Saturday, May 25

At 7:30 a.m., the friars celebrated Mass presided over by the most senior member of the Chapter, Friar Wayne HELLMANN, the Minister Provincial of the Province of Our Lady of Consolation in the USA. 

Fri­ar Jude deliv­ered the homi­ly. In it, he remind­ed the Capit­u­lars, that today, more than ever, they need to lis­ten to the Holy Spir­it, so that the Min­is­ter Gen­er­al may be cho­sen accord­ing to God’s will.
Fri­ar Jobe ABBASS was con­grat­u­lat­ed on the 34^th anniver­sary of his priest­ly ordi­na­tion as was Fri­ar Jan MACIEJOWSKI, the Min­is­ter Provin­cial of the Province of St. Max­i­m­il­ian M. Kolbe in Poland (Gdańsk) on the 23^rd anniver­sary of his priest­ly ordi­na­tion; and Fri­ar Tomasz WĘZIK on the 17^th anniver­sary of his priest­ly ordination.
The Chap­ter assem­bly began with the read­ing of a mes­sage of best wish­es from the May­or of Assisi, Mrs. Ste­fa­nia PROIETTI. Then, Fri­ar Wayne HELLMANN start­ed the vot­ing to elect the 120^th Min­is­ter General.
Fri­ar Car­los Alber­to TROVARELLI, the cur­rent Assis­tant Gen­er­al for the Fed­eración Améri­ca Lati­na Con­ven­tuales (FALC) was elect­ed Min­is­ter Gen­er­al on the third bal­lot. Fri­ar Car­los belongs to the reli­gious “Rio­platense” Province of St. Antho­ny of Pad­ua in Argenti­na and Uruguay. He was born in Cin­co Saltos (Rio Negro), Argenti­na, on June 22, 1962. He made his solemn pro­fes­sion on Octo­ber 4, 1990, and was ordained to the priest­hood on March 25, 1995.
The new­ly elect­ed Min­is­ter Gen­er­al accept­ed the office and took the floor to ask the Lord and the con­fr­eres for help in car­ry­ing out this weighty commitment.
The fri­ars sang the hymn of thanks­giv­ing “Te Deum” as they solemn­ly processed to the Tomb of St. Fran­cis of Assisi. There, the new­ly elect­ed Min­is­ter Gen­er­al made his pro­fes­sion of faith and swore obe­di­ence to the Pope and the Holy Church. As a sign of obe­di­ence to Fri­ar Car­los, the fri­ars each embraced him, wish­ing him Peace and All Good. Final­ly “Salve Sancte Pater” was sung and the Min­is­ter Gen­er­al gave his solemn bless­ing while hold­ing a rel­ic of the Seraph­ic Father.
In the after­noon, the Capit­u­lars returned to the Chap­ter audi­to­ri­um. The Min­is­ter Gen­er­al asked the Coe­tus­es to meet and choose three fri­ars from each Fed­er­a­tion to pro­pose for the office of Area Assis­tant. The three fri­ars should be equal­ly qual­i­fied and belong to sep­a­rate Juris­dic­tions. These three pro­pos­als will cre­ate a wider pool of suit­able fri­ars from which to choose. It will make it eas­i­er for the Min­is­ter Gen­er­al to form his new Gen­er­al Defin­i­to­ry. The Capit­u­lars will vote on the Gen­er­al Defin­i­tors on Monday.

Fri­ar Aure­lio ERCOLI, Chronicler

 

Lat­er today we will choose our Min­is­ter Gen­er­al.  I will base this reflec­tion on the first read­ing and not on the Gospel because the mes­sage, that we will be hat­ed, even if it might be true, is a bit too neg­a­tive for today.
In the first read­ing, we hear how the Church is grow­ing under the guid­ance of the Holy Spir­it.  Paul even hears the voice of that Spir­it in a dream in which he is called to pro­claim the Gospel in Mace­do­nia.  He respond­ed imme­di­ate­ly and sailed to Greece.
I am not say­ing that we should vote for the one about whom we had a dream last night.  But we must read all of the signs that the Spir­it is giv­ing us.  I will repeat some­thing I said six years ago on the day when we re-elect­ed fri­ar Mar­co to be the Min­is­ter Gen­er­al.  We are not choos­ing.  It is the Spir­it who is choos­ing, and our duty is to dis­cern that choice and embrace it.  This week we have dis­cussed the Order and where it is today.  We have spo­ken among our­selves about what the Order needs for the future.  Now, lis­ten­ing to the Spir­it speak­ing in our hearts, to our true Min­is­ter Gen­er­al, the Holy Spir­it , we entrust our Order to his guidance.