- The following series is an excerpt from a presentation by Friar Joseph Wood -
Since, therefore, all things are beautiful and in some way pleasurable, and since beauty and pleasure do not exist without proportion, and since proportion exists primarily in numbers, all things must necessarily involve numbers. Thus, numbers are the foremost exemplar in the mind of the Creator, and in things, the foremost vestige leading to Wisdom. God is made known in all bodily and sensible things when we apprehend the numerical, delight in numerical proportions, and judge irrefutably according to the laws of numerical proportion. The Soul’s Journey into God (Itinerarium), Ch. 2.10
Franciscanism represents a paradox in the history of economy and society. It is a charism that has placed poverty at its center – the voluntary and material detachment from goods as a sign of gospel living. Therefore, St. Francis actually elaborated a doctrine that became the first economic school from which the modern ethical spirit of the market economy emerged.
In fact, Franciscan theologians have always attached great importance to the connection between economics and politics, to the relationship between well-being and goods. Starting with Bonaventure’s writings, the Franciscans distinguished the relationship between necessary and superfluous, between possession and property and finally between interest and usury. They introduced the concepts of capital, industry, market, fair interest, economic value, fair price, discount, exchange rate, and the anthropological value of work.
In Part 2 – More on why the Franciscans involve themselves in finances –
Pingback: Deposit of Charity – Franciscan Voice
Pingback: More About Monte di Pietà – Franciscan Voice
Pingback: Monte Frumentario – Franciscan Voice