page_title: Franciscans
section_title: Third Order Regular
hierarchical_section_title: Franciscans / Contemporary organizations / Third Order / Third Order Regular
context_page_description: The Franciscans are a group of related mendicant religious orders within the Catholic Church, founded in 1209 by Saint Francis of Assisi. These orders include the Order of Friars Minor, the Order of Saint Clare, and the Third Order of Saint Francis. They adhere to the teachings and spiritual disciplines of the founder and of his main associates and followers, such as Clare of Assisi, Anthony of Padua, and Elizabeth of Hungary, among many others.
  Francis began preaching around 1207 and traveled to Rome to seek approval from Pope Innocent III in 1209 to form a new religious order. The original Rule of Saint Francis approved by the Pope did not allow ownership of property, requiring members of the order to beg for food while preaching. The austerity was meant to emulate the life and ministry of Jesus Christ. Franciscans traveled and preached in the streets, while staying in church properties. Saint Clare, under Francis's guidance, founded the Poor Clares in 1212, which remains a Second Order of the Franciscans.
  The extreme poverty required of members was relaxed in the final revision of the Rule in 1223.
context_section_description: Within a century of the death of St. Francis, members of the Third Order began to live in common, in an attempt to follow a more ascetical way of life. The Blessed Angela of Foligno (+1309) was foremost among those who achieved great depths in their lives of prayer and service of the poor, while living in community with other women of the Order.
  Among the men, the Third Order Regular of St. Francis of Penance was formed in 1447 by a papal decree that united several communities of hermits following the Third Order Rule into a single Order with its own Minister General. Today it is an international community of friars who desire to emphasize the works of mercy and on-going conversion. The community is also known as the Franciscan Friars, TOR, and they strive to "rebuild the Church" in areas of high school and college education, parish ministry, church renewal, social justice, campus ministry, hospital chaplaincies, foreign missions, and other ministries in places where the Church is needed.
  Following the formal recognition of the members of religious tertiary communities, the following centuries saw a steady growth of such communities across Europe. Initially, the women's communities took a monastic form of life, either voluntarily or under pressure from ecclesiastical superiors. The great figure of this development was St. Hyacintha Mariscotti, TOR. As Europe entered the upheavals of the modern age, new communities arose which were able to focus more exclusively on social service, especially during the immediate post-Napoleonic period which devastated much of Western Europe. An example of this is the Blessed Mary Frances Schervier, SPSF.
caption: Blessed Mary Frances Schervier (1819–1876) was a member of the Third Order of St. Francis who became the foundress of the Poor Sisters of St. Francis, founded to serve the needy.
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