DOMUS PACIS, ASSISI - Chapter delegates began the slow work of considering the many proposals that have been discussed in small groups and Commissions and further honed by the Commission on Proposals and the Committee of Moderators this week.

The majority of the day today was taken up with the consideration of the changes to the General Statutes that have been proposed. They did not complete the consideration of the proposed legislative changes.  Below are the ones that the Chapter was able to consider today:

Provincial Minister Kevin Mullen, OFM (HNP), ESC Vice-President and Provincial Minister Hugh McKenna, OFM (Ireland), ESC President, on the General Chapter floor.

Chapter Capitulars voted in accord with the recommendation of the commission who considered these proposals to reject the following changes:

• To Article 42 which would change the language of "integrity of creation" to "care for creation".
• To Article 48 regarding the promotion of missionary vocations. This change was found to be unnecessary as they language already exists in legislation.
• To Article 120 regarding changes about the norms of establishing a province or custody. Again, these seem superfluous as they already exist in legislation.
• To Article 150 regarding the formation meeting for new Provincial Ministers. It was felt that this matter was more appropriate for the consideration of the General Definitorium rather than a matter for legislation.
• To Article 151 regarding the Secretariats of Formation and Studies and Missionary Evangellization and the organization of those offices. It was felt that this was not a matter for legislation, but a matter for the General Curia to regulate.
• To Article 167 to deny active and passive voice to friars over 75 who are physically or mentally incapable of fully participating in the Chapter. It was felt this was too difficult to regulate and too easily open to abuse. 
• To Article 200 to clarify the norms related to the erection of and regulation of Conferences. No contradiction was found in the existing norms to warrant a further clarification.
• To Article 149 regarding the number of General Definitors and the manner of their election. It was recommended to retain the current legislation.

Provincial Minister Astijus Kungys, OFM (St. Casimir, Lithuania) making an intervention.

 

There was the expected conversation and questions around a number of these items which lengthened the process of going through each for votation. Capitulars will resume their consideration of proposals tomorrow.

 Today's activities ended with an experience of Lectio Divina by the Chapter delegates, as they have done each week.

 

Lectio Divina ended the day.

DOMUS PACIS, ASSISI - The Franciscan presence in as care takers, or custodians, of the holy places associated with the life of Christ dates all the way back to the year 1217 when the General Chapter that year established that mission and ministry of the Order.

During the morning session of this General Chapter today, the current Custos of the Holy Land Pierbattista Pizzaballa, OFM, who has served in that role since 2004, spoke to the Chapter delegates about the current situation there.

Custos Pierbattista Pizzaballa, OFM, Custos of the Holy Land, addressing the General Chapter.

There are 281 friars of the Holy Land Custody. About half of them are members of the Custody proper and the other half have come from other Provinces around the world. There are 32 nationalities represented among there numbers speaking six different languages. The median age of the group is 54. "We have either the very young or the very old," said the Custos.

The friars ministry primarily in Israel, Palestine and Cyprus, but also maintain a presence in Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, Egypt and Rhodes. They engage primarily in liturgical and pastoral work in 55 sanctuaries throughout the holy places. They also minister to the ever-diminishing Christian communities in many of these places.

The Custos shared some information on the places where friars minister in the Holy Land.

"Conflict and division is our common reality," Friar Pierbattista told the Chapter. "We all know about the political conflict between Palestine and Israel, and of course, there is tremendous conflict currently in Syria and Lebanon as well."

In the midst of these places of conflict, some of them experiencing even dangerous violence, the friars engage in social outreach, supporting small Christian communities, caring for the elderly and supporting residential centers for the poor. 

"There is great need, as you can imagine, in Syria," the Custos related. "We have 10 parishes in Syria, and we try to give them hope in a country that has been utterly devastated."

The Custody operates 14 schools with more than 10,000 students in Israel, Cyprus, and Palestine. "We try and teach the values of toleration and respect no matter the religious background of our students," Friar Pierbattista said.

 

They also engage in ecumenical and inter-religious dialogue among the Orthodox Chris tians, the Muslims and Jews. 

"It is our job and our long held mission to be people who promote peace," the Custos said.  "We are called to dialogue."

God bless these friars in this worthy and historic ministry of our Order.

The antiphons of the psalms and the short reading to which we have listened sound like an invitation to reconsider our personal vocation story and our community vocation as friars minor. it may be a help to linger for a moment, as one does in language exercises, and complete the following phrases:

The Lord Himself led me among them (the lepers), and I...

And after the Lord gave me brothers, I...

A dispute arose among them as to which one of them was to be regarded as the greatest, and yet I..

