Who's ready for another full week of hard-hitting saintly action? Well, clearly YOU are since a) you're reading this and b) you've been hitting "refresh" on your web browser continually since 7:50 am EST just in case the SEC erred and posted this matchup a few minutes early.
After an entire weekend experiencing LMW (Lent Madness Withdrawal) symptoms, your balm has been delivered in the form of Francis of Assisi vs. John Wycliffe. Time to pull out the ubiquitous Wycliffe bird bath that likely graces your garden and start reading about these two medieval saints.
Speaking of birds and other creatures great and small, we hope you read the SEC's statement released over the weekend assuring the Lent Madness public that no animals were harmed in the formation of the 2015 bracket.
But enough stalling. The Madness is back. Get to it!
Francis of Assisi
Francis was born into a wealthy family in the early twelfth century. His younger years were spent like many rich young men of the day — partying rather than praying. A series of events, including an imprisonment and a serious illness, began to shift Francis’s priorities and awareness. On a pilgrimage to Rome, Francis was moved to compassion by encounters with beggars outside St. Peter’s Cathedral.
When Francis returned home, he broke from his old life, taking up the disciplines of poverty and devotion. While attending Mass one day, Francis heard the words of Jesus from Matthew’s Gospel, asking his disciples to leave all and follow him. These words guided Francis’s life henceforth. He became an itinerant preacher embracing poverty, humility, and devotion to the Holy Eucharist. He soon had people joining him in his example of ministry. When the number of followers reached twelve, Francis wrote a rule for the group and soon obtained papal approval for the “friars minor” as they called themselves.They continued to grow and encouraged a similar society for women (founded by Clare of Assisi) as well as a Third Order for lay associates.
Francis was not a priest and evidence that he might have been a deacon comes mainly from the account by Bonaventure, who wrote of Francis’s use of a cave in the Italian village of Grecio to preach about the Nativity. Francis used a manger and two live animals (an ox and an ass) to teach about the Babe of Bethlehem. Thus, we have the first recorded account of a crèche. The hay Francis used in the crèche was reported to have cured local cattle of disease.
There are many legends surrounding Francis’s interactions with animals. From preaching to birds to freeing fish and rabbits caught for meals, Francis was often reported to call these creatures “Brother” and “Sister.” The source of the stories is unclear, but Francis expressed his love of creation and an understanding that we are in relationship not just with each other as humans but with all of creation in his “Canticle of Brother Sun.” While Francis composed several other prayers, he most likely was not the author of the prayer most commonly attributed to him — "Lord, make me an instrument of your peace” — since its composition date is 1912, several centuries after Saint Francis died.
In prayerful preparation for Michaelmas 1224, Francis received the stigmata, the five wounds of Christ. He received care for these wounds in several cities, but in 1226 he requested to be taken back to Portiuncula, the site of the church where he first heard the words from Matthew bidding him to give up all he had and live the gospel. He died where his call was birthed on October 3, 1226, and he was canonized less than two years later.
He devoted himself to a life of preaching the gospel by caring for the poor as one of them, by honoring God in all creation, by his profound devotion to prayer and humility, and by his forming community to join him in God’s ministry.
Collect for Francis of Assisi
Most high, omnipotent good Lord, grant your people grace to renounce gladly the vanities of this world: that following the way of blessed Francis, we may for love of you delight in your whole creation with perfectness of joy; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
John Wycliffe
John Wycliffe was an early supporter of reform in the Roman Catholic Church. Born in Yorkshire, England, Wycliffe received an excellent education at Oxford University. He earned his doctorate in 1372 and came to be considered one of Oxford’s leading philosophers and theologians. Remembered by the Church as both a translator and controversialist, Wycliffe conformed to the mold of faithful people who did amazing things but would probably never be anyone’s first choice to share a beer with (see also John the Baptist, Cardinal Walsingham, and the Apostle Paul).
Not everyone was a fan of Wycliffe’s criticism of the doctrine of transubstantiation, his challenge of indulgences, and his repudiation of private confession. His deep belief that every Christian should have access to scripture in their own language made him a forerunner of the Protestant Reformation and Public Enemy #1 for the Roman Catholic Church.
