Untitled Document


TO THE PARTICIPATING BROTHERS AT THE CHAPTER OF THE MATS Assisi, March 16, 2009 Dear Brothers, On behalf of the entire Secular Franciscan Order, today more than ever, the Lord grant you Peace! When this date was chosen together with the organizers, I did not realize that today the Church celebrates Saint Benedict Joseph Labre, pilgrim, and Franciscan tertiary (1748-1783). It is a pleasant coincidence for me because Benedict Joseph did not live the solitary life of the cloister but the solitude of the “ways of the Lord” doing and witnessing good with his life itself. Each family prepares, convokes, participates and shares the joy of celebrations which permit themselves to be recognized in order to enhance their identity and unity. We now have one of these reasons for strengthening the ties of our Family and which fills us with joy and hope. We are pleased to represent the SFO in your Chapter and we sincerely thank you for your invitation to participate. You have all seen the video that we presented, where the SFO exists: in 110 countries throughout the world. And how many we are: 431,000 members and about 49,000 young Franciscans. This implies a rapid development of the Secular Order during the last few years, and this requires the creativity, efforts and clear objectives necessary to enable the new realities to undertake the walk outlined for the SFO by the renewed Rule. We have given you only a few of the many examples of its apostolic activity, its presence and its commitment in the Church and society (including politics), the meaning and concrete exercise of the mission of the SFO carried out by the young families. Our history, like yours, is rather complex. The structural unity of the SFO is only 30 years old. During this time our greatest efforts have concentrated on the task of reunification and conferring stability to the SFO, as well as a strong sense of identity and belonging, after 5 centuries of fragmentation. Our reality is not only complex but variegated and thus, very rich in its diversity .... Today we are actually re-discovering exactly who we are: the richness of our vocation; the full dimensions of our mission; the beauty of our common charism. We are increasingly aware of having been called, like you, to carry out a formidable task, in reciprocal vital communion with you. I would, therefore, like to explain to you how we, members of the SFO, perceive our belonging to the Franciscan Family and how we see its mission today. Our Rule, approved by Paul VI, opens with a beautiful and strong statement: “The Franciscan family, as one among many spiritual families raised up by the Holy Spirit in the Church, unites all members of the people of God--laity, religious, and priests-- who recognize that they are called to follow Christ in the footsteps of St. Francis of Assisi. In various ways and forms but in life-giving union with each other, they intend to make present the charism of their common Seraphic Father in the life and mission of the Church. Our Rule (which in some way belongs to you as well) defines the Franciscan Family and the vital relationship which units us. It offers a clear description of the reality of our family, of communion and vital physicality. Christ, through Francis, sketched three orders for only one project: the apostolic mission to restore his House-Church. In organizing the three orders, St. Francis let himself be guided simply and solely by the Spirit of the Lord. And he welcomed this reality as it slowly flourished in his hands, without any pre-established project. It is important to remember that the three Orders are, therefore, on the same level and should recognize that they are spiritually inter-dependent and needy of reciprocal help. We know that St. Francis gave his three orders only one Rule: a more perfect observance of the Gospel, according to the respective conditions of life. We must re-discover ourselves. The three Orders generated by Francis are, therefore, heirs of his mission and his charism and its accomplishment. The reason for being part of his spiritual Family is found in this mission, which requires the combined efforts of the religious of the First Order, of the “Penitents” of the Third Order (secular and regular) and the contemplative sacrifice of our sisters of the Second Order. We can accomplish the marvellous work that God has entrusted to Francis only if we are united. We exist, therefore, as a member of only one body1. We cannot live separately. Our life would be impoverished and our mission for the Church and in the Church of Christ would be compromised. But I would like to speak to you about the SFO today, of its reality, its hopes and its dreams. The SFO is presently absorbed in an enormous task of complete, permanent and personalized formation, focused on the understanding of its identity, its sense of belonging, its secularity, which is one of the aspects which constitute and identify our Franciscan vocation. We are well aware of the fact that the future of the SFO depends on its formation. “Eiudem corporis Membra existentes”, Urban IV, Bolla Spiritus Domini The secular Franciscans throughout the world are striving to constitute: a Franciscan fraternity with a clear and precise identity to help its members and to abolish any type of barrier and separation between spirituality and daily life, with its responsibilities; a more committed fraternity, in the spirit of the Vatican II and the Pauline Rule, where it is possible to live authentic Church experiences; a fraternity which is actively inserted in the Franciscan Family, where communion and vital reciprocity can be experimented, having the same status as the other members;?? a fraternity which is at the same time a school of Christian perfection and social and civil commitment. I would like to take this opportunity, when so many Superior majors of your respective orders are united, to thank you for your services of pastoral care and spiritual assistance to the local fraternities of the SFO erected within your jurisdiction. Please let me say that pastoral care and spiritual