Written as a companion volume to Women of the Streets: Early Franciscan Women and their Mendicant Vocation (Franciscan Institute Publications, 2010), Enduring Presence offers grittier stories of the faith journeys of lay men and lay women who helped create the Franciscan charism in the first generations of the Franciscan movement. Their unique contributions as "somatic theologians" or people who contributed to the Franciscan intellectual tradition by how they lived out the theology and spirituality are mapped out here in this volume and include work, marriage, hospitality, and service as spiritual practice. ABOUT THE FRANCISCAN HERITAGE SERIES: This is the tenth in a series intended to encompass topics which will connect the Franciscan Intellectual Tradition with today's language of our Christian Catholic Franciscan way of Gospel Life. Previous volumes have presented an overview of the tradition, discussed dimensions of creation and Christian anthropology in Franciscan theology, and illustrated them through an iconographic tradition found in the Gospel of John. It is our hope that Understanding John Duns Scotus: 'Of Realty the Rarets-veined Unfraveller' – just as the sermons, commentaries, and treatises of Bonaventure, Scotus, or Ockham – will add to our understanding of the Franciscan intellectual tradition because these stories reveal how creation is a sacrament of God's loving presence and the first book of revelation.