He was summoned to appear before the Bishop of London in 1377 to answer to the charges of heresy, but before the trial could start, recriminations on both sides filled the air and erupted into an open fight, ending the trial. Three months later, Pope Gregory XI issued five church edicts against Wycliffe, in which Wycliffe was accused on eighteen counts and was called “the master of errors.”
The Church tried to silence him but it was too late. Wycliffe had by this time many followers known as Lollards. They preached anticlerical and biblically centered reform. The more the Church attacked and suppressed Wycliffe’s teachings, the more determined his followers became. At one point the Lollards were driven underground, but they remained a constant source of irritation to the English Catholic authorities until the English Reformation made their views the norm.
John Wycliffe died December 28, 1384, from a stroke. In May 1415 he was declared a heretic, and his writings were banned. Wycliffe’s impact on the church was so great that forty-three years after his death, officials dug up his body, burned the remains, and threw the ashes into the River Swift as a protest against his teachings.
Collect for John Wycliffe
O God, your justice continually challenges your Church to live according to its calling: Grant us who now remember the work of John Wycliffe contrition for the wounds which our sins inflict on your Church, and such love for Christ that we may seek to heal the divisions which afflict his Body; through the same Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
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236 comments on “Francis of Assisi vs. John Wycliffe”
Here's my take on Wycliffe. He belongs to a trinity of saintly men--Wycliffe, Spinoza, and Machiavelli--who opened the way to the distinctly modern view of REASON as having a positive value in Western culture, and by extension in Western Christianity. All three were demonized in their time--most of all Niccolo, whose given name became a nickname for the Devil--a sure sign that they were on to something important. Along with its close relative, Experience--were added to Scripture and Tradition to form the "Anglican quadrilateral of Scripture, Tradition, Reason, and Experience." These four are the canon (measuring instrument) by which we examine our teachings in the faith. Before their time, the canon had only Scripture and Tradition as components, and in ages where literacy was confined to the few, pronouncements of what was sound teaching and sound practice could be monopolized by religious elites. Hence the attempts by elites to stamp out their ideas by branding them heretical or atheistic and then prohibiting their dissemination. Those who belonged to the party of reason and experience, a party whose roots go back to antiquity, were constrained to spread the ideas subversively. You published a treatise and denounced, say, Spinoza in the preface; in the body of the treatise you presented Spinoza's leading ideas as though you'd just thought of them yourself. And everyone who took the trouble to read the treatise saw through this literally life-saving ruse, and the elites of Europe became enlightened almost against their will. A corollary of this with special reference to the English-speaking world is that at this distance it's very difficult to discern who's a true Lollard and who isn't. A case in point is Chaucer, who shows a profound sympathy for Lollard ideals without naming Wycliffe. The portrait of the poor county Parson in the General Prologue to the Canterbury Tales echoes point by point the portrait of Wycliffe in this Lent Madness matchup. In fact, it could have been written by a member of the SEC proficient in Middle English verse composition. Writing at a time when the dilemma posed to advanced intellectuals could be summed up as publish AND perish, Chaucer may well have chosen the more prudent option. Bottom line here: Wycliffe should be remembered not as a generic trouble-maker or anti-authority rebel, but as a confessor (not martyr) to our modern understanding of the Faith. Without him, no us.
My dogs and cats tied me up and voted for St. Francis can't vote again, so I am stuck with their decision.
So did I! 2 word explanation: Pope Francis. He's been opening a door through which the party of Reason and Experience can enter the Catholic Church in greater numbers. True saints complement and complete one another. Isn't that the message of Lent Madness?
Have to go with the deacon over the enemy of the faith, although the latter seems not to be a deal-breaker for as many as I expected (there's surely an unkind Episcopalian joke in there somewhere).
