Monday, June 3

Today was the liturgical commemoration of the Holy Martyrs of Uganda, Charles Lwanga and Companions. Today’s Mass was presided over by Friar Franco Buonamano, the Minister Provincial of the Italian Province of St. Francis of Assisi (Central Italy). 

Best wish­es were expressed to the Provin­cial Del­e­ga­tion in Ugan­da and to the new­ly elect­ed Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al, Fri­ar Tomasz SZYMCZAK, on the 13^th anniver­sary of his priesthood.
The work of the Chap­ter resumed with Fri­ar Jerzy NOREL of the Province of St. Max­i­m­il­ian M. Kolbe in Poland (Gdańsk) pre­sent­ing Motion No. 2. In it, the Gen­er­al Chap­ter asked the Gov­ern­ment of the Order to con­tin­ue the “St. Bonaven­ture Project”, that is to train and pre­pare new for­ma­tors and ani­ma­tors, for our for­ma­tion cen­ters and for ongo­ing for­ma­tion cours­es pro­mot­ed by the Fed­er­a­tions and by the Order. It also called for col­lab­o­ra­tion among the Order’s Cen­ters of Study, through the inter­change of pro­fes­sors and fri­ars who are experts in var­i­ous dis­ci­plines con­cern­ing the charism, his­to­ry and tra­di­tion of the Order. After some dis­cus­sion, the motion was vot­ed on and approved with some jux­ta modi.
In the after­noon, the Capit­u­lars dis­cussed and vot­ed on some iux­ta modi that had been pre­sent­ed in the pre­vi­ous days. The first to be approved con­cerned any Province which falls below the num­ber of forty solemn­ly pro­fessed fri­ars or the num­ber of five fri­aries. Ordi­nar­i­ly, it shall cease to meet the require­ments of being a Province and shall enter a tran­si­tion phase. In this case, the Min­is­ter Gen­er­al is to pro­ceed towards either its revi­tal­iza­tion or its juridi­cal redefinition.
Anoth­er iux­ta mod­um con­cerned deter­min­ing the spe­cif­ic man­ner of con­tribut­ing towards sol­i­dar­i­ty with­in a Juris­dic­tion. This choice belongs to the Provin­cial or Cus­to­di­al Chap­ter, or to the Min­is­ter Provin­cial with his Defin­i­to­ry, or to the Cus­tos with his Definitory.
An arti­cle was then approved regard­ing the Inter­na­tion­al Assis­tant of the M.I., an office held by the Min­is­ter Gen­er­al. After con­sult­ing with his Defin­i­to­ry, the Min­is­ter Gen­er­al can appoint a fri­ar as his del­e­gate to assist the M.I.
The Capit­u­lars dis­cussed and approved an alter­na­tive text for an arti­cle in the Gen­er­al Statutes that spec­i­fied cer­tain aspects of ini­tial and ongo­ing for­ma­tion. Greater focus is to be placed on the social doc­trine of the Church and its prac­ti­cal, pas­toral and homilet­ic applications.
The Capit­u­lars dis­cussed and approved anoth­er alter­na­tive text in the Gen­er­al Statutes con­cern­ing projects car­ried out by the Order and the Juris­dic­tions.  These must always take into con­sid­er­a­tion the pri­or­i­ty of fol­low­ing Christ in fra­ter­nal life and in formation.
Final­ly, a new text was approved, mak­ing it pos­si­ble for the Min­is­ter Gen­er­al, after con­sult­ing the Fed­er­a­tions, to appoint up to sev­en solemn­ly pro­fessed reli­gious broth­ers, who are not priests, as vot­ing mem­bers in the Gen­er­al Chapter.

Fri­ar Aure­lio ERCOLI, Chronicler

 

Our first read­ing today is tak­en from the Sec­ond Book of Mac­cabees to cel­e­brate the memo­r­i­al of the mar­tyrs Charles Lwan­ga and his com­pan­ions.  It speaks of the moth­er and sev­en broth­ers who die dur­ing the per­se­cu­tion of Anti­ochus Epiphanes as mar­tyrs for the faith.  In the Gospel we hear Jesus tell the dis­ci­ples that they will have trou­ble in the world, but that he has con­quered the world.
Both of these read­ings require us to view things from two points of view:  that which is hap­pen­ing, and at a deep­er spir­i­tu­al lev­el, that which is real­ly hap­pen­ing.  When we become busy with our work, albeit good and wor­thy of praise, and we don’t look at the deep­er lev­el of things, then we are miss­ing the most impor­tant level. 
A broth­er who dies in a star­va­tion bunker in Auschwitz, a saint who loves God, loves his neigh­bors and even his ene­mies til death.  A fri­ar who after many years of being in charge is asked to take anoth­er role in the com­mu­ni­ty that does not involve lead­er­ship, a fri­ar who accepts the change as the will of God and finds mean­ing and val­ue in what­ev­er he is doing.  A fri­ar who can no longer care for him­self and must be helped by oth­ers, a fri­ar who gra­cious­ly accepts the assis­tance from oth­ers and rede­fines his role as giv­ing the broth­ers an oppor­tu­ni­ty to express their love and ser­vice by tak­ing care of him.

It all depends how one looks at it.