Poverty and Joy: The Franciscan Tradition.

Poverty and Joy:
The Franciscan Tradition
William Short, O.F.M.
Orbis, $13, 143 pp.

William Short's Poverty and Joy: The Franciscan Vocation is the latest in an Orbis series edited by Philip Sheldrake and dedicated to tracing the contours of spiritual forms found in the various "schools" of Christian spirituality. Short's survey pays attention not only to Saint Francis and Saint Clare but to the tradition which these seminal figures empowered. Chapters are organized by major Franciscan currents: life in poverty; care of the lepers; the role of hermitages; the theology of the cross; and love for God's creation. Short shows how these appear in authors writing in the Franciscan tradition: medieval masters and mistresses such as Angela of Foligno, the poet Jacopone da Todi, Ubertino da Casale (who influenced Dante), Saint Bonaventure, and Duns Scotus.

Short also traces the effect that Franciscan writers had on subsequent lines of spirituality. He notes, for example, that the little-read Giovanni de Caulibus (died 1335) influenced the Christology of the Carthusian Ludolph of Saxony, whose work, in turn, was a crucial part of the spiritual reading of the young Ignatius of Loyola. Similarly, Spanish Franciscans of the early sixteenth century, Francesco Osuna (author of The Third Spiritual Alphabet) and Bernardo de Laredo (author of The Ascent of Mount Sion), shaped the spirituality of Saint Teresa of Avila.

When Short gets to the modern period he is less thorough. He traces the influence of Duns Scotus on the poetics of Gerard Manley Hopkins but does not discuss the view that the English Jesuit was also influenced by Bonaventure. Nor does Short have much to say about how the Franciscan revival of the late nineteenth century helped scholars trace back to medieval spirituality some roots of Renaissance art. Finally, he scarcely strays out of the Franciscan family. A case could be made, for example, that the most Franciscan movement in the contemporary world is the Catholic Worker.

Not everything can be covered in a brief work. But what is covered here lends force to those who would describe a school of spirituality as one which seeks deep experience through the close reading of a scriptural canon, a pedagogy of prayer, and an emphasis on certain spiritual constants. Gustavo Gutierrez, in his wonderful We Drink from Our Own Wells, tells us that certain people get deep insights into the gospel life of discipleship, attract followers to that way of life, and then offer that way as a gift to the church. If the church "receives" such a movement into its tradition we have a "school" of spirituality. Short demonstrates, in this compact little book, that very dynamic as it flows from the powerful life and experience of Saints Francis and Clare of Assisi.

Lawrence S. Cunningham teaches theology at the University of Notre Dame.