Tuesday, May 21

Friar Jerzy Norel, the Vicar General, presided over today’s Mass. During the Mass, he expressed his best wishes to the Minister Provincial of Germany, Friar Bernhardin M. SEITHER, on the 8^th anniversary of his priestly ordination.

Fri­ar Jude deliv­ered the homi­ly and spoke about the gift of peace that comes from the Lord. With the Lord’s gift of grace, we can over­come all uncer­tain­ty and fears in order to face the future that awaits us. Some Capit­u­lars “will not be return­ing home” after the Chap­ter; in the sense, of course, that they may be elect­ed to a post in the Gen­er­al Curia in Rome. Yet despite this, we must be assured of the pres­ence of the Lord who guides us and who gives us his courage. We must not fear. Indeed, we must be strong in accept­ing any obe­di­ence, as the great­est blessing.
The meet­ing in the Chap­ter audi­to­ri­um began with a video by the Gen­er­al Del­e­gate for Com­mu­ni­ca­tions, Fri­ar Ryszard WRÓBEL. The video showed the begin­ning of the Chap­ter and the smil­ing faces of the Capitulars.
Then, the Min­is­ter Gen­er­al was asked ques­tions about his report. In par­tic­u­lar, the Capit­u­lars focused on the rela­tion­ship of dia­logue and col­lab­o­ra­tion with the Min­is­ters Gen­er­al of the oth­er Fran­cis­can fam­i­lies. Fri­ar Mar­co replied that rela­tions are excel­lent now, but no new struc­tures have been cre­at­ed. How­ev­er, this dia­logue as already pro­duced results, such as the new, inter-obe­di­en­tial com­mu­ni­ty of Emmaus, which we found­ed joint­ly with the Fri­ars Minor. It has been placed under the care of their Cus­tody of the Holy Land.
At the same time, the Capit­u­lars took great inter­est in the mis­sion ad gentes. Although it may be true that our more ancient Juris­dic­tions lack the mis­sion­ary fer­vor they once had, Fri­ar Mar­co remind­ed us that it is equal­ly true that our younger Juris­dic­tions are enthu­si­as­tic about bring­ing our charism to neigh­bor­ing countries.
The Min­is­ter Gen­er­al then pre­sent­ed some ideas about how we can bet­ter pro­gram our com­mu­ni­ties in the future, which are often engulfed by too many com­mit­ments. We need fri­aries that pro­vide an oppor­tu­ni­ty for an authen­tic fra­ter­nal life, which pro­vide a wit­ness of fam­i­ly. If we do good works only as indi­vid­u­als, but not togeth­er, we have dero­gat­ed from our Fran­cis­can iden­ti­ty. In the new evan­ge­liza­tion we must also strength­en our rela­tion­ship with the laity in order to give them a real role in the Church’s mission.
In the after­noon, Fri­ar Mau­r­izio DI PAOLO, the Procu­ra­tor Gen­er­al, pre­sent­ed his report. His office con­cerns the rela­tion­ship between our Order and the Holy See. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, much of his work is about resolv­ing prob­lems with con­fr­eres who wish, or who are oblig­ed, to depart their voca­tion. The num­ber of defec­tions is high, both in terms of fri­ars who incar­di­nate into dio­ce­ses and those who return to the lay state. There­fore, Fri­ar Mau­r­izio hopes we will fos­ter greater dis­cern­ment in the fri­ars’ for­ma­tion process.
Final­ly a dis­cus­sion was held between the Capit­u­lars and the Procu­ra­tor Gen­er­al. Nat­u­ral­ly, every­one was inter­est­ed in the dif­fer­ent sit­u­a­tions that led to fri­ars aban­don­ing their voca­tions. Unfor­tu­nate­ly it is dif­fi­cult to read what the par­tic­u­lar social or per­son­al moti­va­tions might have been. We must there­fore regard these sit­u­a­tions with the eyes of faith, because the author of any voca­tion is always the Lord.

Fri­ar Aure­lio ERCOLI, Chronicler

 

In our Gospel this morn­ing we hear the promise that Jesus will bring us his peace, his Shalom.  This is not an arti­fi­cial peace in which there is an absence of open vio­lence and aggres­sion.  This is a peace that is so pro­found that even nature will sense it for the lion will lie down with the lamb.
The source of that peace is trust in the mes­sage and mis­sion of Jesus.  In the Gospel of John, we hear that Jesus came into the world to teach us who God is and what he wants of us. 
Chap­ter times are always times of ten­sion and anx­i­ety for the fri­ars.  What will hap­pen to the Order?  Where will I be after the chap­ter?  What sort of deci­sions will be made for the future?
This past month I have been read­ing the say­ing of Epicte­tus, a Sto­ic philoso­pher from the end of the first and begin­ning of the sec­ond cen­tu­ry AD.  He reminds his lis­ten­ers over and over again to trust in God’s plans. 
Yes, we have to think of the future, but we have to remem­ber that God will lead us into that future.  God has a plan for us as an Order and as indi­vid­u­als.  If we embrace God’s plan, and not our own, we will find his peace. 

May God’s peace be with you!