Lenten Reflection

This is the first Lenten season that I am going to observe as a professed Secular Franciscan and a this time I am feeling the spirit of the season with the sudden decrease of text messages from my brothers in the Order.

Texting is an element that is often the easy target for those who wish to do penance during Lent. One simple text message can lead texters into consuming a fortune for plain idle chit-chat. By simply not responding to a text joke or conversation could save a lot for something important. Much more than that, ignoring idle talk through text messaging can save one's soul from sins such as pride and bigotry, anger, hatred.

The silent treatment, however disturbs me, not because they do not respond to my messages, but because, like them I am supposed to be doing penance as well. I have long given up a lot since I had been admitted as a Franciscan - television, malling, movies, eating at my favorite restaurant. I am trying to be kinder, more generous especially towards the poor, loving my enemies, but there are a lot more that need to be done.

The season has just begun. I need to discover what else I need to do and give up (and texting is one of them, thank you.). At the moment, my cellphone is still open to receive messages but remains silent.

PRAYING THE PSALMS

Here is something from Ignacio Larranaga, OFMCap on the brief guidelines on how to pray the Psalms:

Spend a few moments of silence. Let your soul be empty, open, tranquil, unperturbed, and calmly expectant, because it is the Lord who is coming, in His Word, to have an encounter with you.

Begin by not looking for any particular purpose, such as a solution to your problems, doctrine, or other truths. The Lord will manifest Himself freely, in accordance with His designs and plans for your life.

Pray the psalms slowly. Do not read. With a journal handy, write down the Psalms that say something to you. Identify different feelings you encounter within yourself, such as those of admiration, thankfulness, understanding, etc.

Make an effort to feel the meaning of each phrase with all your soul. Identify your attention and emotion with the content of the expressions, and express them with the same inner feelings that the psalmist had.

In the spirit of the Psalms, imagine yourself within the Heart of Jesus and try to feel what He felt when he said these same words. With the help of the Holy Spirit, try to identify yourself with His inner attitude of adoration, awe and gratefulness.

Franciscan Christmas

In Franciscan spirituality, the Incarnation is an important event. It is the great gift of the Most High Father of His Son, Jesus Christ who, out of Love, through His own poverty becomes One with us.

For Father Francis, the Incarnation was a time of great joy. Bethlehem spoke of the love and poverty of God. It was by the example of God, the Word made Flesh – that our Holy Father Saint Francis embraced Lady Poverty and begin our Way of Life. In the year 1223, in the small town of Greccio, that he built a new Bethlehem.

Today, more than ever, the goal of every Franciscan is to make every city, every place a new Greccio, where Jesus the Christ becomes a real, living experience. However, we can never create the new Greccio if we do not experience poverty.

Poverty flees the emptiness of the world and seeks the fullness of life in Christ. It loves little things, and is content with the ordinary things of life. For Franciscans, poverty is making things our slaves instead of enslaving us to things. When one is poor, he can possess nothing but God.

May the Peace of the Lord be with you this Christmas. May your have a Franciscan Christmas. God bless you!

Profession as a Secular Franciscan

Finally last September 25, 2010, I, together with two brothers and two sisters, made my solemn profession as a Secular Franciscan. The road to being a Franciscan has truly begun.

At the moment, I am overwhelmed by the challenges I am facing. There are still a lot of rough edges I need to smoothen. At the moment, I consider 'liberating myself from myself' at the top of the list for me to truly live the counsels as Saint Francis did. Please pray for us, that we would persevere in our vocation.

Bro. Albert

Thoughts on the Secular Franciscan Order

The Franciscan family is not just an apostolic family. In reality, it is a fraternal family. Francis left to his sons and daughters a strong fraternal spirit in his writings and by way of personal example. Nothing was more important to him than his brothers and sisters. It is this spirit of brotherhood that has drawn so many millions to the Franciscan family through the centuries.

Francis, too, was very unique in his way of doing things. He was the first religious founder to introduce the idea of a secular religious order into the Church.

What has kept the Secular Franciscan Order alive for 800 years has been the great love its members have for Francis. Those who joined the order were inspired by his journey and his application of the Gospel.

Franciscan brothers and sisters are to spend time reflecting on Francis' spirituality. This gathering is a school where the individual learns how to live the Gospel using Francis' manner in the world. People should then take notice of the different set of values he lives.

It is important to keep one thing clear: the Secular Franciscan believes that the secular world is holy and that secular brothers and sisters can live a religious life in this world, without having to enter a monastery. The Secular Order must always protect and preserve the secular lifestyle, but not the worldly lifestyle. There is a difference.

True Devotion to Saint Francis

True devotion to Saint Francis must not strive to attain nor merely admire the spirit of the Poverello and his way of life. True devotion to Saint Francis involves loving what the saint loved with his form of love and the purpose of his he love for it.

Historical sources on the life of Saint Francis clearly indicate this preeminent love in the heart of Saint Francis. On the morning of February 24, 1208 A.D. at the Portziuncula, outside Assisi, he declared: ‘This is what I want; this is what I long for with all my heart.’

The Saint said this as a reaction to a passage of scripture that the priest had explained to him at the Mass in honor of Saint Matthias, the Apostle – our Lord sending out the Apostles and establishing the apostolic life of mendicancy.

This form of life was the essential hallmark of the spirituality and religious consecration of the Poor Man of Assisi. This is the key to his life and love of Christ Crucified.

It follows then, that true devotion to Saint Francis necessitates the essential adoption of the evangelical life of mendicancy in all its rigor and simplicity, not because Saint Francis lived it, but because Christ taught it.

Such devotion requires, then, nothing less that a return to and resolute observance of the precepts of the Rule of Saint Francis. This is the form of life that the Saint wanted expressly to hand down to his children as a perpetual inheritance and heritage. This Rule embodies simply and rigorously the principles of the life that Christ taught to the Apostles.

To be a true son of Saint Francis is to be an observer of the Rule. One who finds the essence and form of his life, vocation, and charism, not in the constitutions or statutes or customs and practices of the Franciscan community to which he may belong; but rather, one who finds essence and form of his consecrated life and vocation; indeed of his very identity and destiny in the Rule of Saint Francis, and holds this to be the very day to day discipline that guides his personal life and apostolate.

True Devotion

The word ‘devotion’ is derived from the Latin verb ‘devovere’, meaning ‘to consecrate’. Devotion is nothing more than fidelity and resoluteness in the following of Christ after an admirable example.

The devoted follower is one who has consecrated his entire life to discipleship. While a devotee of a saint is often associated with one who invokes his patron saint in his daily prayers and frequents celebrations, churches, and chapels in the saint's honor, the devoted follower, the devoted disciple, is someone much more. For him, the imitation of the saint is the fundamental character of his existence, the foundation of his identity and the key to his personal destiny in Christ.

One can imitate a saint by incorporating the saint’s behavior, ideals, habits, customs, and virtues into his life. However, this form of devotion moves only on the material level. True devotion to a Saint requires a formal union of heart and mind with the Saint. There is no greater imitation than for the disciple to become one with his teacher. Our Lord Jesus Christ taught this kind of devotion when He said of His own disciples, ‘No disciple is greater than his Master; a disciple should rejoice to be like his Master.’

True devotion then, to a Saint must transcend material devotion. For such a devotion fails to incorporate the truth in Christ that the Saints are means not ends to imitation of Christ Jesus, the One Teacher of all. To truly imitate a Saint then, is to make the desire, wisdom, and resoluteness that was his to follow and imitate Christ, one's own. In such a manner, devotion to a Saint is transfigured into authentic Christian life and perfection.