Hello everyone. We’re starting to get excited here. The Solemnity of St. Francis (on the Franciscan calendar) is around the corner.
Two of the aspirants are going to put together the Transitus. I’m really happy that you young men have volunteered to do this. I’ll be guiding them, because they have never done it before. The Transitus of St. Francis is very much like the liturgy of Good Friday. It’s celebrated after Vespers on Oct 3. Of course the solemnity is on the 4th.
We’ve opened the doors for our lay friends and relatives to come celebrate with us. We’ve even put together a bilingual video on our way of life. Once Brother R says that we can go public with it, I’ll share the link with all of you.
I have a number of prayer intentions, so take out your pens.
The SSPX – I saw the news that the leadership has been at the Vatican at a meeting with the CDF. Let’s pray that slowly, but surely there is a reconciliation. The life of the Church is very fragile right now. It’s not the time to engage in petty politics over what bishop likes the TLM and which one does not, nor over what nasty comment the SSPX leadership made about the pope. At the end of the day, all of that will pass away. It’s time to build from our common ground and chip away at the disagreements, slowly, carefully, always with generous charity and restrained indignation, just like God acts with us.
My next prayer intention is for the LCWR – what I’m hearing is unfortunate. I know that there is always the case where the media likes to throw fuel on the fire, because it sells. I’m not naive. I know that the noise is not being made by 60,000 sisters, but by a handful who were placed there to represent the 60,000 and are not doing a good job of it. Sounds like our Congress, doesn’t it? We need to pray that two things will happen. First, that these leaders will put aside their pride and their frustration with the Church, instead try to work with the Church. Much of what we see in sisters today is cause by pent up frustration from the past. Observe that the younger communities don’t suffer from t he same negativity. At the same time, the younger communities did not suffer at the hands of diocesan priests who did not understand religious life and the laymen that these priests used to keep religious under their thumb. I’m not a conspiracy theorist. But I was around then. That’s why I left religious life the first time. One felt as if one were going to suffocate, because only the priests had good ideas, only priests understood the faith, only priests had a voice and a vote in policies and only priests controlled much of the resources in parishes. You couldn’t open your mouth unless your were spoken to first, unless you were a diocesan priest.
I disagree with the behavior of the LCWR. I disagree with the manner in which some of these individuals express their indignation and their hurt. It’s inappropriate. Sometimes, you just have to let things go and let God sort them out in his own time. That’s the true meaning of forgiveness. My request is that the sisters and the hierarchy will come to the table, not as academics working on a theology assignment about the ordination of women or some other goofy subject. MY prayer is that they come to the table looking to be reunited as younger brothers and sisters of Christ. If that attitude can be nurtured, the conversation about the more controversial subjects will go much easier.
**Franciscans and Carmelites **-- October is the month when Franciscans and Discalced Carmelites celebrate their roots. St. Francis on Oct 4 and St. Teresa of Avila on Oct 15. These two families have much to offer the Church. I think the best thing that we have to offer the the Church is a example of fidelity and detachment. Albeit, there are always individuals who are less faithful and more attached to earthly things. But as families go, these two families have made significant contributions to the payer life of the Church, the Church’s outreach to the poor and erection of the Church in foreign lands. Just look at the Southwestern USA. From TX to CA it was all Franciscan missions. Our Lady of Guadalupe sent her message to a Franciscan bishop. The two great martyrs of the Holocaust, Edith Stein and Maximilian Kolbe were Carmelite and Franciscan.
My prayer request is that God will bless my Franciscan and Carmelite brothers and sisters and me with the courage and the strength to be faithful and to tolerate the hard stuff, just like St. Max and St. Teresa Benedicta.
