Prot. N. 1785/08
Circ. 62/02-08
Madrid,
January 6, 2008
Feast
of the Epiphany
“We have
seen His star rise and we have come to adore him” (Matthew
2:2)
To all the
brothers and sisters of
The Secular Franciscan Order
and of the Franciscan Youth
Dearest
brothers and sisters:
May the Lord
give you peace!
I am writing
this letter on the day of the “Epiphany of the Lord”. It
will not arrive to you for a few days. Knowing that, I,
along with the Ciofs Presidency, want to wish you a
happy and authentic 2008.
The Gospel
today shows us how God reveals to Magi from distant
lands the arrival of the true King and he directs them
to the feet of Jesus. They, as a response, start on the
journey. They undertake a long trip upon seeing in the
sky a star that shines with a new clarity. They discover
in it a silent language that announces the new presence
of the Savior. Today is the feast of illumination for
those who know how to “watch” the sky and who are not
obsessed with things of the earth. The Magi were
illuminated with faith because, in their interior
silence, they knew how to read the message in the star.
They teach us that faith is not an ideology, but an
attitude of sincere inquiry, that demands a detachment
from domestic comforts starting with the way we think in
order to handle disconcerting courses that lead to God
and that are manifested in the marvelous simplicity of a
newborn. The Magi did not find a prefabricated idol,
they found God in the form of a man; for that reason
they opened to Him their treasures, and, what is more
important, they opened their hearts.
Today’s feast
makes me think of St. Elizabeth of Hungary -- and she is
the reason for this letter – that with her heart shining
from the presence of the Lord, she gave up many things
to pursue the ways of the Lord with extreme giving and
generosity.
We have ahead
of us the second year of celebration, specifically of
the Secular Franciscan Order, of the eighth centenary of
the birth of St. Elizabeth that stimulates our
Fraternity to deepen the understanding of the secularity
of the charism of Elizabeth, drawing essential
references for our vocation and identity.
By secularity
we understand a life fully involved in social and civil
events without any separation to the cloister; we
understand a life that, be it in matrimony or in another
civil state, lives in the light of God’s plan, embodying
the Gospel in every context.
The choice
of becoming wife and queen, made by her parents when she
was only four years old, is lived by her as the first
manifestation of doing the will of God in her life: a
special call to which she adhered without hesitation.
Even for
each of us God has prepared a plan. We must recognize,
even in realities that we don’t accept because we are
too taken by our personal desires, the manifestion of
his will full of promises. The Lord says, “whoever wants
to be my disciple, pick up his cross every day and
follow me.” The cross is our story!
We must put
ourselves in prayer in front of the crucifix to ask
“…enlighten my heart…”, because you may help us see what
is the road that God has prepared for each of us, as he
did with St. Elizabeth, without inserting egotistical
and individualistic desires. By succeeding in avoiding a
vision of life without God, we will be able to discern
the will of God who guides us. Perhaps, as with
Elizabeth, it will not lead us to an earthly life
without pain and suffering, but it will bring us to joy
in adhering to His plan of salvation.
What
Elizabeth read in the will of God in her life is a
secular state and, because of this, she submitted
herself to the practices of the time and she placed
herself totally under those who made her every other
decision.
We can
reread the secular choice of Elizabeth in the two phases
of her life: the first as princess, wife and mother; the
second at Marburg, widow and in poverty.
In the
first, she was aware of her responsibility of being an
active part in the construction of the reign of God as
wife of the prince, and she respected in her public life
the duties and the customs that were her due, without
letting them suffocate and prevail on her constant wish
to evangelical life. She welcomed the message of those
brothers who came from Italy to speak of the experiences
with Francis of Assisi among the lepers and in the huts
of the poor.
She chose
for herself an austere life, in fasting and in
penitential clothes, but, at the same time, with a
secular soul she did not scorn the privilege that her
state offered her in order to utilize the riches to the
service of the needy. She tranformed in Christian
charity her deep sense of justice, not common in a
society lacking in the care for the weakest.
From when she was a child she dedicated herself to a
long, intense prayer, that would bring her elsewhere.
After her wedding, like every other spouse who loves
sincerely the man that God has given her, she had Louis
participate, transforming with him the nuptual room
into a chapel or rather leaving the conjugal bed, with
his consent, to pray.
Neither was
it common, in the second part of her life, the conscious
and decisive way to confront the environment in the
court which had become hostile toward her penitential
behavior after the distant and premature death of her
husband. Penitential behavior carried her in that
occasion not to despair and to shut herself in a
protected space, but rather to view once again the death
of her husband as part of divine design for which she
gave praise, as she found herself together with the
brothers singing the Te Deum; truly this is perfect joy!
Despite the
more or less intense urgings of the spiritual director
on the widow entrusted to him, she retreated to the
walls of the cloister because it was more suitable for
the world and more appropriate for her life of
consecration to God. Elizabeth resisted with tenacity
and with feminine genius, in the conviction of having
received a secular call to penance. Aware that the Lord
was near and that he sustained her, she courageously
left her children to their future as heirs of the
sovereignty and bringing with her only her personal
belongings, she went on her way to begin her service to
the poor and to the sick who knocked at her door. St.
Elizabeth exhibits the holy foundation of the charism
that unites the radical evangelicalism specific to
Francis, and the secular character of those who feel
called to live immersed in the temporal reality. The
features of the penitent take shape so clearly,
ultimately called the third order Franciscan.
Surely the
sudden and spreading fame of Elizabeth, with her
inspiring many congregations that profess the rule of
the Third Order, is due to her charitable work, realized
first in private and then, as a true forerunner of the
modern concept of a hospital.
For us
Secular Franciscans, what makes our patron more familiar
and real is a deep spirituality, characterized by both
Franciscan charism and an altruistic and managerial
industriousness; a spirituality where our sister of
penitence is on the road with us constructing, through
prayer and apostolate, a more fraternal and evangelical
world.
I invite
you to live intensely this new year to deepen your
knowledge of our Holy Patroness, and inspired by her
example, to recover and assimilate the most authentic
values of our Franciscan secular vocation.
Your sister
and minister,
Encarnación del Pozo |