GENERAL CHAPTER
November 15-22, 2008

Manréza Hotel Konferenciaközpont
H-2099 Dobogókö, Fény u.l.
Telefono: +36-26-347-681
Fax: +36-26-347-633

CONCERNING PROFESSION
QUESTIONS FOR WORKING GROUPS

 1.Profession is “a commitment for life and to life”.

Are Secular Franciscans aware about the deepness and width of this commitment to God, to the Church, to the brothers and sisters and to the world?

Or, do you think there is a certain superficiality, that brings people to consider SFO participation as an “option” just to give color to our own spiritual, ecclesiastic and social life?

 2.Through Profession we promised to live every Gospel demand, as deeply as we can.

Are Secular Franciscan always aware that this means to follow Christ in every moment and situation of life – ordinary and extraordinary ones? 

3.Profession is a living memory of Baptism and, for this reason, it must reinforce the relation between a Christian and the Church.

By which concrete ways does the testimony of Secular Franciscans contribute to the building of Church?

In this context, what is the importance/relevance of  Secular Franciscans' “life in the world” to their Fraternity?   

4.Secularity represents the special mission coming out by the SFO Profession.

Have Secular Franciscans understood that they have been called, exactly in virtue of their own vocation, to work in the world for his sanctification?

Do any resistances to accept this way of “consecration” into the world still exist?

CONCERNING SFO SENSE OF BELONGING

Questions for working groups

 
  1. Do you think that the “crisis of the sense of belonging”, which is so widespread today in one's way of thinking, could be also found in the Secular Franciscans' attitude toward the Order in which they have been “incorporated” through Profession?

    Based on your experience, what are the symptoms of a fragile and missing sense of belonging to the SFO? 

  2. How do Secular Franciscans live this “co-responsibility” toward their own local Fraternity and the whole Order?

  3. Have the demands, stressed in article 30.2 of the General Constitutions, been properly represented to the inquirer and to the candidates during the period of initial formation?  Are they an integral part of “vocational discernment”? 

  4. Among the “new intervention forms”, which ones do you think would work better with Secular Franciscans ? Which are more important and/or urgent? Are there anymore suggestions? 

  5. What do you think could be the most suitable instruments to improve or reinforce the SFO “sense of belonging”?