The Transitus of St. Francis of Assisi

The Transitus of S. Francis of Assisi

My sisters and brothers in Christ Julien of Speyer’s narrative of Francis’s death highlights how God inspired Francis to respond with love in what was a very tense scene of sadness and forgiveness.  Francis, you see, was not leaving his brothers on perfect terms.  
        The newly established band of brothers was already imploding because they disagreed about the charism of their life.  Some brothers believed that their way of life should imitate exactly Francis’s simple austerity and this would ensure a perfect uniformity in the order.  Other f friars did not agree; they believed that the brotherhood should take on many different projects such as education, preaching, mission work and clerical ministries.  Rather than embracing unity in diversity, the brothers had begun to stake their claim on their inheritance, so to speak, even before Francis had died.  Undoubtedly, this must have tested the limits of Francis’s charity. 

As he approached the embrace of sister death, he tactfully leaves his brothers with an inheritance which was far richer than they could have imagined--a scene from the gospel of John.  This gospel is read on Holy Thursday and is usually applied to the institution of the priesthood.  Francis, however, puts it forward as the ideal image for the life of his lesser brothers.  

In this gospel, Christ commissions his followers to live the good news by taking on the actions even a Jewish slave was not bound to do according to the Mosaic law.  Washing the feet of another was only reserved for the rare devotional occasion when the disciples would wash the feet of their rabbis or teachers.  This action would not have been reciprocated by the rabbi or teacher under any circumstance.  

That is why Peter objects to Jesus’ action of washing his feet.  For Peter, Jesus is his teacher, rabbi, savior and ruler; for Jesus to wash Peter’s feet, therefore, would have been both absurd and scandalous.  Jesus insists on washing his disciples’ feet which makes an eloquent statement on the nature of the disciple’s leadership roles. What is the nature of this leadership?  Wipe away any dreams of gaining power, prestige or building a personal kingdom because the type of leadership Jesus calls us to is humble service.  Power and prestige are only earthly desires which serve our own ego.  

Letting go of our own ego allows us to shift our focus to what really matters in life--our relationship with God, with neighbor and even with our enemies.  Francis, thus, leaves his brothers not with his ideals, dreams or legacy, but with the riches of the Gospel life.  In essence, Francis points to the One who started the Order of Friars Minor, the God of Jesus Christ.

That is why the Letter to Br. Leo is so important.  It is an example of how Francis resisted the temptation to impose his own dreams on Leo’s life.  Rather, Francis tells Leo that the most important thing a person can do in life is to follow the Good News by serving and loving others.  

That is what is relevant about S. Francis of Assisi for all of us today.  He challenges us to respond to the Good News by living out the same images of poverty and humility as the Lamb who was slain for the sake of the whole world.  By the end of his life, Francis wanted the world to know that we have a dramatic, a generous, and beautiful God who wants nothing more than to be with each of us everyday--a God who loves diversity as well as unity in the kingdom He has created for us.

May the Lord Give you his Peace

Br. B

Given during our Prayer Service Oct. 3/11

The Paradox of Salvation

        

         Set sometime after the fall of Jerusalem around 582 BC, the opening chapters of the prophet Baruch begins with a confession and prayer which addresses the reasons for the Israelite’s exile.  Their failure to heed and respond to Gods voice and to accept and obediently observe God’s gift of the law is the sin that they commit.  For this author believes if the Israelites had been obedient to the law of Moses they would have received prosperity, rather than receiving the calamities and strife that now had stricken the chosen people.  What the writer calls for, later on in these writings, is a renewal and response to the word of God and God’s law in hopes of restoring the broken covenant.

Obedience to the law and heeding God’s voice, however, are only part of the package.  Throughout Jesus’ ministry, he invites us to have a conversion of heart, a change in attitude and a willingness to be in relationship with God in a real and lived out way.  Essentially, God does not just want us to follow him, but God wants us to know Him through Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit.  

Luke’s gospel speaks about how the people in the Galilean cities failed to respond to God’s invitation to be in an intimate relationship with him.  Even when Christ had given great deeds and power to the people of Chorazin and Bethsaida, they failed to accept the reality that Jesus had set before them.  

In fact, these cities had rejected and became a witness against Jesus Christ and the God who had sent him.  It is a rejection that Luke, cleverly, parallels with the rejection of Jesus on the cross--the difference being that even the majority of his faithful disciples had all but abandoned him.  

And, yet, we are left with a great hope in what seems to be an apparent paradox concerning salvation.  Despite, the grim picture Jesus paints concerning the reality of human imperfection when it comes to responding and knowing our God, Christ has offered through his suffering, death and resurrection an open invitation to receive God’s inexhaustible love which redeems us to the Creator of all that is good.  The challenge for us, then, is to allow God’s love to refine us so that we can bring forth love’s fruits by sharing it with others through our words and deeds.  When we allow this conversion to take place, we begin to really know our God in Jesus Christ the same way God was open to know us through taking on and fulfilling our humanity in Christ.   