Pope Francis took his name from a true revolutionary. At a time when the religious orders were unspeakably rich and powerful and holed up in their monaster-estates with peasant-serfs making them piles of $$$$, Francis and his brothers minor had no land. They had no money. They had no shoes. By their very existence, they were a thumb in the eye of the establishment, a true reproach. The cardinal from the New World knew what he was about - his reform was to bring everyone down off their high horses as Francis had, and return his church to its true mission. It is sad that the Franciscans by the 18th century had lost their way to the extent that they enslaved thousands of natives in Alta California at the behest of the Spanish Crown, and for not a little lucre of their own. Bonaventure, Francis' biographer, is the namesake of the mission town in which I live. But I go for Francis the mendicant and his true vision and mission.
At a time when the gap is widening between rich and poor, St. Francis's devotion to the poor speaks directly to us with startling relevance.
My reform-minded self makes me appreciative of Wycliffe, but my emotions square with Francis. Francis was introduced to me by my friend Louise who chose him as her patron saint and exhibited throughout her life and work the same kindness and concern for the poor and indigent. Thanks to her love and devotion to Francis, I learned the value of simple service and quiet compassion. In memory of my dear friend, today I vote for kindness.
Today LM presents the case of the Repentant Sinner vs. the Unrepentant Sinner.
In his younger days, wealthy, spoiled Francis lived the high life---for himself. Francis changed when he recognized crushing poverty and, perhaps, saw the face of Christ. Francis left his family, and his clothes, to serve the poor and became our beloved St. Francis, kind to all people and to animals.
Later, John Wycliffe, the good boy, earned advanced degrees at Oxford and began to teach. And think. And challenge some ideas. The church did not like the challenge. John did not repent. The CB told the rest of the story.
I'm thinking about a garden statue of John Wycliffe with various translations of the Bible nearby...
This is a tough one. How can you say no to St. Francis? Yet Wycliffe's "deep belief that every Christian should have access to scripture in their own language made him a forerunner of the Protestant Reformation". Vote to Wycliffe.
Francis went through a lot and gave up so much. I couldn't not choose him.
I have one statue of Francis (zero birds, one shovel) but multiple Bibles in English (both in print & in iOS apps), so I'm voting for the person who made all those translations possible.
Also if you are interested in the work of translating of Scripture into various indiginous languages around the globe check out Wycliffe.org.
Forget the beer--Which one would you rather spend eternity with? Don't think I even need to suggest the answer.
There's so much more to Francis than his love of animals - I think the sentimentalization of Francis in this way has also been a form of sanitization and domestication.
His personal renunciation of wealth, and his request to found an order based on the renunciation of wealth, was a reproach and a reform of common church practices of the day. He tried to stop one of the Crusades, acting as an ambassador for Christ and speaking with the leader of the opposing forces in good faith.
Most of all, he embodied a preferential option for the poor: something we remain in special need of today.
Thank you, yes! It's tempting to reduce revered and famous personalities to simple stereotypes. Kudos to all those here who are helping to flesh out the persons behind the personas.
Wycliffe for me. He did more for the English church and now I understand why the Bible translators use the name Wycliffe name.
John Wycliffe, the first Episcopalian. Of course he gets my vote! He verbalises my beliefs 100%
St. Francis is getting a lot of attention and admiration possibly because of the popularity of the current Pope, who seems to want to emulate him insofar as it might be poswible in the Vatican!
So, I voted for Wycliffe. We needed the Bible in languages we can understand.
While I do not miss simplistically literal, unquestioned, two-dimensional concepts of transubstantiation nor do I miss the ridiculous, shallow and insane racket of indulgences, I must say there ain't NOTHIN' to beat a good confession in the presence of a good confessor!! Nonetheless, Wycliffe is my man. What courage (and rage)!
As a Franciscan Tertiary I have an obvious bias, but as an Anglican I am pulled the other way! Both saints (officially or otherwise) saw what was wrong with the Church and did what they felt called to do to start putting things right. Francis was (as his Testament shows) utterly loyal to the Church while Wycliffe saw his way through defiance of "authority". As in so many binary choices, I want both-and! So in the spirit of Francis (as I see him) I vote for Wycliffe.