Kajetan eater

Kajetan Eßer (also Cajetan and Esser ; born February 28, 1913 in Hamm (Düsseldorf) as Johannes Eßer ; † July 10, 1978 in Mönchengladbach ) was a German Franciscan , historian and Francis researcher .

Life

Johannes Eßer was the second of nine children of the vegetable gardener Wilhelm Eßer and his wife Maria, geb. Weitz; the family lived in Hamm am Rhein ("Kappes-Hamm"), his father was chairman of the district association of vegetable farmers. Johannes, who kept his Rhenish way of speaking throughout his life, first attended the Staatliche Hohenzollern-Gymnasium in Düsseldorf after elementary school up to the lower secondary school. In 1930 he moved to the college of the Cologne Franciscan Province ("Colonia") in Exaten in the Netherlands near Roermond , where he graduated from high school in 1933; his uncle, P. Titus Schwiertz († 1937) was a member of Colonia .

On April 8, 1933, Eßer entered the Franciscan order in Aachen and was given the name of the order Kajetan. During his studies at the Colonia University in Mönchengladbach , he was particularly influenced by the dogmatist and New Testament scholar P. Thaddäus Soiron OFM and the church historian P. Autbert Stroick OFM. On March 5, 1939 he received in Aachen by Bishop Hermann Joseph Sträter the priesthood . After brief study visits to Vienna (1939) and Münster (1940), he was drafted into the Wehrmacht as a medical soldier on May 30, 1940 . He remained a soldier until 1945, most recently as a medical sergeant, but was also active as a pastor. In 1941 he managed to spend a semester off at the University of Cologne. After a brief captivity, he came back to Mönchengladbach on August 18, 1945.

Activity as a lecturer and pastor

Immediately after returning from the war, Kajetan Eßer was appointed by Provincial Minister Cantius Stentz as lecturer for the history of philosophy, church and provincial history at the Provincial Study House in Mönchengladbach; at the same time, he should continue his doctoral studies in Cologne. He completed it on March 1, 1947 “with distinction” with a dissertation on the subject: “The Testament of St. Francis. An Inquiry into Its Authenticity and Meaning ”published in 1949. From 1948 to 1953, in addition to his work at the university, he was the spiritual director of the Christian Workers' Youth (CAJ) in Mönchengladbach, which had asked him to do so. This commitment was reflected in several publications on worker pastoral care. From 1948 he was released from teaching religious and provincial history at his request. In addition to the history of philosophy, he gave lectures on liturgy , and from 1950 he taught sociology instead. With these subjects he remained a lecturer at the religious studies of the Colonia in Mönchengladbach until this was canceled in 1968 in favor of the joint courses offered by the German Franciscan provinces in Munich; in the last three years he also took over lectures on religious and provincial history.

In addition to his work as a lecturer, he worked as a nurse pastor and confessor, especially with the Benedictine nuns of the Mariendonk Abbey (1955–1970), he gave lectures and retreats in 20 other sister communities . At the same time, his religious province made him responsible for leadership tasks throughout: from 1950 to 1953 he was a definitor , from 1953 to 1967 a master's degree for clergy students and above all as a novice master and master's degree for the lay brothers . In 1962 he was transferred to Exaten and was Guardian in the convent there until 1965 , then resident vicar until 1967 . At the end of these multiple burdens, which he did not always accept without contradiction, there was a serious illness in 1967. Against the background of his commitment to lay brothers, he set important impulses in the 1960s for the abolition of the ideal and legal division of the Franciscan order into a community of priests and a - inferior - of lay brothers; Provincial Father Michael Nordhausen (1962–1974) began in the Colonia to dismantle these class barriers. Father Cajetan turned down an offer to head a specialist group “Friars in the Order of the Priests” at the Association of German Superiors , because of overwork.

Franciscan Researches

Shortly before his illness, Kajetan Eßer was able to achieve in his religious province that he was relieved of tasks in the province and was able to focus his work on Franciscan research and the development of a Franciscan model for structural reforms as a result of the Second Vatican Council .

Already during his student days, Kajetan Eßer dealt intensively with extensive literature on Francis of Assisi , as his preserved notes show. In 1948 he wrote to his provincial minister, Fr. Antonellus Engemann: “You know that the decisive task of my life is and remains the service that the person and form of our St. Father Francis will become better known to us so that we can realize his ideals accordingly in our time. ”After his dissertation, the list of his publications includes 56 monographs in various languages ​​and 223 articles in magazines and compilations.

