(This article originally appeared in the TAU-USA Fall 2020 #101)

NEWS FROM THE NATIONAL EXECUTIVE COUNCIL

COVID-19 changes the National Executive Council’s Plans too.

The National Executive Council (NEC) typically meets 2-4 times per year to conduct the business of the Secular Franciscan Order in the United States with a few phone calls in between meetings. Due to the pandemic the NEC began to meet only virtually. Most of those meetings were two hours or less once or twice a month. In March, the scheduled four-day meeting at the Chiara Center in Springfield, Illinois was replaced by virtual meeting sessions over the same period of time. As of July 2020, the NEC virtually met 15 times in 2020. See chart of meetings for the NEC:

Some specific actions taken during the spring and summer include:

1. Guidelines for Fraternal Gatherings in Times of Social Distancing were issued in May  2020. https://secularfranciscansusa.org/2020/05/13/guidelines-for-fraternal-life-during-socialdistancing/

The guidelines address what types of events can happen virtually (fraternity gatherings, council meetings, and initial formation sessions). Other events will need to be postponed until it is safe to gather together (visitations, elections, and Rites of Admission and Profession).

2.The International Council of the OFS (CIOFS) sent out a draft of new International Statutes this past spring. The NEC reviewed the statutes and drafted comments with recommendations and questions. The draft will be shared with the Regional Ministers for review and comment prior to returning it to the CIOFS this September.

3.The CIOFS elective chapter has been postponed until 2021. Please continue to pray that the Holy Spirit will guide all as CIOFS prepares for the chapter.

4. A new CIOFS website, www.ciofs.info, was launched in early July.

5. Our three National Commissions – Formation, Justice Peace and Integrity of Creation (JPIC) and Franciscan Youth and Young Adults (FY/YA) – were undaunted by the Covid-19 limitations and over this past summer enthusiastically hosted virtual workshops. Hundreds of OFS from across the country benefitted from these gatherings, enjoying both formation and fellowship in large and small groups. At the JPIC Visioning II Workshop, held virtually May 8-9, 2020, 36 national leaders came together to continue the conversation that was begun in August 2019. During this workshop, the idea of JPIC Focus Groups came up as a way to educate and communicate about certain social justice issues: Immigration, Care for Creation, and the Spirituality of JPIC. Less than three weeks later, the world was shocked at the brutal killing of another unarmed black man by police. People were able to see the killing unfold on TV and on social media. Seculars all over the country were crying out, “What is ours to do?” As a result, an additional JPIC Focus Group was formed to address the issue of racism and practice mindful dialogue. This past August, the Formation Commission two-day workshop drew nearly 100 attendees. (See related article in this issue.) The FY/YA Commission hosted weekly gatherings over an 11-week period. All these virtual gatherings have received rave reviews.

6. Guidelines for Regional Archives were approved in May 2020 and have been posted on our webiste. For a copy of the guideline, please contact Jane DeRose-Bamman, OFS (ofsusasecretary@gmail.com)

7. Regional Visitations and Elections have been postponed due to the pandemic. NEC members are working closely with the Regional Ministers to see when the events can be rescheduled.

8. The Spanish translation of the OFS Ritual is nearly complete. Many people were involved with this effort. It will be sent for final formatting and printing in the near future. The NEC is looking forward to having this resource become available.

https://secularfranciscansusa.org/2020/11/09/sharing-the-vision/

Sometime we don’t have time to get on the internet and sometime it is down!!!

You can put any of the Calendars from this website into a MS Word document and save it to a folder in your Documents on your computer.

If you have Microsoft Word, you can copy the whole calendar and paste it into Word.

Before or after you paste it into the Word Document, change the Orientation from Portrait to Landscape.

 Then you can Insert a Heading — if you want — for the Month & Year.

You can change it into a PDF format by the Save As to PDF.

And you have it.   

The links are carried into both the Word and the PDF documents. 

If your internet is available, you can pull up the info for the event on the calendar right from the document.

By placing your cursor over the entry of the day in your document, the link pops up and tells you to hit the  “ctrl”  key at the same time you press the right click on the mouse…  (most times I have to try it a time or 2 to get the sequence right) 

https://secularfranciscansusa.org/2020/11/02/did-you-know-copying-calendars-into-ms-word/

by Joe Makley OFS Vice-Chair, National JPIC Commission

It was Pope Francis, in Laudato Si, who said of Saint Francis: “[He showed us the] inseparable bond between concern for nature, justice for the poor, commitment to society and interior peace.” He was talking about Francis’ whole life and ministry, and he wanted us to understand that these things are connected. To put it in the terms of the moment, it is difficult to stop a pandemic when large segments of the society do not have proper health insurance or clean drinking water. The spirit of Laudato Si is a spirit of justice and peace, integral to life in a clean and healthy Earth.

