St. Francis and the budget:  Minores and Maiores

I have been anguishing over the budget brought down last week.  I can’t begin to comprehend how it will fracture the fabric of our Australian society which is generally characterised by a sense of generosity and egalitarianism.

The budget targets people who are ‘on the margins’.  People who are disabled, unemployed, refuges, aged and people on lower incomes to name a few.  However, in all the rhetoric and justification the proponents (whether politicians or apologists) are demonising people who fall into these ‘categories’ as improvident or just plain shifty.

Yesterday, in an email to a friend overseas, I mentioned that she would be coming back to a very different Australia.  In her reply she said she had heard that it ‘was not helpful to the small people’.  Now, normally this would be enough for me to make a sharp and probably unkind reply about the use of ‘small’.  Humans are not ‘small’.  People who suffer are never ‘small’ i.e. of little account or influence.

However, I started thinking about this word ‘small’ given to people who struggle on as best they are able and are not members of a wealthy or power group.  It is a word that, while usually used with the kindest intentions, serves to marginalise and patronise people even more.

Then I thought about St. Francis.  Remember, Francis himself was from the rising powerful merchant class – the ‘maiores’ - yet he called his friars ‘minores’ – lesser brothers.  In doing this he put them in juxtaposition to the ‘maiores’, those with feudal and ecclesiastical power.  In doing this Francis stood in loving identification with Jesus ‘who became poor for us that we might become rich’ and therefore all who were poor.

This meant he, his brothers, Claire, her sisters and the lay folk who followed him consciously, deliberately, intentionally became one with of those who were powerless and poor.  This was not only a spiritual choice (if there is such a thing) inseparable from this deliberate choice was the step to abolish the gulf between human beings.  Thus the minores, the underbelly of poor, suffering society, could no longer be hidden and ignored or even spiritualised (i.e. your reward is in heaven; god is punishing you; you are favoured with this suffering).  Francis’ love for and identification with the minores made them visible.

At the same time this identification meant active care.  To lift people from poverty and alleviate suffering was central to being ‘minor’.  Care for the lepers, solidarity with poor workers whether in the countryside or in the burgeoning towns was their vocation.  This was a time of enormous social change as the merchants grew in wealth; they could buy everything from power to knowledge to people.  Many of the earliest guild charters that ensured fairness for the workers were signed in Franciscan friaries.

Over time the Franciscan spirit of minority swept Europe, particularly as the secular Franciscans included workers, nobility and royalty.  Vowed to live frugally, peacefully and justly these people changed their society, economics and politics.  There was a flowering of compassion.

This choice of Francis’, a choice made of passionate love for Christ the poor one who is our brother is at the heart of the Gospel and therefore at the heart of everyone who professes belief in the God of Jesus.  In one way or another, we are all asked to be ‘minores’ i.e. to be in solidarity with our suffering sisters and brothers. To give visibility and voice to those people who will suffer because compassion and human solidarity no longer are part of economic planning.  This asks us to do whatever is possible within our own life context to speak and minister.

I have a problem with language.  As we turn adjectives into nouns i.e. the poor, the disabled, the aged etc. the tendency is to see some amorphous group, to forget that it is a living, striving, struggling, glorious flesh and blood person who is the icon of Jesus that we are talking about.  These collective words have a tendency to distance us from the individual human reality, and so compassion and justice disappear.  We forget that economics is to serve people and create a more equitable society.

So, in thinking about the budget and its potential effects on all of us, I need first to pray.  Prayer brings perspective (to see things through the eyes of God of Jesus) and enables forgiveness and compassion for all, including the supporters of the budget.  Then I need to do what I am able to do within my skills and capacity to remind our government that it is governing for all Australian people.  The quality of a country is related to its care for people who are disadvantaged in order to close the division between ‘minores’ and ‘maiores’.

To be ‘minor’ is not about anger, party politics or division; it is about love, a love that recognises that we are truly sisters and brothers.