Third Order of Saint Francis

The Third Order of Saint Francis, or Franciscan Tertiaries, is the third order of the Franciscan tradition of Christianity, founded by the medieval Italian Catholic friar St. Francis of Assisi.
Francis founded the Third Order, originally called the Brothers and Sisters of Penance, in 1221, to accommodate men and women who, either from already being in consecrated life as hermits, or from being married, were ineligible to join the Franciscan First or Second Orders, respectively. In this way, they could live their lives affiliated to the Franciscan vision of the Gospel.
The Order is divided into two different branches, each with its own Rule of Life:
1) The Third Order Secular, now called the Secular Franciscan Order, who belong to local fraternities. These members do not wear a religious habit, take promises rather than religious vows, and do not live in community, but gather together in fellowship on a regular basis. They can be married, single or clergy. They were the original third branch and were reorganized and renamed in 1978, with the approval of Pope Paul VI.
2) The friars and women religious of the Third Order Regular, who take religious vows and live in community. They grew out of the original third order and took on characteristics similar to the Franciscans of the first and second orders. The original TOR Franciscans have since spawned various Third Order Regular congregations, and others have been founded independently.
The Lutheran and Anglican traditions also have Franciscan Third Orders.

History

Tertiaries, or what are known as "Third Orders", are those who live according to the Third Rule of religious orders, either inside or outside of a religious community. The idea which forms the basis of this institute is to allow those who cannot enter a religious order to enjoy the advantages and privileges of religious orders.
When the immediate disciples of the saint had become an order bound by the religious vows, it became necessary to provide for the great body of laity—married men and women who could not leave the world or abandon their avocations, but still were part of the Franciscan movement and desired to carry out its spirit and teaching. And so, around 1221, Francis drew up a Rule for those of his followers who were debarred from being members of the order of Friars Minor. At first they were called "Brothers and Sisters of the Order of Penance", but later on, when the friars were called the "First Order" and the Poor Clare nuns the "Second Order", the Order of Penance became the "Third Order of St. Francis", whence the name Tertiaries. According to the traditions of the Order, the original Rule was given by St. Francis in 1221 to a married couple, Luchesius Modestini and his wife, Buonadonna, who wished to follow him but did not feel called to separate as a married couple.
Francis was assisted by his friend Cardinal Ugolino di Conti in the creation of the order. Immediately on its establishment in 1221, the Third Order spread rapidly all over Italy and throughout western Europe. It embraced multitudes of men and women from all ranks of society. Everywhere it was connected closely with the First Order.
Because of the prohibition of bearing arms, the followers of this order came into conflict with local authorities and the feudal system of Italy, which customarily required men to carry arms for service in militias or for their lords. By the thirteenth century, local Third Order Confraternities with variations had been established. In 1289, Pope Nicholas IV confirmed the religious order in the bull Supra montem, and put the Third Order under the care of the Friars Minor.
The Third Order was created by Francis of Assisi, and was the exemplar after which the others were fashioned. An early date the other Mendicant Orders formed Third Orders of a similar nature, and so there came into being Dominican Tertiaries, and Carmelite, Augustinian, Servite, Premonstratensian, and many others. These followed the same lines of development as the Franciscan Tertiaries.
By the fifteenth century, numerous individuals living under the Rule of the Third Order were living in small communities and leading eremitical lives. A papal decree of 1447 organized the more isolated communities into a new and separate religious order with its own rule of life, the Third Order Regular of Saint Francis of Penance. The Third Order became defined between the Third Order Regular, and the Third Order Secular, for those members of the Order who lived in the world. The Rules of the various Third Orders have proved very adaptable to the needs of modern congregations devoted to active works of charity, so a great number of teaching and nursing congregations of women belonged to one or other of the Third Orders.
The Franciscan Third Order was always the principal one. In 1883, it received a great impetus and a renewed vogue from Pope Leo XIII in his approval of a new Rule for the seculars. In 1901, Paul Sabatier published a Rule of Life of the Brothers and Sisters of Penance, which probably contained the substance of the original Rule of 1221, albeit with additions. It prescribed severe simplicity of dress and of life, abstinence, prayers and other religious exercises. It also forbade theatre attendance, the bearing of arms, and the taking of oaths except when administered by magistrates.
In the nineteenth century, many new congregations adopted the Rule of the Third Order without connection with the First Order. In 1978, Pope Paul VI caused the Rules for regulars and seculars to be recast and made more suitable for the requirements of devout men and women at the present day. The secular wing of the Order was renamed as the Secular Franciscan Order.
After the Reformation, Franciscan Third Orders aligned with the Lutheran Churches and Anglican Communion were organized, such as the Evangelical Franciscans Tertiaries, which was founded in 1927 by Friedrich Heiler, a Lutheran priest in Germany.