And those who came to undertake this life distributed to the poor that which they had, and we...

How beautiful if it were to emerge from our experiences something similar to that which Francis and his first companions related to us! Not a blameless story, free of conflict or contradictions. It would be naive to idealize their story or to imagine Francis as a sort of mirror of perfection in the sense that has come down to us in the Saint's biography of the same name drafted much later. I will try to actualize and unpack some aspects of our story in completing the sentences in everyone's name.

Friar Mauro Gambetti, OFM Conv., Custos of the Sacro Convento, offering the homily during Vespers at the Basilica of St. Francis on Wednesday.

The Lord Himself led me among them (the lepers): The experience of feeling threatened by the presence of someone, offended by some gesture, or wounded by a word which reawakens our poverty, our faults, our wounds is not unfamiliar to us. Just think of the relationships between our families of the First Order until a short while ago. In some circumstances it is natural that envies and jealousies, anger or repulsion, arise within us, perhaps because the others represent what we would like to be, or because we see in them what we fear in ourselves and about ourselves.

The Lord Himself led me among them, and I sought above all to be welcoming to open myself to the other in order to receive him to have him enter...and to "gather" with him. The ingredients: hospitality, acceptance, listening, esteem and the attempt to put myself into play to make the other participant in something which I feel to be mine. The experience of an unconditional welcome then brought me to recognize the value of the other, his "different beauty."

And after the Lord gave me brothers: daily, in fraternity, we meet "nice" people, with whom we feel at ease, because we are encouraged, appreciated, supported in our ideas. Daily, we also meet "not so nice people" with whom we experience tensions, blocks, contradictions which we find suffocating, choking our life force. You need only recall some discussions in chapter to find some traces of this experience.

And after the Lord gave me brothers, I welcomed them and I used mercy towards them, yoking together two twin sisters - welcome and mercy - in forgiveness, essential for growth in relationships of communion and in peace. Forgiving allowed me to recognize once again the other person as a gift, to open myself even more to the other and to make more space for him iin my heart. Forgive, forgive, forgive, day after day. This is the work of the Spirit, the work of the powerful word of the Holy Gospel.

A dispute arose among us as to which one of us was to be regarded as the greatest: Conflicts often arise which on their face concern ideals, styles of life situations. On the face of it, because when no solutions are found, they are often shown to be hiding the matter openly discussed by the disciples of Jesus: who is the greatest among us? It is not simply a matter of roles, but rather of identity: who am I in the fraternity? The exercise of power which my role confers - and we know that even when one is carrying out the most simple service one exercises a power - can easily slip into forms of domination, of self-affirmation, of one's own ideas and reasons. In such a case, one seeks for the most part to flee from the frustration that arises from the lack of gratitude for one's identity, that more or less consciously, I attribute to the brothers.

A dispute arose among us as to which one of us was to be regarded as the greatest, and yet I have sought not to hide behind the role game in respect to my problems of identity and I seek with all my heart to root my identity in Jesus. Only thus do I not have to defend anything nor affirm anything, and I can instead with liberty of heart seek the will of God. Only in this way others can be at the center of my attention and I can live power as Jesus did, who made himself obedient to take care of us, to communicate his life to us.

And those who came to undertake this life distributed to the poor that which they had: we too have done the same, liberating ourselves of our possessions and consigning our wills to another. Still, temptations are not lacking for us to take back everything with interest, as happened to Francis returning from Perugia to Assisi on that night in which the little flower of perfect joy is set. We too are tempted by intellectual prestige, that today we see assuming the connotations of self-fulfillment, individualism and religious power that has assumed the form of the organization, of the strength of the institution or of the ambition to cover ecclesiastical offices, of religious success which one measures by number - how many vocations? How many will we be in 10 years? In 20? These are the most recurring questions - and on church and social visibility.

And those who came to undertake this life distributed to the poor that which they had...and today, as well, we seek to content ourselves with only one tunic, a habit that characterizes us because it indicates the freedom from material goods and "customs" which define our liberty - to amount to something, to dominate, to have success - to assume the identity of followers of Jesus Christ, poor and crucified. Jesus is the only one who interests us, source of the only real joy. We are interested only in being His. For this we seek to walk together as Franciscan friars in Assisi and, I fervently hope, in the world, because we don't seek first place, to maintain our privileges (even if legitimate and won through hard work) but rather we desire to be "peripheral" recognizing others at the center. And even when it does fall to one of us to be at the center, we do not wish to be there alone, but "to do things together," to share to be able to make available all we are and all we have.

Francis, you show us the way. May Christ teach us our part.