assistance to the SFO must stem, not so much from rules, but from the love and trust in ones vocation and from the desire to make it known, respecting the nature of the secular fraternity and giving priority to witnessing Franciscan life and, especially, in fraternal accompaniment. Assisting the SFO today entails a fraternal service to which you are called: to help the secular Franciscans, by your closeness to each locally erected fraternity in your jurisdiction, to be individuals that passionately live their faith in the Church and in society with the values and behaviour of Francis. But evidently no one can give what they do not have. Nevertheless, the SFO continues dreaming. It dreams of churches and parishes that are given to you which are authentically Franciscan, where the values and the needs of one’s vocation and charism are lived and made known. As I have already mentioned, the SFO is committed to formation, for which it needs confident support. It needs spiritual assistants who will actively collaborate, especially in the formation walk, in making our fraternities convincing and consistent with their vocation. It needs spiritual assistants who can help them to fully comprehend the mission that has to be accomplished. Assistants with the awareness that helping today’s youth and adults to discover the true sense of life is indeed an extraordinary task. Please help my brothers and sisters who are striving to be individuals of faith, coherent and exemplary in their lives and courageous in their choices. Help us to be “witnesses”. We must not forget the diverse living conditions of our fraternities in many parts of the world: Africa, Central America, Paraguay, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, India, Belarus.... Some of them live without any material means, but they seriously live their faith and their Christian and Franciscan vocation, a spiritual gift which we should all aspire. I have met formators living in the most absolute poverty who have deeply moved me for the beauty of their dedication and moral strength, as well as the basic knowledge that they convey to those being formed. Can we actually sustain that in this poverty, which Francis chose for himself, we cannot be Franciscans today? That without thorough academic formation we cannot live the perfection of charity and the spirit of the “Letter of Francis to all the faithful”?. During the last decade the new course of the SFO received, even before the Vatican II, a generous and important prophetical stimulus from many religious. The memory of numerous General Ministers and Assistants follow us, their names remembered as a blessing and with infinite gratitude. Much of what we know today we owe to them and to a several courageous “tertiaries”; with their inexpressible love for the Franciscan Family and the Third Order, and their admirable prophetic commitment, they were able to persevere in their project, despite numerous difficulties and prejudices (some of which still exist today), and impart strength and substance to the rebirth of the Secular Franciscan Order. Let me say with sincere simplicity and satisfaction that, in all this, the SFO has accomplished, perhaps unknowingly, a special and irreplaceable mission: we have been effective catalysts of fraternity and unity in our Family. Thanks to the requirements of the collegial exercise of pastoral care and spiritual Assistance, we have prompted occasions of encounters, of dialogue and of fraternal knowledge, not only among ourselves but especially among you dear brothers and sisters of the First Order and the TOR, because by sharing our responsibilities you have given life to the Conference of the Assistants, true cenacle of fraternity and mutual affection, family experiences, foresights of a broader and vital communion. I, personally, have recently witnessed the first meeting of all the Superior Majors of a European Country, on the occasion of a fraternal and pastoral visit to the SFO, during which the Visitors had to meet with those responsible for exercising the “Altius Moderamen”. Brothers, please allow me to tell you what is expected and what we need from you: that you truly be not only the guarantors of spiritual assistance, but also brothers, street companions, that walk with us side by side, neither ahead nor behind. We need you to accompany us and flank us as educators throughout the entire growth of our vocation and in exercising the mission that we have been assigned, in the quick and sincere passage “from the Gospel to life and from life to the Gospel (R.4). We need that you are convinced and that you have a clear and updated vision of the SFO and the Youfra and of their position in the Church and in our Family. We need you “suitable and prepared” (R. 26) in order to offer assistance and pastoral care that is complete and adequate. A sign of this family maturity could be that of realizing the project embarked on with a motion of our General Chapter in 2008: that, at the next World Youth Day, all the young people of our Family be united together before the Church and before our Holy Father. There will naturally be specific moments of formation for each group, but they could also have moments of formation as a young Family and to witness the spirituality we are living, just as other associations and Church movements do. This grace of origins that we are celebrating, is the corner stone on which the whole building of our Family leans on. Lets take advantage of it. Let us be alert so as not to lose this important historical opportunity to recuperate the significance of the Family of St. Francis of Assisi. We have to wake up and take action because there is much lethargy and negligence in our family. This is the memorial that we are celebrating: the grace of a special charism which regards Francis and, in him, an entire Family an ecclesial project to be fully lived. Thank you and the Lord bless you, bless us, and fill us with grace, maturity and the courage needed to recover the gift of the conversion of our origins. Assisi, April 16, 2009 Encarnacon del Pozo General Minister SFO

