Tuesday June 4

Today, Friar Colin Charles SAMMUT, Vicar of the Province of St. Paul the Apostle in Malta, presided at Mass. 

Fri­ar Jude gave the homi­ly and spoke about the glo­ry of God in the Gospel of John. It cor­re­sponds to the offer­ing that Jesus made of him­self upon the cross. What is the true glo­ry of our Order? We should illu­mi­nate every­thing we say and do with the light of the Gospel.
The work of the Chap­ter began with the pre­sen­ta­tion of Motion No. 3, by Fri­ar Francesco RAVAIOLI from the Ital­ian Province of St. Antho­ny of Pad­ua (North­ern Italy). The Gen­er­al Chap­ter asked the indi­vid­ual Juris­dic­tions to fur­ther study the theme of the fri­ars’ rela­tion­ship, col­lab­o­ra­tion and apos­tolic respon­si­bil­i­ty with the laity. They were asked to con­duct a Provincial/Custodial assem­bly of fri­ars and laity to reflect togeth­er on some com­mon projects of evan­ge­liza­tion. After some dis­cus­sion, the Capit­u­lars vot­ed on and approved the Motion.
Motion No 4 was pre­sent­ed by Fri­ar Rober­to BRANDINELLI, the Vic­ar Provin­cial of the Ital­ian Province of St. Antho­ny of Pad­ua (North­ern Italy). The Gen­er­al Chap­ter asked each Fed­er­a­tion to pro­mote reflec­tion on issues con­cern­ing the cur­rent socio-envi­ron­men­tal cri­sis in the world. Using the Pope’s Encycli­cal Lauda­to si’ as a ref­er­ence point, we are to study its main lines of think­ing and exam­ine ways to con­sol­i­date a com­mon eco­log­i­cal con­science. Each Juris­dic­tion shall then estab­lish its own local cri­te­ria regard­ing issues of jus­tice and mat­ters of envi­ron­men­tal sus­tain­abil­i­ty. Each Juris­dic­tion is to eval­u­ate and man­age its own finan­cial and prop­er­ty assets.
On the same theme, Fri­ar Mau­ro GAMBETTI, the Cus­tos of the Sacred Con­vent of Assisi, pre­sent­ed the “Broth­er Sun Project”. It fos­ters greater respect for envi­ron­ment through the eco­log­i­cal use of ener­gy, water, mate­ri­als that are con­sumed, etc. The result of devot­ing atten­tion to ecol­o­gy also yields eco­nom­ic sav­ings. After some dis­cus­sion, the Capit­u­lars approved the text.
The Motion No. 5 was then pre­sent­ed by Fri­ar Francesco PANIZZOLO, also from Ital­ian Province of St. Antho­ny of Pad­ua (North­ern Italy). In it, the Min­is­ter Gen­er­al with his Defin­i­to­ry, are to car­ry out a reflec­tion on the new forms of social media used by the reli­gious, and then estab­lish guide­lines for using these means of com­mu­ni­ca­tion in a clear and unam­bigu­ous way. After ques­tions, clar­i­fi­ca­tions and dis­cus­sion in the Aula, the text was approved.
In the after­noon, changes were pro­posed for some already-approved arti­cles in the Gen­er­al Statutes. The first item was the inser­tion of new lines of text deal­ing with excep­tion­al cas­es, where the Min­is­ter Gen­er­al with the con­sent of his Defin­i­to­ry can allow the exis­tence of a Cus­tody which, due to spe­cif­ic eccle­sial, socio-polit­i­cal and cul­tur­al con­di­tions, is not capa­ble of becom­ing a Province.
Anoth­er new text con­cerned Provin­cial or Cus­to­di­al Del­e­gates for Jus­tice, Peace and the Integri­ty of Cre­ation. If a Juris­dic­tion can­not iden­ti­fy such a Del­e­gate, one can be nom­i­nat­ed through col­lab­o­ra­tion at the inter-Provin­cial or the Conference/Federation level.
An alter­na­tive text was approved which con­cerned excep­tion­al cas­es, where for the good of the Province or Cus­tody, the Min­is­ter Gen­er­al, with the con­sent of his Defin­i­to­ry, may antic­i­pate or post­pone the Provin­cial or Cus­to­di­al Chap­ter by a peri­od greater than six months.
The final vote of the day con­cerned the “fri­ary chron­i­cler”. Until now, this posi­tion did not exist in either the Con­sti­tu­tions or the Gen­er­al Statutes. This leg­isla­tive gap was then filled by approv­ing the exis­tence of the office.

Fri­ar Aure­lio ERCOLI, Chronicler

 

In the Gospel, we hear Jesus pray to the Father that he might be giv­en glo­ry.  Nor­mal­ly we define glo­ry as pow­er or mag­nif­i­cence.  In the Gospel of John, glo­ry is the out­pour­ing of love.  The hour of glo­ry is the cross.  The glo­ry which the Father will give the Son is the call to die to him­self so that we all might live in his love.
At times we hear the expres­sion, the glo­ry of the Order.  Does this mean how many saints we have had, how many insti­tu­tions we run, how many schol­ars we have pro­duced?  Or does it mean how much each of us is will­ing to die to self?  How much each of us is will­ing to sac­ri­fice what is com­fort­able for what is lov­ing?  How much are will­ing to sac­ri­fice our dreams and hopes for the good of the Order?  How much do we real­ly believe that our minori­tas is an expres­sion of the glo­ry of God?

Father, glo­ri­fy our children!