With an important, honest qualifier.
Franciscan Friars of the Forsaken live a life intentionally modeled on the earthly life of Jesus as it appears in the Gospels, more explicitly than any other Christian form of life.
Here is a clean, re-grounded explanation—no romance.
In what sense do the Franciscan Friars of the Forsaken live like Jesus?
1. Poverty
Jesus lives without property, security, or stored wealth.
The Friars renounce ownership and choose material vulnerability.
Not metaphorically but practically.
That alone places the friars closer to Jesus’ lived condition than most other forms of Christian life.
2. Apostolic fraternity
Jesus gathers brothers, not monks:
- no enclosure,
- no self-sufficiency.
St. Francis consciously imitated this:
- brothers, not monks,
- mutual obedience,
- life together without monastic separation from the world.
This mirrors the shape of Jesus’ community.
3. Itinerancy and dependence
Jesus walks from place to place and depends on hospitality.
Early Franciscans revived this exact Gospel practice and is continued by our friars today.
Even when later moderated, the principle remains central.
4. Preaching and presence among the poor
Jesus lives among those on the margins, not apart from them.
We situate ourselves where suffering is visible and unavoidable.
We don’t primarily administer institutions—we stand beside people.
5. Kenosis (self-emptying)
This is the deepest layer.
Our Franciscan life is built around:
- renunciation,
- humility,
- vulnerability,
- joy without control.
That is the inner logic of Jesus’ life.
In what sense they do not (and cannot)
This matters just as much.
1. Jesus is
- Messiah,
- Son,
- Redeemer.
The Friars imitate His human way of life.
2. Franciscan life is a response, not the source
Jesus inaugurates the Kingdom.
As Franciscans we witness to it after the fact, within an existing Church.
We don’t rewrite law, redefine doctrine, or found the Church.
3. Sustainability requires compromise
Jesus lives freely, without planning for institutional survival.
The Franciscan Friars of the Forsaken must:
- eat tomorrow,
- care for the sick,
- answer to bishops,
- obey good civil law.
So the life always contains tension between Gospel radicalism and practical reality.
That tension is not hypocrisy—it’s the cost of endurance.
The honest conclusion
A fair way to say it is this:
The Franciscan Friars of the Forsaken live closer to the external form of Jesus’ earthly life than any other stable Christian vocation—by deliberate choice.
Not because we are better Christians.
Not because we are purer.
But because our charism is imitation, not preservation.
Monks preserve the life of prayer Jesus lived.
As Friars we reenact the life of poverty Jesus lived.
Jesus’s life looks more Franciscan than Monastic when read straight from the Gospels—the is not only reasonable, It’s historically and spiritually accurate.
Those who live the Franciscan way intentionally shape their common life according to the earthly life of our Lord Jesus Christ as revealed in the Holy Gospels, especially His voluntary poverty, self-emptying, apostolic preaching, fraternal life with His disciples, and merciful nearness to the poor and afflicted (cf. Mt 8:20; Lk 9:1–6; Mk 3:13–19; Lk 4:18). In following Christ, we renounce personal possession and material security (cf. Mt 19:21), live as brothers in humility rather than as masters or rulers (cf. Mt 23:8–12), and entrust their daily needs to God through prayer, labor, alms and hospitality (cf. Mt 6:25–34; Lk 10:7). This way of life seeks conformity not to Christ’s divine authority or unique saving work, but to His humble human manner of life, by which He revealed obedience to the Father and love for the world (cf. Phil 2:5–8). Such a vocation is understood not as a replacement for monastic or parish life, but as a particular ascetical witness within the Church, lived under obedience and discernment, and ordered toward repentance, mercy, and the glorification of God.