TO THE PARTICIPATING BROTHERS AT THE CHAPTER OF THE MATS
Assisi, March 16, 2009

Dear Brothers,

On behalf of the entire Secular Franciscan Order, today more than ever, the Lord grant you Peace!

When this date was chosen together with the organizers, I did not realize that today the Church celebrates Saint Benedict Joseph Labre, pilgrim, and Franciscan tertiary (1748-1783). It is a pleasant coincidence for me because Benedict Joseph did not live the solitary life of the cloister but the solitude of the “ways of the Lord” doing and witnessing good with his life itself.

Each family prepares, convokes, participates and shares the joy of celebrations which permit themselves to be recognized in order to enhance their identity and unity. We now have one of these reasons for strengthening the ties of our Family and which fills us with joy and hope. We are pleased to represent the SFO in your Chapter and we sincerely thank you for your invitation to participate.

You have all seen the video that we presented, where the SFO exists: in 110 countries throughout the world. And how many we are: 431,000 members and about 49,000 young Franciscans. This implies a rapid development of the Secular Order during the last few years, and this requires the creativity, efforts and clear objectives necessary to enable the new realities to undertake the walk outlined for the SFO by the renewed Rule.

We have given you only a few of the many examples of its apostolic activity, its presence and its commitment in the Church and society (including politics), the meaning and concrete exercise of the mission of the SFO carried out by the young families.

Our history, like yours, is rather complex. The structural unity of the SFO is only 30 years old. During this time our greatest efforts have concentrated on the task of reunification and conferring stability to the SFO, as well as a strong sense of identity and belonging, after 5 centuries of fragmentation. Our reality is not only complex but variegated and thus, very rich in its diversity ....

Today we are actually re-discovering exactly who we are: the richness of our vocation; the full dimensions of our mission; the beauty of our common charism. We are increasingly aware of having been called, like you, to carry out a formidable task, in reciprocal vital communion with you.

I would, therefore, like to explain to you how we, members of the SFO, perceive our belonging to the Franciscan Family and how we see its mission today.

Our Rule, approved by Paul VI, opens with a beautiful and strong statement:
“The Franciscan family, as one among many spiritual families raised up by the Holy Spirit in the Church, unites all members of the people of God--laity, religious, and priests-- who recognize that they are called to follow Christ in the footsteps of St. Francis of Assisi. In various ways and forms but in life-giving union with each other, they intend to make present the charism of their common Seraphic Father in the life and mission of the Church.

Our Rule (which in some way belongs to you as well) defines the Franciscan Family and the vital relationship which units us. It offers a clear description of the reality of our family, of communion and vital physicality.

Christ, through Francis, sketched three orders for only one project: the apostolic mission to restore his House-Church. In organizing the three orders, St. Francis let himself be guided simply and solely by the Spirit of the Lord. And he welcomed this reality
as it slowly flourished in his hands, without any pre-established project.

It is important to remember that the three Orders are, therefore, on the same level and should recognize that they are spiritually inter-dependent and needy of reciprocal help. We know that St. Francis gave his three orders only one Rule: a more perfect observance of the Gospel, according to the respective conditions of life. We must re-discover ourselves.

The three Orders generated by Francis are, therefore, heirs of his mission and his charism and its accomplishment. The reason for being part of his spiritual Family is found in this mission, which requires the combined efforts of the religious of the First Order, of the “Penitents” of the Third Order (secular and regular) and the contemplative sacrifice of our sisters of the Second Order. We can accomplish the marvellous work that God has entrusted to Francis only if we are united.

We exist, therefore, as a member of only one body1. We cannot live separately. Our life would be impoverished and our mission for the Church and in the Church of Christ would be compromised.

But I would like to speak to you about the SFO today, of its reality, its hopes and its dreams.

The SFO is presently absorbed in an enormous task of complete, permanent and personalized formation, focused on the understanding of its identity, its sense of belonging, its secularity, which is one of the aspects which constitute and identify our Franciscan vocation. We are well aware of the fact that the future of the SFO depends on its formation.

“Eiudem corporis Membra existentes”, Urban IV, Bolla Spiritus Domini

The secular Franciscans throughout the world are striving to constitute:

a Franciscan fraternity with a clear and precise identity to help its members and to abolish any type of barrier and separation between spirituality and daily life, with its responsibilities;
a more committed fraternity, in the spirit of the Vatican II and the Pauline Rule, where it is possible to live authentic Church experiences;
a fraternity which is actively inserted in the Franciscan Family, where communion and vital reciprocity can be experimented, having the same status as the other members;??
a fraternity which is at the same time a school of Christian perfection and social and civil commitment.

