Saturday, January 7, 2012

A 'Punk Rock' Friar

A little timeout from housework (bathrooms) and homework (studying early primary sources on Francis of Assisi -- more on this in another post) to share with you a feature about one of my Capuchin brothers.

Direct your browser to this article from the Jamaica Plain Gazette. It's a profile of Fr. Charles Sammons, whose blog, A Minor Friar, I read almost daily and have linked a couple of times in passing here at From a Brother. I have known Brother Charles for about as long as I have known any of the Capuchins, which is 11 years. He is a very witty person and a gifted storyteller. Eminently quotable, he must have made the Gazette reporter's work easy.

I have heard my friar friend talk about how punk music brought him providentially into religion and eventually Catholicism. But is Brother Charles a "punk rock friar," as the article declares? Insofar as Francis of Assisi is truly, in his words, "the most punk person I'd heard of in history," then both he and every friar who walk as Francis walked are punks.

Our founder not a hippie, then? Well, conventional wisdom often has it wrong when it comes to religious life.

There's our question of the day: is Francis more like a hippie or a punk? Which one better personifies the Franciscan ethos? Discuss among yourselves.

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