Brother JR, I appreciate much of what you have written but I for one and perhaps others would like to see a little more of your righteous indignation at the lack of leadership of our shepherds…
If I did that, I would be a very poor son of my Holy Father Francis. What would Francis do differently today?
He lived with worse than this and appeared never to say a word. Yet, he reformed the Church. How did he do it? Not through indignation. In fact, he forbade it in his rule.
He tells us something in his rule that is equally applicable to the laity. Our Father, Francis, said that when we run into the sins of the clergy and the hierarchy we were to kiss their hands and venerate them, because only through them could we see the presence of Christ in the most Blessed Sacrament and only through them could we be absolved from our sins.
In another adomonition he reminds his brothers and sisters that they must never show any form of anger, righteous or otherwise. But they must always preach peace, especially inner peace. This peace was built upon trust. He taught us to trust by submitting to the authority of two of the most powerful and questionable popes in history, Innocent III and Honorius III.
What was equally interesting about our father was that while others called a man “Bishop”, Francis called them, “Lord.” He gave them the same title that he gave to Christ, despite their sins and the corruption and heresy that existed among the bishops of his time. He taught us and the people of his time to love and to engineer change, not through indignation, but through great love, great example, great penance, great prayer and great cooperation with the Church.
When the first Secular Franciscans were founded, he commanded them never to engage in a conflict with the bishops. They were to offer their assistance to help resolve problems. Dominic also gave the same rule to the Secular Dominicans, that’s why Catherine wrote her letters. She was a Secular Dominican. She followed this rule that had been written by St. Francis for Penitents and soon adopted by the Dominicans and Carmelites, creating the Secular Carmelite and Dominican Orders alongside the Secular Franciscan Order.
These great secular orders reformed the Church through their holiness. These were lay people who offered their bishops their assistance. They also offered them private and charitable correction. They did not post their concerns where other lay people could see or hear them. That would have been an insult to their founders and contrary to the spirit of peace that their founders asked them to proclaim.
I will not violate the conscience of my superior and founder by doing something contrary to his will. It was the mind of Francis that we control such indignation. It was his mind that we never share such positions in public. It was his mind that we never speak a single word against those who are better than we are.
It was his mind that we communicate our concerns to the porper person, always in the most fraternal language. It was his mind that if the other person, in this case a bishop, did not listen to us, we do one of two things: we either remain at his side as a form of suffering for us that we offer up to the Father in union with Christ’s suffering on the cross or that if we are not allowed to remain by the side of the sinner, that we leave and never speak of it again, but offer it up in prayer and trust God.
The Franciscan’s mission on these forums is to teach how to face these issues with great fraternal love, how to communicate concerns in private to those who need to hear us, not to the rest of the world and to proclaim that God has our best interest at heart. If we do things corectly, offering advise and assitance to those who need it, wait patiently, and offer our pain united to that of Christ on the cross, through the Blessed Sacrament, God will once again reform the Church. He has done so in the past and will do so again.
I cannot go against what I vowed to obey until death, no matter what my feelings and opinions may be. I am nothing. I have no right to opinions and feelings, if I am truly poor. The only opinions and feelings that the Rule of St. Francis allows me to have are the opinions of St. Francis himself. My life is to conform myself to Christ crucified, who took on the sins of humanity and made them his own, freely, out of love. This was the manner of St. Francis.
I have held many aborted children in my hands, held the hands of many mothers and fathers after an abortion, spoken many long hours with those who perform abortions, spent time next to the elderly and sick whose lives have been discarded as no longer having value. I know the urgency of this ministry of life.
But my indignation would only be another nail on the cross, because it would be grave disobedience to my spiritual father and superior. I cannot stand for the Gospel of Life and disobey what I promised to obey until death or forfeit my immortal soul if I disobey.
I too have to sruggle with my own feelings on these issues. I struggle to keep my opinions to myself and to limit myself to offering assistance to the bishops and the laity. I struggle to love and smile at times like this.
Like Christ, I must freely lay down my life for the sake of the unborn, so that the Father can take it up again with Christ’s life. If I were to raise my voice in righteous indignation, then I am not Christ or Francis, I would be singularizing myself. My call is to disappear into the mystery of the cross for the sake of the unborn. That’s the vocation of a Francisan Brother of Life.
Fraternally,
Br. JR, OSF
