Peter Maurin, co-founder (with Dorothy Day) of the Catholic Worker movement, was often called a modern-day St. Francis. Maurin wrote a number of poetry-lie essay called Easy Essays in which he outlined a vision of Catholicism that St. Francis might have celebrated. in several of those essays, Maurin cited St. Francis. Below is an excerpt from one essay:
What St. Francis
Desired
According
to Johannes Jorgenson,
a
Danish convert living in Assisi,
St.
Francis desired
that
men should give up
superfluous
possessions,
St.
Francis desired
that
men should work with
their
hands.
St.
Francis desired
that
men should offer their services
as a gift.
St. Francis desired
that men should ask
other people for help
when work failed them.
St. Francis desired
that men should live
as free as birds.
St. Francis desired
that men should go through life
giving thanks to God for His gifts.
The Third Order
"We
are perfectly certain
that
the Third Order of St. Francis is the most powerful antidote
against the evils that harass
the present age."
Leo
XIII.
"Oh,
how many benefits
would
not the Third Order of St. Francis have conferred on the Church
if it had been everywhere organized
in accordance with the wishes
of Leo XIII."
Pius
X.
"We
believe that the spirit of
the
Third Order, thoroughly redolent of Gospel wisdom,
will do very much
to reform public and private morals."
Benedict XV.
"The
general restoration of peace and morals
was
advanced very much by the Third Order of St. Francis,
which was a religious order indeed,
yet something unexampled up to that time."
Pius
XII
(From
“The Case for Utopia”)
Pax et bonum
