Wednesday, May 22

Today, we remembered St. Rita of Cascia. This evening, we entrusted ourselves to the protection of the Order’s Saints and Blesseds. 

Fri­ar Vin­cen­zo MARCOLI, the Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al, presided over this morning’s Mass. Dur­ing the Mass, he men­tioned the 20^th anniver­sary of priest­ly ordi­na­tion of Fri­ar Dar­iusz SZYMBORSKI, the Provin­cial Cus­tos of the Provin­cial Cus­tody of St. Max­i­m­il­ian M. Kolbe in Tanzania.
Fri­ar Jude deliv­ered the homi­ly. In it, he drew a par­al­lel between the First Coun­cil of Jerusalem and our Chap­ter. Like the Apos­tles, the Capit­u­lars must also seek the truth in the Spir­it. To do this, they should lis­ten to the opin­ions of oth­ers with­out want­i­ng to dom­i­nate them. Each Capit­u­lar should lis­ten to his broth­er; he may learn some­thing impor­tant from him.
The work in the Chap­ter audi­to­ri­um began with the dis­tri­b­u­tion of spe­cial gifts from the Pos­tu­la­tor Gen­er­al. Fri­ar Dami­an-Ghe­o­rghe PĂTRAŞCU gave each par­tic­i­pant a rel­ic of our Mar­tyr Blessed Car­los de Dios MURIAS. Then Fri­ar Ger­mano TOGNETTI, the Gen­er­al Del­e­gate for the Sec­ond Order and Affil­i­at­ed Insti­tu­tions, deliv­ered his report. He spoke about the impor­tance of the Poor Clares whose voca­tions are com­ple­men­tary to ours. He men­tioned the prob­lems that many monas­ter­ies face, such as, hav­ing few­er nuns and the aging of the sisters.
Next, Fri­ar Alfred PARAMBAKATHU, the Gen­er­al Assis­tant for the Sec­u­lar Fran­cis­can Order (OFS), made his report. He con­firmed the excel­lent col­lab­o­ra­tion with the Assis­tants of the oth­er Fran­cis­can fam­i­lies and the need to teach young fri­ars about the OFS and its development.
Fri­ar Raf­faele DI MURO, the Inter­na­tion­al Pres­i­dent of the Mili­tia of the Immac­u­late (M.I.), spoke next. Among oth­er things, he talked about the late Pres­i­dent of the Asso­ci­a­tion, Mrs. Raf­fael­la AGUZZONI, who passed away on Novem­ber 5, 2015. He also men­tioned the 100^th anniver­sary cel­e­bra­tions for the found­ing of the M.I., which were held dur­ing 2016 and 2017.
The Chap­ter Sec­re­tary announced the death of our con­frere Fri­ar Giuseppe UNGARO, of the Ital­ian Province of St. Antho­ny of Pad­ua (North­ern Italy). Fri­ar Giuseppe was born in Pad­ua on May 27, 1919. He made his solemn pro­fes­sion on April 10, 1941, and was ordained to the priest­hood on June 6, 1943.
Fri­ar Nico­la ROSA, the Gen­er­al Econom, read out his report and illus­trat­ed it with a Pow­er­Point pre­sen­ta­tion. The Capit­u­lars then entered into a dis­cus­sion phase, putting spe­cial focus on the issue of col­lab­o­ra­tion between the var­i­ous Juris­dic­tions and Fed­er­a­tions. Urgent sup­port is need­ed for our con­fr­eres liv­ing in mis­sions, for those liv­ing under dif­fi­cult social con­di­tions and for those in ini­tial formation.
Next, Fri­ar Louis PANTHIRUVELIL, the Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary for For­ma­tion, gave his report. He divid­ed it into geo­graph­i­cal areas, high­light­ing each region’s strengths and prob­lem­at­ic real­i­ties. He placed par­tic­u­lar empha­sis on the ever-present need to form formators.
Final­ly, Fri­ar Jarosław WYSOCZAŃSKI, the Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al for Mis­sion Ani­ma­tion, pre­sent­ed his report. He focused on for­ma­tion and on con­sol­i­dat­ing mis­sion­ary spir­it in the Order. He also men­tioned plans for new pres­ences in Africa, Asia and the Holy Land.

Before din­ner, the Capit­u­lars gath­ered in the Upper Basil­i­ca for “Prayer with the Saints of Our Order”. This litur­gi­cal event was pre­pared by Fri­ar Dami­an-Ghe­o­rghe PĂTRAŞCU, in order to entrust the Chap­ter to our con­fr­eres already liv­ing with God in paradise.

Fri­ar Aure­lio ERCOLI, Chronicler

 

Our first read­ing speaks of a gath­er­ing of the apos­tles and Paul and Barn­abas in Jerusalem.  We call this the first Church coun­cil.  They gath­ered to dis­cuss what sort of prac­tices they should ask of the Gen­tile Chris­tians.  Should they be cir­cum­cised?  Should they fol­low the dietary laws?
This meet­ing reminds us that we do not all have the same opin­ion on how our charism should be lived in the 21^st cen­tu­ry.  Like the apos­tles, we have to gath­er togeth­er and dis­cuss our lives in the Holy Spir­it to dis­cern what has val­ue and what must be changed.  We can dis­agree for none of us has a monop­oly on the Holy Spirit’s insight.  But we must do that with char­i­ty and respect.  Like­wise, we have to be ready to real­ize that what we thought was right and just might not be as Spir­it filled as we thought.
Hope­ful­ly, at the end of the chap­ter, we can say what the apos­tles wrote to the com­mu­ni­ties:  we and the Holy Spir­it have decid­ed thisG.  I have to admit, though, that this phrase does make it sound as if the apos­tles decid­ed, and then they threw in the Holy Spir­it to give their deci­sion more author­i­ty.  Maybe it would be bet­ter if we could say, the Holy Spir­it has guid­ed us, and we have lis­tened and assent­ed, to do the fol­low­ing in these com­ing years.