Monday, May 27

Today’s Mass was presided over by the former Minister General, Friar Marco TASCA. Friar Jude delivered the homily. In it, he compared the lives of the soon to-be-elected Assistants General to the lives of the Apostles. 

The Apos­tles were always trav­el­ing to pro­claim the Gospel. This is not always a bless­ing, but it is true that the fri­ars need to feel they have a close rela­tion with the gov­ern­ment of the Order, so that they may always see them­selves with­in the fra­ter­ni­ty of the Order.
In the Chap­ter audi­to­ri­um, best wish­es were expressed to Fri­ar Tomasz WĘZIK on his 51^st birth­day, which actu­al­ly fell on Sun­day. Sun­day was also the 18^th anniver­sary of the priest­hood for Fri­ar Mateusz STACHOWSKI. Today, Mon­day , is the 30^th anniver­sary of the priest­hood for Fri­ar Marek WILK, as well as the 19^th anniver­sary of the priest­hood for Fri­ars Stanisław KAWA and Fri­ar Dar­ius MAZUREK.
The elec­tion of the Gen­er­al Defin­i­to­ry was next. We should remind you that the office of Defin­i­tor is incom­pat­i­ble with any oth­er office in a par­tic­u­lar Juris­dic­tion. Once some nec­es­sary paper­work had been com­plet­ed, the Capit­u­lars began voting.

The Vic­ar Gen­er­al was elect­ed first. He is Fri­ar Jan MACIEJOWSKI, the cur­rent Min­is­ter Provin­cial of the Province of St. Max­i­m­il­ian M. Kolbe in Poland (Gdańsk).
Fri­ar Tomasz SZYMCZAK, the cur­rent Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al of the Chap­ter, a mem­ber of the Province of the Immac­u­late Moth­er of God in Poland (War­saw) was elect­ed a Gen­er­al Defin­i­tor and pro­posed for the office of Sec­re­tary General.
Fri­ar Gio­van­ni VOLTAN, the cur­rent Min­is­ter Provin­cial of the Ital­ian Province of St. Antho­ny of Pad­ua (North­ern Italy) was elect­ed Assis­tant Gen­er­al for the Fed­er­azione Inter-mediter­ranea Min­istri Provin­ciali (FIMP).
Fri­ar Tomáš LESŇÁK, the cur­rent Provin­cial Cus­tos of the Provin­cial Cus­tody of the Immac­u­late Con­cep­tion of the B.V.M. in Slo­va­kia was elect­ed Assis­tant Gen­er­al for the Foed­er­a­tio Europae Medi­ae et Ori­en­tal­is (FEMO). Then, Fri­ar Bene­dict Seung-jae BAEK, the cur­rent Assis­tant Gen­er­al for the Fed­er­a­tion of Asian Minors Con­ven­tu­al (FAMC) was con­firmed for anoth­er term.
Fri­ar Jude Mar­tin WINKLER, the Assis­tant Gen­er­al for the Con­ven­tu­al Fran­cis­can Fed­er­a­tion (CFF) was also confirmed.
In the after­noon, Fri­ar Dominique Joseph MATHIEU of the Provin­cial Cus­tody of the Ori­ent and the Holy Land was elect­ed Assis­tant Gen­er­al for the Cen­tralis Europae Foed­er­a­tio (CEF). Since he was not part of the Chap­ter, he accept­ed the office to which he was called by telephone.
Fri­ar Rogério Pereira XAVIER of the Province of St. Fran­cis in Brazil was elect­ed Assis­tant Gen­er­al for the Fed­eración Améri­ca Lati­na Con­ven­tuales (FALC).
Fri­ar Antho­ny Bezo KUTIERO, the cur­rent Provin­cial Cus­tos of the Provin­cial Cus­tody of St. Antho­ny of Pad­ua in Ghana was elect­ed Assis­tant Gen­er­al for the African Fed­er­a­tion of Con­ven­tu­al Fran­cis­cans (AFCOF).
The last vote was for the Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al; Fri­ar Tomasz SZYMCZAK who had been pro­posed in the morn­ing, was elected.

Tomor­row, Tues­day, May 28, will be ded­i­cat­ed to trans­fer­ring the Capit­u­lars and all the mate­r­i­al for the Chap­ter to Coll­e­valen­za, Italy. The work of the Chap­ter will be post­poned until Wednes­day, when the dis­cus­sion of the Gen­er­al Statutes will begin.

Fri­ar Aure­lio ERCOLI, Chronicler

 

Last week I spoke a bit of the cost of being the Min­is­ter Gen­er­al, that he must learn more and more to die to him­self.  Today we are choos­ing his defin­i­to­ry.  The First Read­ing pro­vides a bit of insight into the life that we are ask­ing them to lead.  Paul trav­els from Troas to Samoth­race to Neapo­lis to Philip­pi.  Most of the defin­i­tors will be liv­ing on the road because it is impor­tant for them to be with the fri­ars.  There was one time in this past man­date that I looked up at the screen with depar­tures and arrivals and I had to ask myself, “Am I com­ing or going?” 
But wher­ev­er they are, they will be asked to give wit­ness.  In the Gospel Jesus reminds his dis­ci­ples that there is a cost to this.  The dis­ci­ples were to be thrown out of the syn­a­gogue.  The assis­tants will at times have to suf­fer for giv­ing wit­ness to the truth.  And the great­est suf­fer­ing will sure­ly be the cost of their own con­ver­sion, for they must con­tin­u­al­ly puri­fy their hearts and inten­tions to make sure that it is the Gospel they are preach­ing and not their own agen­da.  But Jesus promis­es his dis­ci­ples and our­selves that he will send the Holy Spirit.

May the men we choose today be men of Spir­it and Life.