Written Mediation July, 2017
Dearest Franciscan Brothers and Sisters,
Last month, our International Minister Tibor, sent us a very inspirational letter for Pentecost so I would like to paraphrase some of his thoughts in this meditation.
He stated that their motto for the upcoming General chapter is “As you send me into the world, so I sent them into the world” and Tibor asks us, “What does it mean for us to be sent into the world?” He emphasizes that we must have a clear vision of our identity because without knowing who we are we will never know what we should do. He also emphasizes that man does not live alone. We live in different kinds of communities and he enumerates them as: families, fraternities, work teams, parishes, and societies and I will speak briefly of each but dwell primarily on fraternities.
Family:We know that our family is our most important community and we should build our families as places of prayer, where we convey and receive faith and love.
Our fraternities, he says, particularly our local fraternities, are the places where we can live our vocation, find the source of life by accepting, living and giving the love of God. Our goal is not to live a “nice” fraternal life but a true and honest one. We must open ourselves in the fraternities in order to make the real fraternities. We need to share our lives with each others. We should not be afraid to expose ourselves to one another, to share not only our treasurers but also to accept and not hide our weaknesses and shortcomings, our messiness. We need to be so close to each other that our souls touch. We must take the risk of being openand we have to take the risk of conflicts. Sincere and open fraternal life means we are ready to share all we have.
Real fraternal life also means to be open to the fraternal warnings and fraternal corrections. Remember, my dear brothers and sisters, that the Holy Spirit is working through all of these fraternal relationships in the fraternity. We need to take the risk of hurting each other and also of having wounds, but these wounds help us in reconciliation. There is no real fraternity without reconciliation. As brothers and sisters of penance, we always have to live together with our fragile egos, with our wounds, being always ready to ask for and to give forgiveness. There is no renewal in the fraternity if we close ourselves off from each other and limit our relationships to those we like.
However, all of this is not for our good feelings. It is because we bring it out to the world, regardless if we are aware of it or not. We bring out what we receive and experience in fraternity. The Holy Spirit can fill our fraternities with life but is it isour deep responsibility to bring that to life and make it more visible to our neighbors. Let us give space to the Holy Spirit, my sisters and brothers, to shake, to move our fraternities, to renew our fraternity life! God is not willing to make us sit in a comfortable place. He wants us to live a vivid life that brings fruits.
Church:As a temple of the Holy Spirit we have to fill the life of the Church with what we can give: fraternal love, respect for each other, attention to everyone and bring the good news to all the children of God. We need to let the Holy Spirit dwell among us because He dwells in the ecclesial community.
Society: It is our responsibility and a part of our vocation to strive to make our society better in some way. We should seek the good of all, particularly the smallest, the poorest, the most marginalized who live without human dignity. We should also take care of the created world because God is present in all of creation.
Lastly, we should learn from God and each other, how to deal not only with ‘heavenly’ things like prayer but also how to deal with the ‘earthly things, like organize meetings, give formation, improve communication. Neither of these two parts can live without the other. We must remember that each and every one of us will be the instrument of God towards others. We need the Holy Spirit to step out from the boat, to leave our security, to leave the safe and well-known of our life and to do what we could not imagine to do before, to start to walk on the surface of the water. Miracles are out there, not when sitting in the boat. Because of the Holy Spirit, the Church was made from a group of weak and uneducated persons. By that same Spirit, that likewise makes of us what we can call ‘fraternity’, and makes of us an Order. Let us open ourselves to the Holy Spirit so that He may fill us and make of us a true fraternity.
The material for this audio was taken from the June 4, 2017 Pentecost letter to the fraternities by TiborKauser, CIOFS Minister General. We hope this brief meditation helps us all reach our most important goal ~ the reason we entered the Franciscan Order in the first place… to grow into a more intimate relationship with God so as to become one with Him in mind, heart, and actions.
The speaker in this audio is Marie Thomas, Regional Minister of the Five Franciscan Martyrs Region and the technical support was provided by G. Lamar Thomas.