In the name of Yahushuah ben Yahuah the Most Gracious Most Merciful Sovereign—Greetings and Peace be upon you {

We, fratres mendicans contemplativus <FMC>, hereby adopt the following statement of the British Province of Carmelites:\>_

We take the risk of trusting in God, because we believe that God is faithful. God will provide what we need for our daily living and our ministries. We also take seriously the quotation from St. Paul […] that those who are able must undertake work of some kind, and so contribute to the life of the community. In return for our service to society, we invite people to support us in a variety of ways. This may be through a financial donation, or some other form of support.

[…] We still choose to be amongst the poor and the marginalised wherever possible. This is sometimes called the ‘preferential option for the poor’, and we believe from our reading of the Bible that the face of the Lord is reflected in the poor and marginalised in a preferential way. Our mendicant tradition gives us a particular concern to speak out prophetically for justice, peace and the integrity of God’s creation.

One of the features of the mendicant movement in the Middle Ages was the promotion of learning. Friars became great teachers and preachers, and study remains an important aspect of the mendicant vocation.

Another feature of the mendicant lifestyle that is very important for the friars is that of ‘itinerancy’. We are not bound to one religious house or one particular ministry. We are free to move to wherever the Church and Society have need of us. Individual friars move between communities as they respond to the needs of the Order.

Furthermore, mendicant communities of service are small, horizontal (less hierarchical), devoted to the poor, and largely based in towns and cities. We friars deliberately seek out poor sinners, as Jesus had done, bringing them hope and self-respect. We friars are itinerant preachers travelling to wherever we were needed. Instead of earning money from lands and rents, we brothers share what little we have and depend upon the providence of God, expressed through the generosity of the people amongst whom we live and serve. We brothers are known as mendicant friars – literally begging brothers – because we ask for donations to sustain us. We mendicants take Jesus’ words in the Gospel very literally, believing that God will provide for our earthly needs, and that ‘the labourer deserves his wages’. We mendicants work hard to serve God and neighbour, preaching and administering the sacraments, teaching and advising the poor, building infrastracture in towns, providing hospitals, and many other forms of apostolate. Many are also great scholars, and continue to revolutionize the universities of the world. This is the whole of the Rule. 

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ANTARVS CASTORIS AMICVS DEI:\>_Dams Up Water, SJ, FMC <Itinerant See of Contemplative and Mendicant Friars, Next Friends of God, Poor Sinners in Christ, autonomous church sui iuris> c/o Weasel Badger Brokerage at Supreme Exchange of Information <newsyllabus.org>