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<\/a>No, not the pope, but the friar. St. Francis of Assisi, founder of the Franciscan Order. That\u2019s who I have in mind as I dredge up what seems like a half-dead, but still gasping, conversation about Rod Dreher\u2019s The Benedict Option<\/a><\/em>.<\/p>\n Why now? As many of you know, I work on medieval mysticism. This means that I have to spend time (and I ought to spend more time) reading about the history of the Middle Ages. Recently, I was reading Bernard\u2019s McGinn\u2019s The Flowering of Mysticism<\/a><\/em>, which is largely concerned with the period after 1200, in which new forms and varieties of mysticism came to fruition. He talks about the emergence of mendicant movements (i.e. friars), more specifically about why they came into being.<\/p>\n The story he tells strikes me as rich in importance for what Christians ought to do (or at least what they\u2019re being told they ought to do) today. Why? Well, going through the story may help us catch a glimpse.<\/p>\n McGinn is clear that their emergence is a multifaceted phenomenon. In part, the friars came into existence because of a renewed desire to live the vita apostolica<\/em>; they wanted to emphasize Apostolic poverty in the context of a seemingly-corrupt and decadent world. But, for our purposes, what matters most is their pastoral function. In 1215, the Fourth Lateran Council<\/a> made yearly confession mandatory. It did much, but has become known among medieval historians as something of a \u201cpastoral council\u201d:<\/p>\n \u00a0 Canon 21, the famous \u201cOmnis utriusque sexus\u201d, which commands every Christian<\/a> who has reached the years of discretion to confess all his, or her, sins<\/a> at least once a year to his, or her, own (i.e. parish<\/a>) priest<\/a>. This canon did no more than confirm earlier legislation and custom, and has been often but wrongly, quoted as commanding for the first time the use of sacramental confession.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/li>\n Canon 22: Before prescribing for the sick, physicians shall be bound under pain of exclusion from the Church<\/a>, to exhort their patients to call in a priest<\/a>, and thus provide for their spiritual welfare. (New Advent)<\/a><\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n Among the things it sought to address was an increasingly urban population. In early medieval Europe, most people were serfs living on estates, not people in towns. As the continent urbanized, however, new forms of life developed to adapt to the new conditions. Beguines and Beghards<\/a> tried to live righteously in city centers and friars moved to provide spiritual care to the peoples of Europe\u2019s growing towns. The High Middle Ages (roughly 1000-1300) are noted for just these sorts of economic changes:<\/p>\n During the 11th century, however, feudal life began to change. Agricultural innovations such as the heavy plow and three-field crop rotation made farming more efficient and productive, so fewer farm workers were needed\u2013but thanks to the expanded and improved food supply, the population grew. As a result, more and more people were drawn to towns and cities. Meanwhile, the Crusades had expanded trade routes to the East and given Europeans a taste for imported goods such as wine, olive oil and luxurious textiles. As the commercial economy developed, port cities in particular thrived. By 1300, there were some 15 cities in Europe with a population of more than 50,000. (History.com)<\/a><\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n These developments meant further changes in how people perceived the vita apostolica<\/em>. While theologians had long opined that some version of the \u201cmixed life\u201d was best (a mixture of the contemplative and active), the highest vocations were still thought to be monastic, that is, by-and-large contemplative. What the mendicant orders sought was a way to find the height of life in the activities of the world, to learn to contemplate, so to speak, in action. Older forms of monastic theology (most famously discussed by Jean Leclerq<\/a>) gave way to Scholasticism (with its greater emphasis, in part due to its reliance on Aristotle, on action and ethics\u2014think of the many ethical questions addressed by St. Thomas in the Summa<\/em>). Most early medieval philosophical and theological thought comes from these contemplative, monastic backgrounds; now, however, friars living in the world began to minister to its people and <\/em>write theology. We can see this in Meister Eckhart\u2019s radical re-evaluation of the Mary-Martha pericope:<\/p>\n But Martha stood there in her essence, and hence she said, \u201cLord, bid her get up\u201d, as if to say \u201cLord, I do not like her sitting there just for joy. I want her to learn life and possess it in essence: bid her arise that she may be perfect.\u201d (Sermon 9)<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n <\/p>\n Eckhart, contra many previous writers, sees Martha as the perfect one. Mary is told to remain still, because she has not yet mastered contemplation so as to engage in the affairs of the world. It\u2019s no surprise, of course, that Eckhart was a busy man himself: working as a Scholastic theologian, a Dominican official, and a confessor and writer of sermons.<\/p>\n The point, then, is fairly simple: urbanization in medieval Europe helped to spur on changes in how people saw the \u201ccloister,\u201d how they did theology. This is something that, I think, Rod Dreher gets, hence the subtitle to his newest book: A Strategy for Christians in a Post-Christian Nation<\/em>. He has been fairly clear that his book exists to equip Christians for a new sort of world, one that has left Christianity behind. For example, in one blog post<\/a>, he writes:<\/p>\n The point is, I strongly disagree with Rusty that churches are going to be okay because they\u2019re not collapsing as fast as Masonic lodges and bowling leagues, or they don\u2019t have the same problems as universities. The crisis of our churches is in truth a crisis of the church in a post-Christian culture. Most Christians are go-along-to-get-along types who either don\u2019t see the depths and the essence of the crisis, or don\u2019t want to see it, because it would oblige them to do things that are hard, that we naturally don\u2019t want to do. I get that. I struggle with it in myself. But really, we don\u2019t have a choice. It\u2019s not for nothing that Pope Benedict XVI said that the West is facing its most serious spiritual crisis since the fall of the Roman Empire. If you don\u2019t believe me, believe him.<\/p>\n I do write with alarm in The Benedict Option<\/em><\/a>, because I believe there\u2019s a lot to be alarmed about \u2014 and because we can and must do things to get through this crisis.\u00a0<\/em>It\u2019s not going to be easy, but what else is there?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n His argument hinges on a simile: we live in a time not dissimilar from that way back when, when the Roman Empire fell. Then was like now. But is this really the case? I wonder if our time isn\u2019t more like that of St. Francis. We have an increasingly urban society brought away from the Faith by the dangers of city living, of squalor and, frankly, pastoral challenges. We live in a movement in which the Church is as big as it has ever been, yet, to many, feels corrupt (whether liturgically, bureaucratically, whatever). The parallels with the age of Francis are strong.<\/p>\n\n