St. Agnes Of Prague

But Where Are The Others?

Flash From Niger

The National Minister of the SFO of the Czech Republic, Petr Alexa, sent to the Minister General an interesting communication which we are transmitting in its entirety.

Dearest Sister,

In 2011 we will celebrate the 800 [th] anniversary of the birth of St. Agnes of Prague. During the last session of the major Superiors of the Franciscan Orders and of the Franciscan Congregations they decided to dedicate the year 2011 in the Czech Republic to St. Agnes of Prague.

St. Agnes is also extraordinarily important for the worldwide Franciscan Family in itself.

Her monastery was the first Clarian convent in the region across the Alps. Agnes, daughter of the king of Bohemia, Primislao Ottocar I, refused to become the wife of the Emperor and preferred to choose the way of insignificance and poverty. The deep friendship between St. Clare of Assisi and St. Agnes of Prague is well known thanks to the letters of St. Clare. In that time only three convents of the Clares had had the privilege of poverty. One of these was the Convent of Prague, founded by St. Agnes.

St. Agnes together with St. Clare tried to form the Rule of the Clares in the spirit of the Franciscan charisma. She herself wrote many letters to the Popes of her time. These letters were not saved, but the answers to them exist.

She desired to realize the ideal of not being recognised. As soon as she knew that the Pope had approved the Rule of S. Clare for the sisters at St. Damian’s, she asked him to be able to introduce this Rule also for the Convent at Prague.

The spiritual friendship between St. Clare and St. Agnes is much esteemed also today. These two women never met personally, but the desire to follow Christ, poor and humble, in a common ideal overcame all the frontiers and differences. In the Rule of St. Clare you can feel the influence of St. Agnes because the experience of life in a country so far away had also enriched St. Clare.

St. Agnes was an educated, courageous, and at the same time maternally loving. Even before inviting the Clares to Bohemia she founded the first hospital in the country following the example of the cousin, St. Elizabeth of Hungary. Also, after entering the monastery, she assisted the poor where possible washing the hospital dressings and mending the clothes of the poor.

We are sorry to think that on a worldwide scale this most admirable woman is so little known. We think that a good occasion to make her and her spiritual patrimony better known would be to proclaim a Worldwide Franciscan Year of St. Agnes of Prague. Who could understand the letters of St. Clare well without knowing the person to whom they were written?

We therefore cordially invite all the brothers and sisters in the Franciscan life to live the year 2011 together with St. Agnes letting us be inspired by her example.

Thank you anticipating your answer. I pray that St. Agnes shall intercede for you before Our Lord Jesus Christ, Lamb without sin.

Pax et Bonum!

The Minister General was very grateful for this letter and assured Petr Alexa her support.

On Sunday, seeing so many places empty in our churches, sadly our hearts ring out, “But where are the others?” It is almost an echo of the words of Jesus after the return of the cured Samaritan: “Were not the ten made clean? But where are the nine?”

The answer in sociological terms is not difficult. The years of moderntimes and the growth of secularization have brought a progressive loss of a “religious meaning” in life, that common patrimony of widespread knowledge and sensibility that has always represented the wealth of the Christian people. The reigning culture is emptying Sunday of its original religious meaning. Even in common language everyone has changed from saying “the day of Our Lord” to “the weekend”.

Sunday has been totally filled with all sorts of duties. Think, for example, of all the people working in the department stores and in public service; of the many young people engaged in amateur or professional sport; of the millions of people who travel every Sunday to go to the sea or take a vacation. And they all, more or less, feel the necessity to relax from the stress of the working week with its pressing rhythm. The man of today on his free day is anything but free: in the area of comfort he passes from the production line to the consumer and begins the week again more tired and emptier than before; in the area of discomfort often the suffering is so great that it kills the hope of a better future. In Italy a survey revealed the figures relative to the participation of Catholics at Sunday Mass. 57.8% defined themselves as a “practicing catholic” but of these only 21.4% go to Mass every Sunday. 33.7% of those who do not go, don’t go because “of boredom”, 19.8% because they “prefer to rest” and 11% because “they don’t feel any spirituality”.

But we all need the Sunday Eucharist to gain strength to face the hard work in the journey of life. Deserting the Sunday Eucharist makes us poorer; it weakens our faith and belonging to the Church;

It impedes our making Sunday a day of joy and communion. Sunday is not only “the day of our Lord”; it is also “the day of man”. It calls us to carry out the sharing of time and love in the family and with the families. Receiving the gift of love that Christ makes of Himself in the Eucharist, the Christian family – husband and wife, parents and children – enlivens and augments the capacity to donate to each other reciprocally, gives a solid foundation to the family structure and re-establishes the relationship of solidarity inside the community.

The participation in the Eucharist should not be a duty to be carried out (“let’s hope that at least the homily won’t be too long”), but it should permeate the whole day and as a sign of the feast day reach, as a convivial gathering, the common table together (sometimes the only time during the week) of relatives and friends (especially if elderly and alone), giving attention to the situations of poverty (material and spiritual) verified around us.

