Community Chapter

Saturday February 18 we met together for our monthly chapter: a time of sharing and fraternal revision that is typical of our franciscan charism. 

An Evening on Martyrdom and Missions

On Wednesday, February 8, we met after dinner with our order's General Secretary for Missions, friar Jarosław Wysoczański. He talked with us about our Franciscan missions around the world and about his own experiences overseas.

In 2006 our order’s first International Missionary Conference was held in India in order to define our missionary strategy. A mission is authentic when it is born about of a real encounter with Jesus. Those who have met Christ cannot keep him to themselves, they must announce him. Christian communities and groups need fresh apostolic impetus, lived out as a daily commitment. Nevertheless this evangelization must be done with complete respect for each individual and for the various cultures into which the Christian message enters.

At the end of the evening, friar Jarosław talked about what it means to be courageous witnesses for God. He shared with us his experience in Pariacoto, Peru where two of our friars were killed by guerillas of the „sendero luminoso” in 1991. The witness of Christian martyrs illuminates our contemporaries, who are often distracted and disoriented. It pointes them to the One in whom they can place their trust in order to give sense to their lives. The martyr dies with the certainty that he is loved by God and knowing that he has chosen the better part, having left everything behind for the love of Christ.

Becoming Men of Mission - A Word from the Rector

Our rector reflects on this year's theme:

In its account of the call of the disciples, the Gospel of Mark states that Jesus “appointed twelve [whom he also named apostles] that they might be with him and he might send them forth to preach” (3,14). Regarding missions, saint Francis writes in the earlier Rule that the friars should be “subject to every human creature for God’s sake… [and that they should] proclaim the word of God when they see that it pleases the Lord.”

Mission is born out of a deep relationship with Christ. The first form of evangelization is to witness through one’s own life. Pope Paul VI, in a talk given in 1974, said, “modern man listens more willingly to witnesses than to teachers and, if he does listen to teachers, it is because they are witnesses… It is therefore primarily by her conduct and by her life that the Church will evangelize the world, in other words, by her living witness of fidelity to the Lord Jesus- the witness of poverty and detachment, of freedom in the face of the powers of this world, in short, the witness of sanctity.”

It is in this perspective that our fraternity this year has embarked on a journey of formation. Moved by our desire to meet Christ, guided by the Word and sustained by the witness of our brothers we want to “become men of mission,” to announce the Lord where He is not yet known.

Fraternity... in the snow 2

Fraternity...in the snow

With exams finished, we took a mental health day on mount Subasio with our Franciscan confreres from the Third Order Regular

         

                            

Franciscans Online??

Why would 15 young Franciscan friars (re: vows of poverty, chastity and obedience) decide post their lives online?

In today’s fast-paced materialistic society, who would want to read about a group of men who have decided to drop career ambitions to focus on prayer and community life?

And doesn’t their vow of poverty somehow conflict with the use of technology?

These are some of the questions we asked ourselves as we set out to start a blog about our community of brothers here in Assisi, Italy. We hale from six countries, three different continents, and range in age from 23 to 63. Some of us are priests, others are in their first year of studies. What unites us is a desire to live out the Gospel life of Jesus with the apostles as proposed by Francis of Assisi. We don’t marry, vow to obey our superiors, and have nothing of our own. It’s all geared to strengthening the love of Christ in our brotherhood.

We believe that we have something to offer today’s society. His name is Jesus.

We don’t choose this life because we have something against marriage, material possessions or living out our own individual dreams. These are all good things. We choose this life because we know Jesus and we believe that He has called us to live in this way to know Him better and tell others about him.

So does this mean we want everyone to live like us? No. But we do want everyone to know Jesus. In fact, it’s His love, a love that is willing to sacrifice even for His enemies, that is lacking in today’s culture. We see it in ourselves, in our inability to let go of our selfishness and do what is best for those around us, in our community. We see it in hurting relationships, broken families, and growing lack of trust in our society.

And it’s here, living in close quarters 24/7, that we brothers daily see these two realities meet: the love of Jesus and our own selfishness.

This blog is a simple attempt to share this journey of our daily lives with you.