By Sharon Winzeler

Up to 18 boxes at a time were delivered for days to the home of Patsy Cueva Philipps, OFS, in Corpus Christi.

The spending spree on Amazon was fueled by a response to a call to help refugees being released from detention centers in Laredo, McAllen and San Antonio, TX.

Philipps, regional minister of the Los Tres Companeros Region of Secular Franciscans, had spent more than a year dreaming of a way to help people who were crossing the border to seek asylum. She was inspired to organize a Secular Franciscan service project to aid 1,000 men and women with drawstring backpacks filled with hygiene items and other supplies. Those packs were put together by some 80 Secular Franciscan leaders attending their annual chapter, held Oct. 15-20 at Pax Christi Liturgical Retreat Center in Corpus Christi.

It all started last year when Philipps discovered that on her way to work she was passing a detention center in Corpus Christi that housed 120 teenagers. When Philipps called to find out if the Secular Franciscans could help the residents with anything, she was told the government takes care of food and daily living items. What they could use, she was told, was art supplies, books and games.

Working with a wish list that included crayons, coloring books, and prayer cards, the local Secular Franciscan fraternity worked in cooperation with the diocese. They also hosted a Christmas party.

Bishop Michael Mulvey celebrated a Mass at the detention center and directed his homily toward the teenagers.

“He talked about the hard journey they had taken,” Phillips said. “He told them they brought a special gift to us in the same way Jesus and his parents did when they had to leave their country. He told them that they had to deal with more in their short lives than others face in their lifetime.”

After a presentation by an immigration attorney in July that highlighted the severity and urgency of the need to help the immigrants, she felt the call to action.  In July, she consulted regional Justice, Peace and Integrity of Creation (JPIC)  coordinator Valerie Laubacher. Both Franciscans knew it was the right time to launch the project.

“I knew that the Holy Spirit planted this idea in Patsy’s heart,” Laubacher said. “The Holy Spirit was blessing this.”

Together they brainstormed with members of their region on items that would be helpful for the released immigrants who were legally crossing the border, awaiting a court hearing and traveling to their U.S. destination. Laubacher consulted with her niece on how to start an “Amazon Wish List.”  The women were texting each other at 11 p.m. with ideas.

They ordered such items as socks, water bottles, hair brushes, combs, lotion, tissues, toothbrushes, notebooks, pencils, notebooks and wipes.

Another vendor was required to purchase shoelaces because they were not available for bulk purchase from Amazon. Shoelaces are important to immigrants departing from detention centers because they are required to remove them as a safety precaution when they enter, and the items are never returned to them.

Enough health and beauty care items were entered on an Amazon Wish List to fill 1,000 drawstring bags. An appeal for donations was sent out to Secular Franciscans through regional ministers throughout the U.S. Within two days, most of the items on the initial list were purchased. Philipps added more items. Within a week, 50 fraternity and individual donors from the United States and Guam had purchased all $20,000 worth of items.

Another $5,000 was spent on food and household items, such as corn and flour tortilla mix, rice, beans, wipes, laundry soap and floor cleaner. These grocery items were sent to Catholic Charities to directly distribute to immigrants.

Secular Franciscan National Minister Jan Parker, OFS, described the effort this way:

“Pope Francis says, ‘Love isn’t words, but works and service; a humble service performed in silence without seeking acclaim.’ 

“Our outreach here is simple, hands-on, Franciscan love in action.  With God’s grace these bags of blessings will not only bless those in need, but help open hearts of others to hear the cry of the poor. Our Secular Franciscan Rule challenges us to be instruments of joy, hope and healing, but to also take courageous action in the field of public life. Our bishops explain it this way – we are to walk with both feet of love: the foot of charitable works, which we are doing here, but also the foot of social justice, addressing systemic, root causes of problems that affect many people.”

https://secularfranciscansusa.org/2019/10/19/corpus-christi-secular-franciscan-sparks-service-project-to-aid-1000-immigrants/

By Sharon Winzeler, OFS

Kent Ferris, OFS, is the 2019 recipient of the National Justice, Peace and Integrity of Creation (JPIC) Award presented at the Secular Franciscan Order’s National Chapter, held Oct. 15-20 at Pax Christi Liturgical Retreat Center in Corpus Christi.

Ferris voiced the need to advocate on behalf of immigrants and refugees, who are among the people he serves as director of social action and Catholic Charities for the Diocese of Davenport, Iowa.

Ferris expressed gratitude to the refugees, including a family who fled violence in southern Sudan only to face hate-filled, anti-Muslim notes left on their community’s residences in the U.S. He felt compelled to apologize for such intolerance, he said, but the refugees themselves were “very gracious.”

He also said he was inspired by such individuals as Diego and Pedro who fled threats in their country and “expressed confusion and sadness but never bitterness at having been separated at the border for 40 days, with young Pedro being taken to the state of New York while Diego remained in custody and then finding themselves in need of family reunification services after the trauma of separation.”

