Monthly Spiritual Message, February 2025
By Fr John Cooper OFM Cap,
THE TWO WAYS:
The Secular Franciscan Order, as it has been called since 1978, was founded over 800 years ago by Saint Francis of Assisi in 1221[1] with the help of Cardinal Hugolino.[2] However, before that time, perhaps as early as 1210 -1215, Saint Francis had written to those who wished to follow his “Way of Life” [3] a first “Letter to all the Faithful” or, as it is also called, “An Exhortation”. This document is written in two parts, following the outline of Psalm One, which sums up the whole Bible by outlining the Two Ways: The way that leads to eternal life and the way that leads to eternal damnation. Let us look more closely at this foundational Psalm:
1 How blessed is anyone
who rejects the advice of the wicked
and does not take a stand in the path that sinners tread,
nor a seat in the company with cynics,
2 but who delights in the law of God
and murmurs his law, day and night.
3 Such a one is like a tree planted near streams.
It bears fruit in season, and its leaves never wither,
and every project succeeds.
4 How different the wicked, how different!
Just like chaff blown around by the wind
5 the wicked will not stand firm at the Judgement
nor sinners in the gathering of the upright.
6 For God watches over the path of the upright,
but the path of the wicked is doomed. [4]
Saint Francis poured his profound vision of the Way of the faithful Christian into the first section of this Exhortation. He taught that “Our relationship with God sums up, includes and transcends every human relationship we have, including the one we have with ourselves. We cannot stand outside our relationship with God. To begin with, we are within that relationship. This stunning insight is a thought we cannot think of easily. It tends to transcend our capacity for rational reflection.” [5] All we can do is accept these relationships, rejoice in them, and express them in our daily lives through the love and compassion we show one another.
In the second section of his letter, Saint Francis outlines the path of those who refuse to believe in God and life after death. What Saint Francis says here is a bit scary, so perhaps you should read that for yourselves. However, for those who have chosen a life of vice rather than a life of virtue, I suggest that you need to know that you gamble with your life.
GAMBLING WITH YOUR LIFE:
Blaise Pascal (1623 – 1662), a French genius, is quite famous,[6] for initiating “decision theory”, and in this, he confronts humanity, both believers and non-believers, with what has been called Pascal’s Wager.
Essentially, the wager states: You are alive. You are going to die. The question: “Is there a God?” cannot be answered by reason alone. We have to bet! “Heads or tails.” We have to gamble! “Yes or No.” We cannot refuse to gamble since our life and eternal life depend on it!
If you say, “There is no God!” you are “backing a horse to lose” because if there is no God, both atheists and believers lose. However, if you “back this horse to win” by saying: “There is a God!” you win if there is a God! But the atheist loses on both counts. So, from a “decision theory” point of view, the most sensible bet is: There is a God! Pragmatically, it is as simple as that; of course, you have to follow that through with the way you live your life.
In the cemetery of Rookwood in Sydney, there is one grave on which it is written in German: “Christus ist mein leben, sterben ist mein gewinn.” [7] (Christ is my life; dying is my gain.) To “bet” (believe) that Jesus Christ is the son of the living God is to gain all. As Saint Bonaventure teaches: “If you learn everything except Christ, you learn nothing. If you learn nothing except Christ, you learn everything.”[8]
THE CONSEQUENCES OF THE TWO WAYS:
The Prophet Ezekiel, (c.623-c.571) [9] took the sign of the Tau – the last letter of the Hebrew alphabet to another level altogether when he explained to the Jewish nation that the destruction of Solomon’s Temple and the city of Jerusalem was imminent because they had failed to keep the Covenant with God. The kingdom of Judah was destroyed, and much of its population was taken off into captivity in Babylon. In his vision, Ezekiel sees extraordinary images and hears God speak to the ministering spirits:
“Go all through the city, all through Jerusalem,
and mark a cross on the foreheads of all who grieve and lament its loathsome practices.”
And I heard him say to the others, “Follow him through the city and strike.
Have not one glance of pity; show no mercy;
old men, young men, girls, children, women,
kill and exterminate them all.
But do not touch anyone with a Tau on his forehead” [10]
Ezechiel affirms that the Tau, the last letter of the Hebrew alphabet, has become the sign or mark of the Way to eternal life. [11]
To be continued …
John Cooper OFM Cap
[1] St Francis wrote his Rule of Life for the “Tertiaries” in 1221. This earlier Rule, now lost to history, was later modified by Cardinal Hugolino when he became Pope Gregory IX (Pope from 1227 to 1241).
[2] Cardinal Hugolino took over from Cardinal Giovanni, who had formally introduced St. Francis to Pope Innocent III. He later added “of St Paul” to his name. He was at the election of Pope Honorius III in 1216 but died after the 18th of January 1217.
[3] It is St Clare who calls it “the Way” in her Testament No. 2. “The Son of God became for the Way (cf. John 14:60 which our Blessed Father Francis, His true lover and imitator, has shown and taught us by word and example.” In this, St Clare authenticates the Franciscan way of life to be the “Way of Gospel Fraternity” taught by Christ himself.
[4] New Jerusalem Bible version of Psalm 1. I have replaced the name “Yahweh” with “God” since Pope Benedict requested this in deference to the Jewish faith. The Breviary version of Psalm 1 can be found in The Divine Office Volume 1 on page [23].
[5] I believe this quote is from Bernard Lonergan, but although I have searched for it often, it has eluded me. I place it here because it aptly describes the relationships that Christ (Matt: 12:48-50; Mk: 3:31-35; Luke: 8:19-21) and later Francis in this “Exhortation” and Bonaventure in his “Feasts of the Child Jesus” used to speak of our mystical relationship with Jesus.
[6] He is said to have initiated: decision theory, existentialism, pragmatism and voluntarism.
[7] “Christ is my life, dying is my gain.” (Philippians 1:21) The Gravestone of Elizabeth Charlotte Vollmer (1862-1911)
[8] The source of this quote of St Bonaventure is not readily available.
[9] The Prophet Ezekiel (c.623-c.571) The Babylonian Exile of the Jews took place from c.598 BC – c.538 BC.
[10] The text is Ezekiel 9:4-7. The Jerusalem Bible says, “mark a cross on their foreheads” However, the Orthodox Jewish Bible says: “put a TAV (the last letter of the Hebrew alphabet) upon their (mitzekhot) foreheads.”
[11] What is perhaps surprising is the changing shape of this last letter of the Hebrew alphabet. As an ancient pictogram around 1500 BC, according to scholars, it was a cross + most probably of two sticks crossed to mark a place, like the Egyptian hieroglyph +, which means “mark”, “sign”, and “signature.” By 500 BC it had changed to be more like an X and by 100 BC it was a cross with an elongated upright post like the cross of Jesus but the whole cross leaned in this / direction. Modern Hebrew, Arabic and Greek names for this letter is tav (or Taw) Tau and all three languages sound it as “t” and in Greek and Latin it is the letter T. In Hebrew it is the ultimate letter. In modern Hebrew its shape is ת