Catholicism

Secular Franciscans

The Secular Franciscan Order, formerly the Third Order Secular, allows both laypeople and diocesan priests to join. A number of Popes have also been members of this Order. Members of the Secular Franciscan Order are not required to live in religious community, but meet in community regularly. Professed members use the letters OFS after their name. Presently there are about 350,000 members worldwide.
The current rule was given by Pope Paul VI in 1978 with the ecclesiastical letter Seraphicus Patriarcha to adapt the Secular Franciscan Order to twentieth-century needs. Under the new Rule, the tertiaries of the Franciscan movement were set up as an autonomous Order, with their own Minister General as head and became a fully recognized order within the Catholic Church. The order's name was changed from the Third Order Secular to the Secular Franciscan Order.

Third Order Regular

The origin of the Third Order Regular can be traced back to the second half of the thirteenth century. It was organized, in different forms, in the Netherlands, the south of France, Germany, and Italy. Probably some secular tertiaries, who in many cases had their house of meeting, gradually withdrew entirely from the world and formed religious communities, but without the three substantial vows of religious orders. Other religious associations such as the Beguines and Beghards in the Low Countries sometimes became Third Orders.
Throughout the fourteenth century, the regular tertiaries of both sexes had in the most cases no common organization; only in the following century did single well-ordered religious communities with solemn vows and a common head develop, such as the Third Order Regular of Saint Francis of Penance. Pope Martin V submitted in 1428 all tertiaries, regular and secular, to the direction of the Minister General of the Friars Minor, but this disposition was soon revoked by his successor Pope Eugene IV. Pope Leo X, to introduce uniformity into the numerous congregations, gave a new form to the rule in 1521. It retained the rule as published by Nicholas IV all that could serve the purpose, but added new points, such as the three solemn vows and insisting on subjection to the First Order of St. Francis. For this last disposition the Rule of Leo X was met with resistance, and never was accepted by some congregations.
More than 448 congregations profess the "Rule and Life of the Brothers and Sisters of the Third Order Regular of St. Francis." There are 18 male congregations of Tertiary Franciscans, 370 congregations of Franciscan Sisters and 60 monasteries of cloistered nuns. The Third Order congregations of men and women number over 200,000.
A new rule, written by friars and sisters of various congregations, was approved by Pope Paul VI in 1978. It is the current rule followed by all congregations of the Third Order Regular.

Congregations of friars

It was not until the fifteenth century that there developed single, well-ordered religious communities with solemn vows and a common head. In the fifteenth century there were numerous independent male congregations of regular tertiaries with the three vows in Italy, Sicily, Dalmatia, Spain, Portugal, France, Germany, and in the Netherlands.
The Obregonians, or the "Minim Congregation of Poor Brothers Infirmarians", were a small Spanish Roman Catholic congregation of men dedicated to the nursing care of the sick. The congregation ceased to exist around the time of the Peninsular War.

Germany

The Congregation of the Brothers of the Poor of St. Francis was founded on December 25, 1857, at Aachen by John Hoever for the protection and education of poor, homeless boys. In 1866, it was introduced into the United States. Through the generosity of Sarah Worthington Peter, orphanages for boys were established in Teutopolis, Illinois; Detroit, Michigan; Cincinnati, Ohio and Cold Spring, Kentucky. The orders motherhouse remains in Aachen and maintains houses in Brazil, Holland, and the United States.
The Franciscan Brothers of the Holy Cross were founded by Brother James Wirth in 1862 in Hausen, Germany, to care for orphans, the poor, the sick, and the suffering. In 1891, three Brothers settled in Bad Kreuznach, where they eventually took over a local hospital, now known as St. Marienwörth. The Brothers were invited to come to the Diocese of Springfield, Illinois in 1928 to establish a Monastery and a Trade School. St. Joseph's motherhouse is in Hausen.