Ferris is a past national JPIC chair for the order and has been an action commissioner for the Franciscan Action Network (FAN). He belongs to  the order’s Franciscans of the Prairie Region.

He said he felt humbled by the award because most of his daily work is for justice and peace.

“I work for a diocese, on a bishop’s staff. This is what I do all day every day.”

Ferris said he was grateful for all of the people who have helped him work in the area of social justice, especially Bishop Martin Amos who hired him 10 years ago and Bishop Thomas Zinkula for whom he currently works.

Ferris and his wife Lori have both been Secular Franciscans for 27 years.  Their children—Clare, 20; Miles, 17; and Lucy, 15—were raised in the order.

“My children, having grown up in a Franciscan household, know exactly what a Transitus service is,” he said.  “They also would look every year to see if their birthdays fell on the first Sunday of the month so they would know whether or not birthday celebrations would occur after a local fraternity meeting.”

Ferris also expressed gratitude to Secular Franciscans around the country.

“I am quite convinced that had I not experienced such a deep and profound sense of fraternity at so many times and places, I could not have served the Lord to the extent that I have,” he said.

https://secularfranciscansusa.org/2019/10/19/jpic-award-honors-works-with-refugees/

Bishop William Michael Mulvey prepared the way for the 2019 National Chapter meeting by celebrating  Mass at the Jesus Christ Our Peace Chapel in Corpus Christi on Tuesday, Oct. 15.

The meeting, which will continue through Saturday night at the Pax Christ Liturgical Retreat Center, will include approval of the 2020 budget, a keynote on the state of the order by National Minister Jan Parker, group discussions, presentations, a service project, and the announcement of the JPIC award.

The meetings began Tuesday as Cherryle Fruge, OFS, Minister of St. Joan of Arc Region, and Claudia Kauzlarich, OFS, National Treasurer, facilitated the orientation of the new Regional Ministers in preparation for the official opening of the Chapter on Wednesday morning, October 16^th.

Each year at our National Chapter, the Regional Ministers elected since the previous Chapter, along with their mentors, assemble for an orientation session.  This year, Fruge focused on the spirituality of serving the region as minister.  She shared with us that she didn’t fully understand servant leadership until she served as Regional Minister. She told us that the experience of being Regional Minister has enhanced her spiritual life.

Fruge encouraged the new ministers with inspiration words about their role as leaders:  “A vocation to the office of service is under the mantle of divine protection, and you are given all the graces sufficient to do whatever God wishes to do through you.”  Most importantly, she said, “Don’t short change prayer”.

The new ministers and delegates were warmly welcomed in the traditional introduction of the National Executive Council and Commission Chairs at the conclusion of the orientation.  The new Ministers and the delegate are:

• Emma Lozowski OFS – Franciscans of the Prairie Region
• Barbara Braley OFS – Our Lady of Indiana Region
• Steve Geldmacher OFS – Saint Clare Region
• Joanne Lockwood OFS – Saint Kateri Tekakwitha Region
• Marianne James OFS – Saint Maximilian Kolbe Region
• Gene Keenan OFS – Tau Cross Region
• Tim Taormina OFS, RVM, delegate for Hazel Martin, OFS – Queen of Peace Region
• Dale Marzano, OFS – delegate for Lorna Miressi, OFS – Mother Cabrini Region

https://secularfranciscansusa.org/2019/10/16/national-chapter-meeting-underway-in-corpus-christi/

(This article originally appeared in the Spring 2019 issue of the Tau-USA)

The Prologue: Lens of the Rule

by Justin Carisio, OFS

When we speak of the Rule of the Secular Franciscan Order, we tend to mean the 26 articles of the Rule of 1978 that describe the nature of the order, the way of life a Secular Franciscan commits to, and life in fraternity. Seldom do we have in mind the stunning document that precedes those articles, what we know as the “Prologue: Exhortation of St. Francis to the Brothers and Sisters of Penance.”[1]  Yet careful consideration suggests that the Prologue should be the starting point for any study, discussion, or meditation on the Rule.

The Prologue is an original document written by St. Francis sometime between 1209 and 1215. The translation that accompanies English publications of the Rule is that of Marion A. Habig, OFM[2]. A translation more reflective of contemporary scholarship can be found in Francis of Assisi, Early Documents, Vol. I, where it is called the Earlier Exhortation to the Brothers and Sisters of Penance[3]. (Historically, different titles have been assigned to the document, including the First Version of the Letter to All the Faithful and the “Volterra text.”)

