My dear brothers,
May the Lord give you His peace!
On this holiest of days in our Franciscan calendar, let me offer to each of you a heartfelt greeting of peace and goodness as we celebrate our founder Saint Francis, and as we celebrate this way of life that we have all embarked on in his memory.
This Feast always brings me back to the sources and as I read once again the writings of our Saint, I am again struck by how much he finds the fraternity to be, in the words of our General Constitutions, "the privileged place of meeting with God" (Art. 40).
Francis does not sugar coat this. He understands the challenges of living in fraternity. He writes in his Letter to a Minister, that even in the face of difficulties with the friars, "I wish to know in this way if you love the Lord and me, His servant and yours: that there is not any brother in the world who has sinned - however much he could have sinned - who, after he has looked into your eyes, would ever depart without your mercy, if he is looking for mercy. And if he were not looking for mercy, you would ask him if he wants mercy. And if he would sin a thousand times before your eyes, love him more than me so that you may draw him to the Lord; and always be merciful with brothers such as these."
There are many such examples. But, I want to highlight these two keys today. Each one of our friaries, our fraternities, our brotherhoods, are privileged places where we have the opportunity to meet God. But, God is not other, God can be met in and through our brother. God can be found in the way that we pray together; in the way that we serve each other; in the way that we seek and offer mercy and forgiveness to each other.
This is a fitting thought, I think, as we end this Year of Consecrated Life and prepare to enter into the Year of Mercy. My prayer for each of us, my brothers on this Feast, is that mercy be the defining quality of our fraternities. My prayer is that we embrace mercy as the preeminent way to make our friaries - our homes - privileged places of encounter with our God.
Buona festa! Happy Feast! Fraternally, Primo P. Piscitello, OFM Provincial Minister |
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