I would like to take this opportunity, when so many Superior majors of your respective orders are united, to thank you for your services of pastoral care and spiritual assistance to the local fraternities of the SFO erected within your jurisdiction. Please let me say that pastoral care and spiritual assistance to the SFO must stem, not so much from rules, but from the love and trust in ones vocation and from the desire to make it known, respecting the nature of the secular fraternity and giving priority to witnessing Franciscan life and, especially, in fraternal accompaniment.

Assisting the SFO today entails a fraternal service to which you are called: to help the secular Franciscans, by your closeness to each locally erected fraternity in your jurisdiction, to be individuals that passionately live their faith in the Church and in society with the values and behaviour of Francis. But evidently no one can give what they do not have. Nevertheless, the SFO continues dreaming. It dreams of churches and parishes that are given to you which are authentically Franciscan, where the values and the needs of one’s vocation and charism are lived and made known.

As I have already mentioned, the SFO is committed to formation, for which it needs confident support. It needs spiritual assistants who will actively collaborate, especially in the formation walk, in making our fraternities convincing and consistent with their vocation. It needs spiritual assistants who can help them to fully comprehend the mission that has to be accomplished. Assistants with the awareness that helping today’s youth and adults to discover the true sense of life is indeed an extraordinary task. Please help my brothers and sisters who are striving to be individuals of faith, coherent and exemplary in their lives and courageous in their choices. Help us to be “witnesses”.

We must not forget the diverse living conditions of our fraternities in many parts of the world: Africa, Central America, Paraguay, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, India, Belarus.... Some of them live without any material means, but they seriously live their faith and their Christian and Franciscan vocation, a spiritual gift which we should all aspire. I have met formators living in the most absolute poverty who have deeply moved me for the beauty of their dedication and moral strength, as well as the basic knowledge that they convey to those being formed. Can we actually sustain that in this poverty, which Francis chose for himself, we cannot be Franciscans today? That without thorough academic formation we cannot live the perfection of charity and the spirit of the “Letter of Francis to all the faithful”?.

During the last decade the new course of the SFO received, even before the Vatican II, a generous and important prophetical stimulus from many religious. The memory of numerous General Ministers and Assistants follow us, their names remembered as a blessing and with infinite gratitude. Much of what we know today we owe to them and to a several courageous “tertiaries”; with their inexpressible love for the Franciscan Family and the Third Order, and their admirable prophetic commitment, they were able to persevere in their project, despite numerous difficulties and prejudices (some of which still exist today), and impart strength and substance to the rebirth of the Secular Franciscan Order.

Let me say with sincere simplicity and satisfaction that, in all this, the SFO has accomplished, perhaps unknowingly, a special and irreplaceable mission: we have been effective catalysts of fraternity and unity in our Family. Thanks to the requirements of the collegial exercise of pastoral care and spiritual Assistance, we have prompted occasions of encounters, of dialogue and of fraternal knowledge, not only among ourselves but especially among you dear brothers and sisters of the First Order and the TOR, because by sharing our responsibilities you have given life to the Conference of the Assistants, true cenacle of fraternity and mutual affection, family experiences, foresights of a broader and vital communion. I, personally, have recently witnessed the first meeting of all the Superior Majors of a European Country, on the occasion of a fraternal and pastoral visit to the SFO, during which the Visitors had to meet with those responsible for exercising the “Altius Moderamen”.

Brothers, please allow me to tell you what is expected and what we need from you: that you truly be not only the guarantors of spiritual assistance, but also brothers, street companions, that walk with us side by side, neither ahead nor behind. We need you to accompany us and flank us as educators throughout the entire growth of our vocation and in exercising the mission that we have been assigned, in the quick and sincere passage “from the Gospel to life and from life to the Gospel (R.4). We need that you are convinced and that you have a clear and updated vision of the SFO and the Youfra and of their position in the Church and in our Family. We need you “suitable and prepared” (R. 26) in order to offer assistance and pastoral care that is complete and adequate.

A sign of this family maturity could be that of realizing the project embarked on with a motion of our General Chapter in 2008: that, at the next World Youth Day, all the young people of our Family be united together before the Church and before our Holy Father. There will naturally be specific moments of formation for each group, but they could also have moments of formation as a young Family and to witness the spirituality we are living, just as other associations and Church movements do.

This grace of origins that we are celebrating, is the corner stone on which the whole building of our Family leans on. Lets take advantage of it. Let us be alert so as not to lose this important historical opportunity to recuperate the significance of the Family of St. Francis of Assisi. We have to wake up and take action because there is much lethargy and negligence in our family.

This is the memorial that we are celebrating: the grace of a special charism which regards Francis and, in him, an entire Family an ecclesial project to be fully lived.

Thank you and the Lord bless you, bless us, and fill us with grace, maturity and the courage needed to recover the gift of the conversion of our origins.

Assisi, April 16, 2009
Encarnacon del Pozo
General Minister SFO