Purity And Perfection Has Begun To Decline

Now for some, purity and perfection has begun to decline, although many offer as an excuse the great number of the friars, saying that this is why they cannot observe this ideal. Furthermore, many friars have become so blind as to imagine that people will be edified and turned to devotion by their present ways rather than by the former, and they imagine that they are living more sensibly this way. They despise and disregard the way of holy simplicity and poverty, which is the first principle and foundation of our Order.

Saint Francis of Assisi
Mirror of Perfection - 71

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