Kajetan Eßer spent the last ten years of his life in the Franciscan Istituto S. Bonaventura in Grottaferrata near Rome after the leadership of the Franciscan order became aware of him. He was unable to accept an invitation to the General Chapter of the Order in 1967 because of his illness. He now devoted himself to a critical edition of the Opuscula (various smaller texts by Francis of Assisi , published in 1976) as well as works on the history of the order. In 1973 he was appointed associate professor and in 1975 professor. Because of his limited knowledge of Italian, he had his lecture manuscripts translated by confreres and read them aloud. For his order he worked in an expert commission of the Vatican Congregation for Religious Affairs and was also active in questions of a post-conciliar reorientation of the orders in the church for the congregation. He suggested aligning the justification of the vows more closely with the statements of the New Testament on charisms and understanding religious life less task-oriented and functional and more as a way of life, no longer shaped by medieval feudal thinking, but more by an "early Christian fraternity".

Kajetan Eßer returned to Germany at the end of 1977. His health deteriorated, he suffered from a curvature of the spine, and he died on July 10, 1978 in Mönchengladbach.

Publications (selection)

• The testament of St. Francis of Assisi. An investigation into its authenticity and its meaning. Münster 1949 (Research on Pre-Reformation History 15).
• [With Lothar Hardick ] The writings of St. Francis of Assisi. (Introduction, translation, evaluation) Werl 1951.
• Religious life of the working people in the climate of our companies. Eschweiler 1956.
• Beginnings and original objectives of the Order of Friars Minor. Leiden 1966.
• [With Engelbert Grau ] Franciscan life. Collected documents. Werl 1968.
• Studies on the Opuscula of St. Francis of Assisi. (Histor. Institute of the Capuchins) Rome 1973.
• Critical research on the Regula non bullata of the Friars Minor. (Ed.Collegii S. Bonaventurae ad Claras Aquas) Grottaferrata (Romae) 1974.
• The Opuscula of St. Francis of Assisi. New text-critical edition (Spicilegium Bonaventurianum, 13), Grottaferrata (Romae) 1976 (2nd edition 1989).

literature

• Herbert Schneider (Ed.): Kajetan Eßer OFM - Life and Work. ( Rhenania Franciscana , Supplement 14) Düsseldorf 1998.
• Damian Rieger: In the service of the person and figure of Francis of Assisi. On the biography of the Franciscan researcher Kajetan Eßer (1913-1978) . In: Leonhard Lehmann (Ed.): The Testament of St. Francis. Life and Rule IV. (= Rule and Life. Materials on Francis Rule 4.) BoD - Books on Demand, Norderstedt 2013, ISBN 978-3-7322-4120-0 . [1]

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Damian Bieger OFM: In the service of the person and figure of Francis of Assisi. On the biography of the Franciscan researcher Kajetan Eßer (1913–1978). In: Leonhard Lehmann (Ed.): The Testament of St. Francis. In memory of Kajetan Eßer OFM (1913–1978) on his 100th birthday. (Rule and Life. Materials on the Francis Rule 4.) 2013, ISBN 978-3-7322-4120-0 , pp. 13–70, here pp. 15–20.33-35.
2. ↑ Damian Bieger OFM: In the service of the person and figure of Francis of Assisi. In: Leonhard Lehmann (Ed.): The Testament of St. Francis. In memory of Kajetan Eßer OFM (1913–1978) on his 100th birthday. 2013, pp. 13–70, here pp. 40f.
3. ↑ Damian Bieger OFM: In the service of the person and figure of Francis of Assisi. In: Leonhard Lehmann (Ed.): The Testament of St. Francis. In memory of Kajetan Eßer OFM (1913–1978) on his 100th birthday. 2013, pp. 13–70, here pp. 42f.52
4. ↑ Damian Bieger OFM: In the service of the person and figure of Francis of Assisi. In: Leonhard Lehmann (Ed.): The Testament of St. Francis. In memory of Kajetan Eßer OFM (1913–1978) on his 100th birthday. 2013, pp. 13–70, here p. 47f. - see. Cajetan Eßer: Thoughts on the Brothers Question. Written in Exaten on May 1, 1962. In: Rhenania Franciscana 39 (1986), pp. 768-772.
5. ↑ Damian Bieger OFM: In the service of the person and figure of Francis of Assisi. In: Leonhard Lehmann (Ed.): The Testament of St. Francis. In memory of Kajetan Eßer OFM (1913–1978) on his 100th birthday. 2013, pp. 13–70, here p. 14f. and note 8; 50f .; bibliographical information according to Brüggemann, ibid. p. 111, note 40.
6. ↑ Damian Bieger OFM: In the service of the person and figure of Francis of Assisi. In: Leonhard Lehmann (Ed.): The Testament of St. Francis. In memory of Kajetan Eßer OFM (1913–1978) on his 100th birthday. 2013, pp. 13–70, here pp. 51f.56-58.60f.