: A Franciscan Perspective By Patrick Carolan and Sr. Margaret Magee, OSF any agree, we’re running out of time to tackle Green New Deal in the House and the Senate, which lays the climate crisis. The clock is ticking as more out a 10-year plan to mobilize every aspect of American so- Mand more communities face catastrophic wild- ciety to achieve 100% clean and renewable energy by 2030, fires, droughts, and storms. We urgently need bold, unprec- a guaranteed living-wage job for anybody who needs one, edented action to tackle the twin crises of climate change and a just transition for both workers and frontline commu- and inequality. We need to mobilize vast public resources nities. This is the type of visionary thinking that reflects the to transition from an economy built on exploitation and passion and care for all of God’s creation that guided the fossil fuels to one driven by dignified work and clean ener- life of St. Francis of Assisi. gy. We need a Green New Deal. Saints Francis and Clare had a relational understand- A Green New Deal would simultaneously tackle the cli- ing of creation. For them and for us today, we believe that mate crisis, create millions of high-paying jobs, and coun- all people and all creatures, from the smallest to “our Sis- teract racial and economic inequity. It would revitalize our ter, Mother Earth,” are sisters and brothers, part of the infrastructure, retro-fit our buildings, revive clean manu- very fabric of the family of God. Because of this, Francis facturing, and restore our ecosystems - delivering clean air was named the patron saint of ecology by Pope John Paul and water, good jobs, and climate stability to those who’ve II. Following this tradition, St. Bonaventure developed a borne the brunt of the fossil fuel economy. theological and spiritual vision that acknowledged all cre- The Green New Deal just took an enormous step for- ation as emanating from the goodness of God, existing as ward: Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Sen- a “footprint” of God, and leading us back to God if we are ator Ed Markey just introduced resolutions to support a 2 Franciscan Connections: The Cord-A Spiritual Review able to “read” nature properly. He spoke of creation as the the world are dynamic realities, so our care for the world first book that God wrote. must also be flexible and dynamic.” (#144) Pope Francis As Franciscans, we are called to consistently examine also said: “All of this shows the urgent need for us to move our relational understanding of creation. Looking to theo- forward in a bold cultural revolution...We do need to slow logians like St. Bonaventure who developed a theological down and look at reality in a different way, to appropri- and spiritual vision that acknowledged all creation as ema- ate the positive and sustainable progress which has been nating from the goodness of God, existing as a “footprint” made, but also to recover the values and the great goals of God, and leading us back to God if we are able to read swept away by our unrestrained delusions of grandeur.” the Book of Creation, i.e. nature properly. (#114) The Franciscan emphasis on the goodness of God and It is this type of bold visionary thinking that our nation creation has many ramifications. Creation is the outpour- so desperately needs today. Neither Congresswoman Cor- ing of God’s love into the universe. Creation reveals to us tez nor Senator Markey make claim to being Franciscan, God’s love for us and God’s beauty which is why Francis- but their vision as laid out in the Green New Deal clearly cans call creation, beauty and goodness the mirror of God embraces the values and the vision of our Franciscan life and that God has two books of creation—Sacred Scripture and spirituality. and creation. Francis of Assisi looked at life and all creation through Patrick Carolan is the executive director the lens of relationship and connectivity. He lived, preached of the Franciscan Action Network, co- and modeled this relational connection from which blos- founder of the Global Catholic Climate Movement, and recipient of the 2015 somed a perspective of deep empathy. He looked for ways White House Champion for Change to awaken within all people his way of seeing all life as in- Award for his work in the Climate tegrally connected, especially concerning the care of those Change. who were poor and marginalized and for Sister Mother Earth. Rather than viewing creation from ‘anthropocen- trism,’ which literally means ‘human-centered’, Francis saw creation as ‘biocentrism’ which means ‘life-centered.’ Francis of Assisi was bold and prophetic in his vision. Sr. Margaret Magee, OSF, is the He understood the interconnectedness of all creation. The Associate Minister of the Franciscan New Green Deal reflects this same visionary thinking com- Sisters of Allegany and the president of bined with an understanding of the relational nature of the Franciscan Action Network. creation. In his Encyclical Laudato Si, Pope Francis also re- flected this vision. He wrote: “New processes taking shape cannot always fit into frameworks imported from outside; they need to be based in the local culture itself. As life and Franciscan Connections: The Cord-A Spiritual Review 3 Trinity and Creation: Vestigia Trinitatis in Alexander of Hales’s Glossa Sententiarum By Andrew Belfield rinity and creation—these central loci of Christian God and creation, and of ascending into union with the di- faith find particular expression in Franciscan theolo- vine. Tgy and spirituality. One can find these points of em- Yet any discussion of Franciscan thought and the vesti- phasis as early as Saint Francis of Assisi himself, as the lit- gia trinitatis cannot pass over in silence the founder of the tle brother’s writings demonstrate a particular devotion to early Franciscan intellectual tradition, Alexander of Hales.5 the Trinity,1 and his rightly famous Canticle of Brother Sun Alexander of Hales and the school of theology bearing his sings of the kinship shared among all of God’s creatures.2 name—crystallized in the massive Summa fratris Alexan- The works of Saint Bonaventure, the great Franciscan Doc- dri6—witness to what has been called a “comprehensive tor of the Church, also bear witness to this Franciscan sen- trinitarianism,” whereby nearly every facet of theological sitivity to Trinity and creation, evident not only in academic thinking is characterized by a trinitarian bent.7 The vesti- works like his Commentary on the Sentences and Breviloqui- gia trinitatis represent one instance of this comprehensive um but also his more spiritual writings, particularly the Itin- trinitarianism. Indeed, Alexander’s Gloss on the Four Books erarium mentis in Deum.3 What’s more, Bonaventure brings of the Sentences, one of the earliest written engagements these two strands of Franciscan thought into a remarkable with Peter Lombard’s textbook, sees an explosion of in- synthesis in his doctrine of the vestigia trinitatis, as he gaz- terest in the vestigia trinitatis, greatly expanding the Lom- es into the created world and finds the “footprints” of God bard’s treatment and setting the stage for Bonaventure’s all around him. Bonaventure is not the first to see these later use of the trinitarian vestiges in his own Commentary.8 footprints—Augustine sees them too4—but it is undeniable In this paper, I consider Alexander’s Gloss and the account that the doctrine of the vestigia trinitatis finds a particular therein of the vestigia trinitatis as a key source for Bonaven- emphasis in Bonaventure’s thought as a means of knowing ture’s treatment of the same issue in his Commentary. The remarkable similarity between their two lists of vestigia 1 See, e.g., his Regula non bullata 23, 11: “Anywhere and every- and the shared sources they cite give strong evidence for where, in every hour, and in every season, daily and continuously let all of us truly and humbly believe, and let us hold in our heart and love, let us honor, adore, serve, praise, and bless, let us glorify and let us exalt, magnify, and give thanks to the most high and supreme eternal God, 5 While scholarship has not passed over Alexander in utter silence, trinity and unity, Father and Son and Holy Spirit” (my translation). neither has it given Alexander his due. For an overview of Alexander’s 2 See Francis of Assisi and Clare of Assisi, Francis and Clare: The Com- theology, see Kenan B. Osborne, “Alexander of Hales: Precursor and plete Works, ed. and trans. Regis J. Armstrong and Ignatius C. Brady, The Promoter of Franciscan Theology,” in The History of Franciscan Theology, Classics of Western Spirituality (New York: Paulist Press, 1982), 37–39. ed. Kenan B. Osborne (St. Bonaventure, NY: Franciscan Institute Publi- 3 The Latin critical edition of Bonaventure’s works is Doctoris Se- cations, 1994), 1–38.