The lay people are asked in a special way to protect the sacredness of Sunday which can guarantee that important “space for God” in the grey skies of materialism. The Eucharist, in fact, teaches us that life does not depend on one’s activity; it calls us to be not afraid of silence, of meeting God; it pushes us to live with a heart. From this is the need to cultivate this dimension in daily prayer, with the rediscovery of the beauty of the liturgy and the fascination of the “sacredness” of time.

In Italy the National Eucharistic Congress this year was celebrated using the theme, “Without the Sunday Eucharist we cannot live”: in such a way the martyrs of Abidene answered the representative of the Roman emperor who condemned them to death for not having observed the prohibition to gather for the Sunday Eucharist. In his homily at the end of the Congress the Holy Father said: “The Sunday precept...is a need for Christians, it is a joy; Christians can thus replenish the energy hey need to continue on the journey we must make every week. Moreover, this is not an arbitrary journey: the path God points out to us through his Word goes in the direction inscribed in man’s very existence. The Word of God and reason go together. For the human being, following the Word of God, going with Christ means fulfilling oneself; losing it is equivalent to losing oneself.”

As Secular Franciscans we are urged to have, like St. Francis, an intense Eucharistic life (Rule SFO, n.5). Concerning this the General Constitutions give concrete indications: “The brothers and sisters should participate in the Eucharist as frequently as possible...not only to personal sanctification but also to fostering the growth of the Church and the spreading of the Kingdom.” (CC. GG., art 14, nn. 2 and 3). These orientations can help us also to make simple but profoundly human gestures that express and realize the solidarity, the sharing, the hope and the in complete liberation of man.

So, the Eucharistic Celebration becomes for all of us a precious occasion to verify our conformity to Christ (Reg. SFO, n. 7) and our vow to imitate him with the generous gift of our life (Reg. SFO, n. 13).

Welcoming address presented by the President of the SFO fraternity of Enugu (Niger), Sister Perpetua MBA, on the occasion of the visit made last March by two Capucine friars from Italy and by the regional delegate SFO of the Tuscan Province.

It is an honour and a privilege for me representing the SFO Fraternity of Enugu to welcome our sister Lucia and brothers, Corrado and Luciano. We thank divine mercy that you were able to travel from Italy all the way to Niger and arrive safely at Enugu.

We thank God for the grace of having the Capuchins presence here at Enugu because it brought to us a way of living that has transformed many men and women in our surroundings. We love St. Francis, and we are doing all we can so that his ideals are really lived in our society. Through our Franciscan testimony in our work and in our Fraternity we have been able and we continue to help the abandoned and those who need food, clothes and shelter along with doing charity work in private and public homes, hospitals and school, etc. We especially help in paying hospital bills and schools for the poorer students.

Here in the SFO Fraternity of Enugu except for the various committees of differing apostolates, we have “home/parish” Fraternities. These Fraternities reach the poor in our neighbourhoods and underline the fraternal spirit of their own members because they hold the meetings in their own homes. The result is that the members of the SFO are having great influence in the environment of the home/parish. Other than our gatherings every three months and at Easter, the retreat at the end of the year and the courses of formation at various levels for the SFO profession, now we hold days of retreat for everyone and special courses for our younger members to improve and emphasize their human, personal and spiritual growth. We have a day also to know and deepen our knowledge on the Catholic faith so essential for Christian formation. All this thanks to our dynamic and busy Spiritual Assistant, Fr. Paschal. Now we are busy with the publication of the fourth edition of our Bulletin “The Franciscan Voice”.

One of our biggest projects this year concerns health. We would like to begin to visit the rural areas of Egnugu at least once a month with a team of health workers who are members of the SFO and make consultations, prescriptions and distribute medicine. However, this noble project is hampered by the lack of funds. We thank you for the medicines that you sent last month but just like Oliver Twist, we need more. We need medicines and money for this project. We are counting on your help.

Because of the lack of funds our young Franciscans cannot be represented at the celebration of the World Youth Day and for the Franciscan youth meeting at Hortgenwald, August 12 – 21 this year as was asked by the SFO Minister General. At least one or two people should represent Niger, but we parents cannot support them. We pray that you can help us.

The SFO Minister General asks us not only to pray and spiritually support the victims of the disaster of the Tsumani but also to contribute materially. Concerning this we are sending through you the sum of N10.000 that is approximately 80 dollars. We heard the urgent request made by the Minister General to pay for offices or the secretariat. We are gathering our contribution together with the other Fraternities of Niger in the quality of an emerging National Fraternity.

Again we welcome our dear friend, Lucia and Fr. Luciano and Fr. Corrado. Accept our gifts in memory of this exchange of ideas as a sign or our welcome and appreciation for your presence among us. WELCOME AND BONVOYAGE!

Through the intercession of St. Francis we ask God’s blessing on your trip home to Tuscany, Italy.