Franciscan History
Franciscan History
The History of the Franciscan Way
The Franciscan tradition began in the life and witness of Saint Francis of Assisi and has endured through the centuries as a path of prayer, simplicity, fraternity, charity, and joyful fidelity to Jesus Christ.
Pax et Bonum
The Beginning of the Franciscan Movement
The Franciscan movement began in the early thirteenth century with Saint Francis of Assisi. What first took shape in his life was not the founding of an institution for its own sake, but a radical conversion to the Gospel. Francis sought to live in humility, poverty, repentance, and joy, following Christ with sincerity and without worldly ambition.
His witness drew others to him. What began as a personal call soon became a shared life of prayer, preaching, simplicity, and service. From those beginnings there emerged a spiritual family that would spread widely throughout the Church and leave a lasting mark on Christian devotion, mission, and religious life.
Saint Francis of Assisi
Saint Francis remains at the heart of all authentic Franciscan life. He is remembered not merely as a founder, but as a model of evangelical poverty, peace, charity, and delight in the goodness of God. His conversion led him away from worldly status and toward a life wholly centered in Christ, prayer, and service to others.
Francis did not seek greatness in the eyes of the world. He desired to live the Gospel plainly, to love the poor, to repair the Church, and to serve Christ with humility. For this reason, the Franciscan tradition has always carried both spiritual seriousness and evangelical joy.
At its heart, Franciscan history is the story of Christians seeking to live the Gospel with simplicity, humility, peace, and love.
The Growth of the Franciscan Family
The First Order
The earliest Franciscan brothers gathered around Saint Francis in a common life of prayer, preaching, poverty, and service. From this beginning came the friars, whose vocation helped shape the wider Franciscan movement.
The Second Order
With Saint Clare of Assisi and her companions, the Franciscan life also took root in a community of women devoted to prayer, poverty, and religious life in the spirit of Francis.
The Third Order
The Franciscan vocation was later extended to those who remained active in the world. In this way, lay people and others not called to cloistered or friary life could still live the Franciscan spirit through prayer, discipline, and service.
Saint Clare and the Franciscan Witness of Women
Franciscan history cannot be told rightly without Saint Clare. Her life and vocation show that the Franciscan spirit was never confined to one form of discipleship. In Clare, the Franciscan call took shape in steadfast devotion, prayer, poverty, and a holy perseverance that helped secure the place of women in the wider Franciscan family.
Her witness reminds the Church that Franciscan life is not defined by outward activity alone, but also by prayerful fidelity, deep humility, and trust in God’s providence.
A Tradition of Prayer, Poverty, and Charity
Across the centuries, Franciscans have been known for a spirituality shaped by prayer, simplicity of life, care for the poor, reverence for creation, and devotion to peace. Though the forms of Franciscan life have varied, its heart has remained constant: to follow Christ more nearly in humility, compassion, and faithful service.
Franciscan history is therefore not only a matter of dates and institutions. It is the history of a spiritual way of life — one that has inspired friars, sisters, tertiaries, clergy, and lay people to live the Gospel with greater seriousness and joy.
The Franciscan Way in the Church Today
The Franciscan tradition remains alive because its essential call remains needed. The Church still needs a witness of humility in place of pride, mercy in place of hardness, simplicity in place of excess, and peace in place of division. For that reason, the Franciscan way continues to speak with force and beauty in the present age.
Within the Order of Saint Francis, Old Catholic, this history is not merely remembered; it is received as a living inheritance. The aim is not to imitate the past superficially, but to embody the same evangelical spirit in the life of the Church today.
Our Place in That History
The Order of Saint Francis, Old Catholic stands within this larger Franciscan inheritance as a community seeking to live the Gospel in continuity with the spiritual vision of Saint Francis. Its members share in a tradition that has long joined prayer, fraternity, discipline, and service to the life of the Church.
To belong to a Franciscan order is to receive both a gift and a responsibility: the gift of a proven spiritual path, and the responsibility to live it with sincerity, humility, and faithfulness in one’s own generation.
Continue Exploring
If you would like to learn more about the life of the Order today, continue to the About page or explore how to begin discerning a Franciscan vocation.