Fr. John also highlighted that one of the difficulties in raising funds thus far has been the recent financial difficulties experienced by the Order. "Part of the challenge has been our current financial crisis. People of means want to see the needed corrections put in place for our financial recovery and transparency to bring us back to the necessary financial health," he said. "We see these now taking place and these will assure future donors."

The second option that Fr. John outlined was a plan to move forward with a greater collaboration with the General Secretarial for the Franciscan Missions in Waterford, Wisconsin. This is a fundraising arm of the Order that was established in 1971, which had until recently very narrowly defined fundraising directives. Recently it has been brought more in line with the overall fundraising goals of the Order. This option would also position the Order for more long term growth in major and planned giving. It would also be a transitional period towards the creation of a more permanent development office with a full budget and staffing. It would also lead to the creation of a strategic plan for fundraising and development, as well as an integrated public relations and communications plan.

General Minister Michael Perry, OFM, offered words of thanks for the willingness of Fr. John to take on this task. "I want to publicly thank John for accepting this task of service to the Order at this time in the area of fundraising and development. These efforts do not begin today. Provinces and entities have been engaged in these efforts to support our life and our missions for some time," he said. 

The third option would be the eventual establishment of a fully operational development office. This would include a professional staff, written policies and procedures which would follow established best practices including gift processing and acknowledgment procedures. "We would put into place all of the tools required to run an office properly," Fr. John said.

It will be up to the new administration to consider these plans and make an eventual decision on what was presented. 

In the afternoon, the Chapter delegates received input from Professor Valerio Malendri. Professor Malendri is the director of the Master in Fundraising program at the University of Bologna and is currently a Visiting Professor at Columbia University in New York City. He spoke to the Chapter via Skype from his office in New York.

The focus of his presentation was to speak of the different approaches to fundraising outside of the United States, which was the focus of the morning session.

"The situation is different in these other parts of the world. The collecting of funds is in the blood of the people here in the United States," he said. Professor Malendri shared a story from his time in New York sending his children to public school. "On the first day of school, when we spoke with the teacher, the very first thing the teacher said here is 'what we want from each of you is $3,000. I was surprised by this, but the other parents weren't surprised at all."

He then further outlined the difference in a tradition equality exchange model of economy where goods or services are exchanged for an equal value of currency, to one where the value on return is different, where givers/donors may give one value in donation and receive a different kind of return - a symbolic return for the good of their contribution as the basis of their donation.

Following his presentation, as with the morning presentation, Capitulars had an opportunity for dialogue with the presenters.

The other sessions of the day were tied up with the work of the various commissions, but their work today was not reported back in plenary session. 

The Chapter also received to day the greeting of the Mayor of Assisi Claudio Ricci.

  

Vespers, Saint Clare's - 27th May 

We are gathered together here in prayer, the Poor Sisters of St. Clare and the Friars Minor, with the profound desire that the lives of each of us may be focused on God, and to have, above everything else, "The Spirit of the Lord and His holy operation and to pray to Him always with a pure heart" (Rb 10, 8), in the "spirit of holy prayer and devotion to which all other temporal things should serve" (Rb 5, 2). 

The letter of St. Clare to Agnes is today directed to us "EMBRACE THE POOR CHRIST....; look at him, consider him, contemplate him, desiring to imitate him (2LAg 20), he is the Lord who for "us made himself poor in this world" which in the experience of Francis expresses "the sublimity of that highest poverty" which is our portion of the inheritance (cfr. Rb 6, 4-6). From that moment Clare, the Sisters and the Friars follow "the humility and the poverty of our Lord Jesus Christ" (cfr. Rnb 9, 1). 

With a heart open to the Spirit, we ask the capacity to have the gifts and virtues of wisdom and simplicity, poverty and humility (cfr. SalVir), which confound the wise and the perfect of this world (cfr. 1Cor). St. Francis and St. Clare, lovers of Christ, continue to be for us the icon of Holy Poverty, images of Christ poor and crucified, examples of the believing soul capable of going out of itself for love, entrusting itself to others and sharing that in humility.

In this holy place and in front of the crucifix of San Damiano, we are invited to recognize the need to embrace, to desire, to contemplate and follow every day our Lord, creator, redeemer, consoler and saviour with all our heart, with all our soul, with all our mind (cfr. Pater),to live each moment: 

* The happiness of fraternity and minority. From history we have learned that the poverty of Francis is not exclusively an ascetic and individual value, but is always linked to a spiritual and fraternal poverty; and this poverty is the condition, almost the door, to enter on the path of discipleship, to live a deeper relationship with Jesus Christ.

 * The joy of being minors, as a manifestation of the authentic humility of heart (cfr. Am 2, 3; 3; 4; 6, 4); as closeness to those who are in need; as capacity to open new constructive fraternal relationships. Francis in the Rule speaks of the "sublimity of the highest poverty" (Rb 6, 4) in the chapter on fraternal relations, sketching out therefore a fraternity in mission capable of living the value of solidarity.

* The novelty of mercy. Francis tackles the problem of the poor, and his attitude, independently of the personal qualities of those whom he had in front of him was to not only to give alms, but to give the best: good bread as well as care, respect and good humour. Here there is the intelligence of love: Francis understands that men need to be treated as human beings, to be esteemed and respected. His mission is to win hearts through evangelical courtesy and with benevolence. 

This discovery in the scheme of faith creates in the believer and in the consecrated another way of relating to God, with men and women, with all creatures. The old forms of domination, submission and exploitation fall; more fraternal, just and free relationships emerge in equality and respect. From this derives a simple life style, the rejection of riches reserved to a few, the grace to work with one's own hands. Holy Poverty creates new relationships, not only between consecrated and people, but also internally within the fraternity.

Let us ask God, good and faithful, for the grace to follow the example of His Son, for as Pope Francis says, "in God's heart there is a special place for the poor, as He Himself became poor in his only begotten Son (cfr. 2 Cor 8, 9)" (EG 197). 

The same Pope proposes a real transformation in the way of being disciples and being Church, which concerns consecrated life as well, with a dynamism of "going out" which God wishes to provoke in believers (EG 20). It is a matter of a call directed to us today, concerning our conversion, "to go forth from our own comfort zone in order to reach all the "peripheries" in need of the light of the Gospel " (EG 20).

We cannot forget that there are many "spiritual and material comfort zones" from which we are called to go out, in the awareness that no exodus will be entirely completed until it means EMBRACING THE POOR CHRIST from within.