The Earlier Exhortation has been referred to as the “primitive Rule.” Inasmuch as it is fundamentally an exhortation, it represents a “form of life” that Francis intended for the lay penitents associated with his movement[4]. These men and women were living “more intensely their baptismal commitment through a life of penance.[5]” How the Earlier Exhortation became the Prologue is a bit of a mystery. In his classic study of the Rule of the Secular Franciscan Order, Robert Stewart, OFM, said it was inserted into our Rule without comment by the four Ministers General of the friar orders late in the process of approving the Rule, adding that, “the Earlier Exhortation remains the lens through which the Rule of 1978 must be understood and interpreted[6].”

Physically, a lens is something that “forms an image by focusing rays of light.” Figuratively, it “facilitates and influences perception, comprehension, or evaluation[7].” The Prologue works both ways with respect to our Rule. It helps form an image of Secular Franciscan identity: We are to be “spouses, brothers, and mothers of our Lord Jesus Christ.” It reminds us that our way of life is Trinitarian, Christocentric, and Catholic. It also facilitates our self-perception as Franciscans by representing to us the founding charism of our order, which is penance. In another Franciscan early document,

The Legend of the Three Companions, we read that Francis and the first friars, when asked where they were from, “said simply that they were penitents [emphasis added] originally from the city of Assisi[8].” In his history of the Third Order, Raffaele Pazzelli, TOR, underscores that as time went on, “‘penance’ remained the primary characteristic of only the Order of the Brothers and Sisters of Penance[9].”

That image is projected in Article 7 of the Rule, which describes our vocation as “brothers and sisters of penance.” In the modern Church, we are used to thinking of penance as something that occurs within our hearts. Indeed, Article 7 adds, “let them conform their thoughts and deeds to those of Christ by means of that radical interior change which the gospel calls ‘conversion.’” Lino Temperni, TOR, emphasizes that, “the term ‘penance’ in Franciscan spirituality is equivalent to the biblical meaning of metanoia, understood as an intimate conversion of the heart to God, as a continuous state of being. It is not a question of doing penance but of being penitent[10].” Or to refine further, “penance is not a state, but a journey that leads to God.[11]”

In the Earlier Exhortation, Francis is indeed concerned with being penitent. Yet he is also committed to doing penance. He exhorts us to no fewer than five actions: love God totally; love our neighbor as ourselves; hate our sinful tendencies; receive the Body and Blood of Christ in a worthy manner; produce good fruits of penance[12]. That he intends something visible and concrete about being a penitent is unmistakable, because our lives “must give life to others by example.” Thus, when we view our Rule through the lens of the Prologue, we experience Francis teaching us “that the embrace of penance brings about a profound change in our relationships with God, a change that we can understand only in light of the revelation of Jesus[13].”

With the passage of more than 40 years, it appears that the inclusion of the Earlier Exhortation as the Prologue to the Secular Franciscan Rule of 1978 was providential. The Prologue enables us to reach across the centuries to touch our earliest brother and sister secular Franciscans. It announces our call to conversion and holiness. It warns us that a refusal to do penance “makes us slaves to the world” and has consequences in this life and the next. Above all, it makes manifest in our present-day fraternities the authentic voice and mind of Francis, penitent from Assisi.

[1] All citations from the Rule of 1978 are from https://secularfranciscansusa.org/the-rule-of-the-secular-franciscan-order (accessed February  28, 2019).

[2] Robert M. Stewart, OFM, “De Illis Qui Faciunt Penitentiam” The Rule of the Secular Franciscan Order: Origins, Development,

Interpretation, Instituto Storico Dei Cappuccini, 1991, 31.

[3] Regis J. Armstrong, OFM Cap., et al., editors, Francis of Assisi, Early Documents, Volume I, The Saint, New City Press, 1999, 41.

[4] Stewart, 85

[5] Ibid., 137.

[6] Ibid., 311.

[7] https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/lens (accessed February 23, 2019).

[8] Regis J. Armstrong, OFM Cap., et al., editors, Francis of Assisi, Early Documents, Volume II, The Founder, New City Press, 1999, 90

[9] Raffaele Pazzelli, TOR, St. Francis and the Third Order, The Franciscan and pre-Franciscan Penitential Movement, Franciscan Herald Press, 1989, 125, 127.

[10] Lino Temperini, TOR, Penitential Spirituality in the Franciscan Sources, Franciscan Publications, 1983, 41.

[11] Pazzelli, 120.

[12] For a Secular Franciscan perspective on these exhortations see Ed Zablocki, SFO, “Our Work as a Means of Doing Penance,” https://

www.nafra-sfo.org/work_commission_resources/Work%20Commission%20Manual/

Sec_C_No.16%20work%20as%20penance.pdf (accessed February 27, 2019).

[13] Regis J. Armstrong, OFM Cap., St. Francis of Assisi, Writings for a Gospel Life, Crossroad Publishing, 1994, 40.

https://secularfranciscansusa.org/2019/10/07/the-prologue-lens-of-the-rule/