OFS-USA Accessibility Committee Established
(This article originally appeared in the TAU-USA Fall Issue #104)
By Janice Benton, OFS and Susan Tabor, OFS
It all started when Susan Tabor, OFS, and Janice Benton, OFS, shared a dream with each other. That dream, based on their shared vision of fully accessible events and materials, such as Braille and large print, and inspired by our call to value the inherent dignity of every person, led to an idea of how we might help others in this area.
Susan and Janice met at a book study led by Carolyn Townes, chair of the national JPIC Commission. They were on the phone discussing an inquiry they were working on concerning accessible materials for someone in formation. As they talked, their shared vision was born. The vision was offered to our National Minister, Jan Parker, who shared it with the National Executive Council (NEC), which immediately voted to make the OFS-USA Accessibility Committee a standing committee.
In the meantime, Mark Banschbach, OFS, was busy working on developing resources for the Five Franciscan Martyrs Regional website in different languages, and in Braille, in response to a new inquirer who was blind. He reached out to Multicultural Councilor Willie Guadalupe, and then to Connie Wild, OFS, Janice, and then Susan. Calls were made and fellowship soared.
A virtual Meet and Greet for the new committee was held on Friday evening, August 20, 2021, so the NEC could officially welcome and talk with the members. The response of the NEC to the formation of this committee has been very warm and enthusiastic.
Janice and Susan are co-chairs of this newly-formed committee. The other committee members are: Consuelo Wild, OFS, of St. Margaret of Cortona Region; Mark Banschbach, OFS, of the Five Franciscan Martyrs Region; and Mike Freeman, OFS, of the St. Joan of Arc Region.
Janice, Susan, Connie, and Mike have had many years of experience working in the disability access field: Janice as a long-time director of the National Catholic Partnership on Disability, retiring in 2019; Susan as a social worker; Connie working with the deaf community; and Mike as a special education teacher and special education program specialist. Mike served as Minister of St. Maximilian Kolbe Fraternity in Houston for six years, is a member of the local Council, and also serves as the JPIC animator for his region. Susan lives with blindness due to a congenital condition; namely retinopathy on prematurity. She is a member of the National JPIC Commission and serves as JPIC animator for the Juan De Padilla Region. Mark is relatively new to the field of accessibility but brings experience in areas of technology and in software development. He serves as Minister of St. John Capistrano Fraternity, as Area/Family Councilor in the Five Franciscan Martyrs Region, Spiritual Assistant for The Encounter Fraternity in Lake Wales, Florida, and Regional Webmaster. His enthusiasm is inspiring and contagious! Connie lives with profound deafness and serves as Minister of her local fraternity, St. Francis of Assisi Deaf Fraternity in the St. Margaret of Cortona Region. It is the only known alldeaf OFS fraternity in the world. Connie is also a former director of the National Catholic Office for the Deaf. Janice serves as Minister of the St. Francis Fraternity in Washington, DC, and is an area councilor for the St. Margaret of Cortona Region.
As local and regional fraternities encounter access issues and questions pertaining to any disability, we want to hear from you! We will help you find resources and provide guidance concerning any other accessibility-related questions you may have. In time, we will be reaching out to each region, to help develop resources at the regional level, including an accessibility contact person who can work with your region to ensure that your websites, forms, documents, and events are accessible for all our brothers and sisters throughout the entire NAFRA area. As one of the first projects, this committee will be working with the 2022 Quinquennial (Q) Committee, to ensure that the Q is accessible to all participants.
We would like to hear from you! The email addresses for the co-chairs are: Janice Benton jbentonsfo@gmail.com Susan Tabor souljourner@sbcglobal.net We are here to serve you!
Note from the National Executive Council: We recognize that for many years local and Regional fraternities have made efforts to assist those who have accessibility challenges. What a joy and blessing to now have a national committee to serve as an umbrella and a source for all such efforts. We warmly welcome the OFS-USA Accessibility Committee members and look forward to the many ways they will serve our national OFS family.
The Spirit Is A Movin’
(This article originally appeared in the TAU-USA Fall Issue #104)
By Kathleen Molaro, OFS
National Franciscan Youth and Young Adult Commission Chair
“The Spirit is a movin’ all o-o-ver, all o-o-ver this land.” Remember that lovely song from back in the day? Admitting this will give evidence to the age of most of us—but it’s still a great song, and very appropriate for our times.
The Franciscan Youth and Young Adult Commission (FYYA) has spent this past year and a half introducing Regional FYYA Animators to the whys, ways, and means of reaching out to young people. Eleven virtual training sessions and monthly follow-up presentations have strengthened regions and fraternities in their understanding of what is necessary to fulfill our responsibility in spreading the Gospel to our younger Catholics. The Spirit is definitely moving us in the right direction.
Many have shared, however, that they simply don’t know what they should do next with all the information. We claim formation is a process — we start with information; tackle the task of formation, in the hopes of experiencing transformation. That transformation cannot happen if we don’t invite the Holy Spirit for help and guidance. We’ve shared a basic sequence of stages in stepping into the world of youth and young adults, but a sense of fear and a lack of confidence still linger. Perhaps what’s missing is a dependence on the Holy Spirit as our navigator in this adventure!
Living a Gospel life is not easy. We pray the words from Francis in our fraternity gatherings, that we be “cleansed and enlightened interiorly, and fired with the flame of the Holy Spirit.” I’m sure that was the goal of the Memoriale Propositi 800 years ago. Penitents were expected to follow a detailed list of rules to take the desire for holiness and gospel living seriously. Upon reflection, we can relate what is found in the antiquated list of instructions to the essentials from our 1978 Rule. Perhaps the clothing rules apply to the call for humility and detachment; rules about fasting, partaking of the Sacraments, and stringent prayer point us to the need for a deep relationship with God; and instructions relating to care of the sick and burying the dead, even in our times, lead us to an understanding of service and the love of neighbor.
We can especially appreciate nowadays this plea to the Holy Spirit in our endeavors toward living our vocation and sharing it with young people. Pope Francis encourages us in the Apostolic Exhortation, Christus Vivit, addressed to young people and the entire people of God, to ask the Holy Spirit for guidance every day. He reminds us that what we need will come, if we let ourselves be prompted by the Holy Spirit.1
The theme of calling on the Spirit is also evident for our young people preparing for the YouFra International Gathering and World Youth Day in Portugal in August 2023. The theme is “Mary rose up and went with haste” (Lk 1:39), which recalls the “yes” of Our Lady and her rush to meet her cousin Elizabeth. “Há Pressa no Ar” the event’s theme song, means “There’s a rush in the air,” and the lyrics express the joy we experience in allowing God’s Spirit to lead the way.
Pope Francis says of the theme chosen that the words and the truths of faith grow “under the action of the Holy Spirit. Mary’s “yes” led her to total availability to receive the Son of God in her life, which allowed her to be transformed. “Our simple prayer should be, ‘Lord, what you want, when you want, how you want.’”2
We are called to answer “yes” in reaching out to young people. Those who rely on the Lord “Shall renew their strength…shall run and not be weary…” (Is 40:31) In your endeavors, “may the grace of the Lord Jesus be with all.” (Rev. 22: 21)
1 Pope Francis, Christus Vivit, To Young People and the Entire People of God, (Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 2019)
2 Pope Francis, General Audience, Nov. 18, 2020