C I O F S LIST

The Tau cross in the Franciscan tradition

SFO towards 2000

The Hebrew people, like many other ancient cultures, progressively elaborated a theology or a complementary spiritual interpretation proper to each letter of their alphabet.

Because the Hebrew scriptures, and therefore the Hebrew alphabet was not formally codified until almost two hundred years after the birth of Christ, many letters were sometimes shaped in a variety of forms depending on the regions where Jews were living, either in Israel or in the diaspora: somewhere outside of Israel, usually in the Greek speaking world.

For our purposes, the las letter of the Hebrew alphabet represented the fulfilment of the entire revealed Word of God. This letter was called the Tau (or Taw, pronounced "tav" in Hebrew) which could be simultaneously written: /\ X + T. When the Prophet Ezekiel (9:4) uses the imagery of the last letter of the alphabet he is commending Israel to remain faithful to God until the last, to be recognized as symbolically "sealed" with the mark of the Tau on their foreheads as God's chosen people until the end of their lives. Those who remained faithful were called the remnant of Israel , often the poor and simple people who trusted in God even without understanding the present struggle in their lives.

Although the last letter of modern Hebrew (/\), is no longer cross-shaped as described in the variations above, the early Christian writers cominenting on the Bible would have used its Greek version called the "Septuagint". In this Greek translation of the Hebrew scriptures (which Christians call the "Old Testamente") the tau was written as a T.

Naturally, then, for Christians the T came to represent the cross of Christ as being the fulfillment of the Old Testament promises. The cross as prefigured in the last letter of the Hebrew alphabet, represented the means by which Christ reversed the disobedience of the old Adam and became our Saviour as the "New Adam".

During the Middle Ages, the religious community of Anthony, the Hermit, of which Saint Francis was familiar, was very involved in the care of lepers. these men used Christ's cross shaped like the Greek T as an amulet for warding off the plague and other skin diseases. In the early years of his conversion, Francis would have worked with these religious in the Assisi area and may have often been a guest in their hospice near St. John Lateran in Rome. Francis often spoke of meeting Christ disguised in the form of a leper as the turning point of his conversion. It is no doubt then that Francis eventually accepted an adapted the T as his own crest or signature combining the ancient imagery of life-long fidelity to the passion of Christ which carried with it the command to serve the least, the lepers of his day.

Even more specifically intensifying the tau imagery, when Pope Innocent III called for a great reform of the Roman Catholic Church in 1215, Saint Francis would have heard the pope open the Fourth Lateran Council with the same exhortation as the Old Testament Prophet Ezekiel: " We are called to reform our lives, to stand into the presence of God as righteous people. God zill know us by the sign of the tau, T, marked on our foreheads." This symbolic imagery, used by the same pope who commissioned Francis' new community a brief five years earlier, was immediately taken to heart as his own call to reform. With arms outstretched, Francis often told his brother friars that their religious habit was in the same shape as the tau, T, meaning that they were called to be walking "crucifixes", models of a compassionate God and examples of faithfulness until their dying day.

Today, followers of Francis, as laity or religious, would wear the tau cross as an exterior sign, a "seal" of their own commitment, a remembrance of the victory of Christ over evil through daily self-sacrificing love. The sign of contradiction has become the sign of hope, a witness of fidelity until the end of our lives.

We are walking towards 2000 and time going by hides the treasures God wants to grant to men.

Treasures that strengthen faith, assist in sorrows, suggest intentions.

The time we are living bears difficulties and problems, chances and meanings, opportunities to take and positions to adopt.

The end of modernity, the overcoming of the industrial society, the achievements of information technologies sway men from recognising themselves in God's hands.

We are called to be a part of such a society with consistency of evangelical life, a challenge requiring from each one: spiritual insight, capability to make choices and give signs, bravery to become proposing strength, grow as a symbol of salvation and gift, good leaven in the history of our time.

Our Fraternities too are called to become a sign of unity so that the world do believe, yeast of Christ to repair the torn Christian tissue of our society, to prepare for sharing goods, for permanently being a site where close logic is overcome and for an open place with broad horizons.

I think it is time for Franciscans obeying to "go and repair..." to adopt the directives of the Conference of the Franciscan Family on the 2000 Jubilee and to offer ourselves to the Church in which we operate becoming a part of the ordinary pastoral, expressing our prophetic and charismatic presence at best, to avoid getting exhausted within ourselves and our circles.

As a consequence we must look at the situation inside and outside the Fraternity to improve it with concrete projects, significant restoring interventions, and offer to the eyes of the Church and the world suitable behaviour models.

This will also help improving the whole SFO image, living the membership, sharing the lot in the changing time conditions, which is something different from preserving the existing situation.

Such a commitment requires determination and faith motivations and, in turn, it offers more meaning and consideration to our presence in the Church and in the world.

The Pope says that going towards the Jubilee is like a prolonged session of spiritual exercises to be followed as pilgrims of peace, in the purification of memory, along the path of forgiveness, relieving the pains of many brothers, appealing to one's own conscience face to face with God.

This way should be followed by each one of us in line with the Seraphic Father's example and the love towards Him we live for.