I was to attend the Ecumenical Advocacy Days in Washington at the end of April. The theme was environmental justice (on the anniversary of Laudato Si). After it was cancelled, I caught one of the guest speakers online, Joan Brown, Sister of Francis, who directs New Mexico Interfaith Power and Light, a group that works on environmental issues with native American and vulnerable populations. Her presentation called for that change of heart described in our Rule, from the temptation to exploit nature, to one of universal kinship. Sister spoke directly to how the pandemic provides an opportunity for a conversion to realize essential elements of the Laudato Si vision, through direct changes to our own lifestyles, and working to correct societal injustices brought to light by its stresses on our institutions. “What is our call now,” she asked, “in this mysterious moment of death and birth?”

I’ve been thinking and praying about that, as I’m sure you have. During these weeks we’ve had a close visit from Sister Death, a unique physical separation from our human families, and a pause in the bustle, under skies clearer and bluer than I can remember seeing in decades. Whole fleets of commercial jets are parked. Even trains and buses have stopped rolling. The human costs of perpetual war, weak institutions and social inequities are placed under a bright light. Surely now we can hear the cries of those who are not in the protective bubble of the “developed” world, or its dominant groups. Surely now we can see how our own habits of consumption are connected to the problem. Surely now, we will hear God speaking to us, and our hearts will be made ready for a truer, deeper, and more complete conversion to Christ, and with our Seraphic Father St. Francis, to see all creatures, animate and inanimate, praising the Most High, to renew our gratitude for them, and to raise our voices in the same chorus.

All our popes since Pope St. John XXIII have called us to this, most recently Pope Francis, but also Pope St John Paul II in his articulate description of “human ecology” in Centesimus Annus. Our Rule (p. 18) calls us to ecological 2 conversion, universal kinship. Over the past few weeks, we have also been shown (in a new way) that we can’t do it all. So what action will we choose? How will a renewed love, a new, less stony, more natural heart for everyone and all creation, be made manifest in each one of us?

I know we are all helping to reduce suffering, through volunteer work, donations, etc., so we are already taking visible action out of love. We have been asked to work more on “root causes and structures,” so I’ll mention a few practical steps, trying to stick to things that I have done or someone that I know has.

✤ Monitor legislation at the state, local, or national level. See what is being proposed in each session and follow the OFS Rule to support just laws and oppose unjust laws, to seek the common good, to demonstrate solidarity with the marginalized. This includes contacting the diocesan public policy office and writing to or calling legislators, offering comments to legislative committees. As Kent Ferris, of the Davenport, Iowa, diocese, said at the 2019 JPIC: “If a person prefers to work directly with the poor and doesn’t like politics, that person’s voice may be the most important one the legislators hear on that day.” Like many of us, I am reluctant to trust an email alert; I need to know myself what is going on, so it takes time. In Maine, we do have a diocesan office of Public Policy, and its director, Suzanne Lafrenier, lets us know about things coming up at the state legislature if we get on her email list. Some dioceses have an office of Pro-Life or other title.

✤ Send thank you messages to legislators and others who work on behalf of the marginalized, the poor, and the vulnerable.

✤ Look for authentic dialogue opportunities. Specifically, have a respectful online discussion with, for instance, a vocal Catholic who disagrees with the Church’s activity of refugee placement. Practice that loving dialogue. Ask questions. Seek to understand. “How did you come to be at such odds with Church teaching on this?” Develop a relationship, rather than trying to “win.”

✤ Continue to work to get St Francis’ Canticle of the Creatures out there among Catholics, in print, but especially in recital to music. The Canticle is a picture and an inspiration of ecological conversion. The Transitus service is a great way to feature it at a Parish. Holy Family Fraternity has a service that does this, and we’d be glad to share.

✤ Reduce consumption: It’s a key Franciscan lesson from the pandemic: buying stuff can cause harm. Buying less can be transformational. Look at what we just achieved by not buying air travel! Buying intentionally (avoiding sweatshops and child labor, choosing Fair Trade, avoiding petrochemicals, supporting worker-owned companies and coops, etc.) can make a real difference, too.

✤ Use less food: More rice and beans. More soup. Make things rather than buy. Fewer onetime purchases “for supper,” better planning. Food takes a lot of energy to produce and transport. David Seitz, a board member of the Franciscan Action Network, said recently of the pandemic: “I am eating healthy and spending way less money. I’m going to keep doing this.

✤ Drive less. I am amazed at the lack of movement of our car’s odometer. I’m partial to a road trip, but I can get used to the savings, and the substantial contribution to Mother Earth.

✤ Hold onto that deepened sense of gratitude for what I already have. I think all of us have felt we would come out of this transformed. I pray that our conversion will also be a collective one, where the voice of the OFS is more unified and gains volume and is heard by those who in Pope Francis’ words “are still waiting.”

(This article originally appeared in the TAU-USA Fall Issue 2020.)

https://secularfranciscansusa.org/2020/10/26/conversion-and-action-on-the-anniversary-of-laudato-si/