Peace and joy

Br. B

Given at today's Eucharist (readings Bar. 1.15-22 and Luke 10. 13-16)

S. Bonaventure's Lived Theology

Homily given on the Feast of St. Bonaventure

            Jesus shares with his followers what discipleship is all about by expressing it in two images.  The disciples are to be flavorful salt and a light that reflects their love for God, neighbor and even their enemies—love is the greatest expression and commandment of God’s kingdom.  But in a certain sense, Jesus’ example of salt is completely exaggerated and humorous, at least from my perspective—when was the last time you have experienced salt going flat?  If salt could go flat, then preserving food with it would be pointless.  It is not a likely you will experience insipid or flat salt, thus, if our faith is like salt, it will even be less likely that we will be trampled underfoot.  Indeed, this is Good News because it means that it is impossible for our faith to become flat, if we but believe and respond to live God’s great command to love. 

            Bonaventure definitely was that kind of flavorful salt and a bright light of faith in our Order.  It was not so much because of his intellectual prowess as a theologian at Paris, although important, but because of his willingness to leave the life and comforts of academia in order to serve and love his brothers during a time when the Order was going through tremendous division and turmoil.  Interestingly, it is during his years as the Minister General, not in his academic years as a lecturer, that we discover Bonaventure’s powerfully affectionate love and experience of the truly risen crucified Christ.  Eric Doyle even suggests that when Bonaventure was contemplating the mysterious life of Francis at Mt. La Verna, he was pierced and conformed to Christ interiorly. 

            The point being is that Bonaventure was open to all possibilities of discovering God; it was not just an intellectual pursuit, but, rather a real experience and encounter with our living Christ.  He was open to what God called him to and in this case it was to live a life of serving his brothers.  In essence, the flavor of his theology was well seasoned and influential, but what is more important is that he became an important light for his brothers by living out the commandment to love in service.  In other words, he walked the talk. 

            Clearly, gospel love will call us to daunting and impossible situations whereby we must put our faith and courage in the Lord.  The challenge is to humbly let go of our own comforts and kingdoms that we tend to build and be the savory seasoning for the world to taste in the way the Master Chef—God—intended us to be.  

Peace and good

B

Receptivity and Trust in John's Gospel

          

            In today’s gospel Jesus foretells what the experience of his departure is going to be like for the disciples.  He compares their sorrow and joy to that of a woman in labor whose hour had come—she experienced both pain and joy.  This woman is an allusion to none other than daughter Zion herself—the people of Israel who have suffered severely at the hands of their enemies and who awaited the day to be rescued as recalled in Micah 4:10.

            She also represents the receptivity that one needs in order to respond God’s life giving ways.  In other words, the church herself has to be open and receptive to the word incarnate.  Such receptivity allows one to experience the goodness of life which is only given and sustained by God.  God’s redemptive work is like a new born child in that we have been given new life through baptism—our physical pains and our sufferings from injustices are temporary; our, however, joy will be everlasting.  Her and our pain, then, is only part of a greater life transforming process which is guided by the Holy Spirit.  The disciples experienced this pain, but they rejoiced and were transformed in such a way that they were able to come to terms that Jesus did, indeed, rise from the dead despite being crucified under the Law.

            At the center of this kind of receptivity is Trust.  A trust that God the Father will come through on his promise of good news.  A trust that the gospel life is so good and so great that it overturns our painful experiences which would normally inhibit us from seeing the great gift of God’s love for us today.  The one who shows us that God is that trustworthy is none other than the Son: Jesus is one who goes to the cross and suffers death knowing that he would be raised to new life for our sake.  
          That is why today’s first reading is so remarkable.  Whether it is historically accurate or not—I leave this debate to biblical scholars—the important message is that Paul remained faithful and receptive to God’s will in his life.  He trusted in God’s love and promise for him.  It is through Paul’s receptivity and response that allows him to be an effective sharer in the good news because the people saw the trans-formative power of Jesus Christ in his life—they witnessed how God acts within our history through us.  

            We too are invited to consider the ways we are receptive to God’s will in our daily lives and how we allow it to become a trans-formative process in our service to one another and in the world.  We get a real taste of God’s active presence in our lives daily when we receive the rich life-giving feast that God has set before us today in both the Word and the Eucharist.

My New Adventure and Cause I am running for

 

Rundle’s for Reno’s

We are in need of your support.  We have a list of renovations that our retreat centre needs.

One of our Friars, Br. Billy Isenor, has decided to raise funds for these projects by running an ultra-marathon (50/km) on June 26, 2011 in the mountains of Canmore.  The race is called Rundle’s Revenge, which will prove to be a great challenge as the terrain is rocky and the elevation is breath taking, quite literally. 

You can support the retreat centre’s projects by sponsoring Billy’s run. 

Make your donation online @ http://www.mountstfrancis.ca/; click on the “donate” button, complete the form, and mention it is to support Br. Billy’s run.

See above address to mail or call in a donation.

Fundraising goal: $10 000.00

Charitable number: 893003376RR0001

Any donation over $10.00 is eligible for a tax receipt.

Some of the needed retreat renovations:

-painting the conference room

- new base boards

-back wall on friary needs repairs

-new bathroom floors in main building

-new toilets

-new sewer heaters & bathroom fans for Lodge 1

-new shower door needed in annex

-hot water booster

-plus other projects…

Get to know our athlete @

http://religiousrunning.wordpress.com/

or contact via email:

billybc2003@gmail.com

or @ 780-476-2338

 B