Welcome to the Franciscan Institute's Programs and Conferences website. We look forward to welcoming you to the following events. Please note that some conferences are on-campus offerings while others are offered virtually via Zoom.
Secular Franciscans:
Francis of Assisi, 1224-1226: A Spirituality of Decline and True Joy
Three Saturdays: June 1, 8 and 15
11:30 a.m.-1 p.m. EST
No cost
This workshop, presented on Zoom, will look at what are called Francis of Assisi’s “years of decline” (1224-1226). It was a time of increasing pain and spiritual suffering. Francis, blind and suffering from malaria and leprosy, heads to La Verna for a time of contemplation and solace. The Stigmata and the Canticle of the Creatures are the products of the important year of 1224.
“Years of decline” are an ever-present context of our own lives. We experience the decline of parents and grandparents, friends and siblings, and, before long, signs of our own. What can Francis of Assisi’s years of decline teach us?
Fr. Jack Rathschmidt and Fr. Dave Couturier, both Capuchins, will address these questions and more in these three Saturday Zoom sessions. There will be time given for Secular Franciscans to talk with one another in small discussion groups on this critically important topic.
Mercy and Compassion in the Francis, Clare, and Early Franciscan Tradition
With Fr. Stephen McMichael, O.F.M. Conv.
June 24-29
11:30 a.m.-1 p.m. EST
Cost: $50
This course, presented on Zoom, will focus on the themes of mercy and compassion in the writings of Francis (and Clare) based largely on contemporary Italian scholarship, especially the writings of Pietro Maranesi, Cap.
The course will cover these themes, especially in Francis’ Testament, Earlier Rule (1221), and Letter to the Minister. Mercy and compassion are the lenses to interpret the entire life of Francis and Clare and will be shown to be the epicenter of Franciscan spirituality.
Qui Primus Legit:
Studies in Sentence Commentaries on the Eighth Centenary of Alexander of Hales’s Lectures
July 11-13, 2024
On the campus of St. Bonaventure University
Cost: $385 (housing & meals included)
From 1223 to 1227, Alexander of Hales, Regent Master in Theology at the University of Paris, delivered his magisterial morning lectures based not on the traditional material — Sacred Scripture — but rather on Peter Lombard’s Sentences. This innovation changed the study of theology in European universities for the next several centuries.
Until the time of the Reformation (and considerably beyond it in some places), the Sentences would retain its place as the most important textbook for advanced study of theology and philosophy in the Latin language. Alexander subsequently joined the Franciscan Order, giving the Franciscan Friars a permanent place within the University of Paris theology faculty and a share in the common scholastic culture that included commenting on the Sentences.
On the eighth centenary of his groundbreaking Gloss on the Sentences, this conference will address this theme highlighting the genre of the Sentence commentary as a key locus for the handing on (tradere) of theological tradition, doctrinal development, and theological and philosophical debate in medieval and early modern intellectual culture.
This conference will be held in St. Bonaventure, New York, on the beautiful campus of St. Bonaventure University. It will include keynote lectures by Dr. Philipp W. Rosemann, chair of Catholic Studies at the University of Kentucky, and Dr. Christine Helmer, professor of German at Northwestern University.