Barefoot

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St. Serafina in prayer , oil painting of a Poor Clare from the 18th century by Gian Andrea Lazzarini

Barefoot (Latin: Discalceati , "Unshod", hence also Discalceaten ) is the summary name of some religious orders in the Roman Catholic Church , whose members within the monastery area either wear no shoes or sandals made of leather, straw or wooden shoes.

The practice was justified by Jesus' request to his disciples not to take food, money, shirts, shoes or walking sticks with them when traveling ( Mt 10.10  EU : no shoes; Mk 6.9  EU : sandals ). Biblical statements such as Ex 3.5  EU , 2 Sam 15.30  EU or Isa 20.2–4  EU were used as grounds.

origin

Already St. Francis of Assisi did not wear shoes with his habit . In the reform movement of the Franciscan Order in the 16th century on the Iberian Peninsula , which is called Alcantariner or Discalceaten after its initiator Petrus von Alcantara , walking barefoot played a major role. For the first time it was explicitly prescribed for the convent of the Discalced Carmelites to refrain from wearing shoes , which St. Teresa of Ávila , inspired by her counselor Peter of Alcantara, wanted to bring back to the strictness of the original life. The name of the Theresian reform branch as Ordo Carmelitarum Discalceatorum is derived from this custom . The Rule of St. John, which is the basis of the religious life of the Poor Clares and arose earlier. Clare , on the other hand, only envisaged “simply observing the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ”, which implicitly included the renunciation of shoes and stockings by imitating the way of life of Christ .

Ultimately, this practice was adopted as a sign of evangelical poverty, penance and asceticism in other rules or constitutions of mendicant orders , such as the Mercedarians , Trinitarians and Passionists . In some orders, walking barefoot became a criterion for differentiating between a Reformed branch with stricter observance of the rules of the order and a non-reformed branch. In the meantime, the Discalceates mostly wear sandals or self-made shoes made of straw.

See also

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Karl Suso Frank : Barefoot Order . In: Walter Kasper (Ed.): Lexicon for Theology and Church . 3. Edition. tape 2 . Herder, Freiburg im Breisgau 1994, Sp. 4 .

Web links