(This article originally appeared in the Summer/Fall 2019 issue of the TAU-USA.)

 By Kelly Moltzen, OFS

After finishing high school, becoming an “alumna” of Capuchin Youth & Family Ministries (CYFM), and going away to college, I gradually began to yearn more and more for the charism of the Franciscan community I had through CYFM but didn’t feel through my college’s Catholic Campus Ministry. I found moreof a sense of this charism through InterVarsity Christian Fellowship, an ecumenical Christian fellowship organization on campus.

While there were a few Catholics who attended both Catholic Campus Ministry and InterVarsity, there were also many Protestants who helped contribute to the community I felt deeply through InterVarsity. It was an opportunity to meet and fellowship with other Christians who genuinely sought to follow Jesus. We did service projects together, worshipped together, and did Bible study together.

One particularly impactful thing we did was read The Irresistible Revolution by Shane Claiborne. That book inspired me to want to live in intentional community once I moved to New York City. I settled into the Bronx with several non-Catholics who introduced me to the work of Dorothy Day and her Catholic Worker movement, Fr. Richard Rohr, and others who like Shane Claiborne were associated with the Red-Letter Christian movement (people who are working to take the words of Jesus seriously, looking particularly at Jesus’ words, which in many Bibles are written in red letters to distinguish them from the rest of the text).

Members of InterVarsity and the Red-Letter Christians movement launched LoGOFF (Local, Green, Organic, Fair-trade, Slave-Free), created opportunities for faith-rooted organizing in New York City, and initiated efforts to address health disparities through organizing a Food, Faith & Health Disparities conference. For years, this has given me hope that we can better use our Eucharistic meal practices as the food to sustain work to make sure everyone is treated like a human being regardless of race, has access to affordable, nourishing food, and has a consciousness of the value of God-given food over hyper-processed foods with little nutritional value.

It’s been non-Catholic Franciscan-hearted Christians who have most often accompanied my path living in community in the Bronx, including participating in dinners that are more about shared fellowship, hopes, dreams and goals than they are about arguments or differences of opinion over church history and ecclesiastical splits. This all has given me life.

So when I discovered that the Franciscan family is ecumenical, as there are other Christians who value following in the footsteps of St. Francis and who have created orders within their denominations to follow him —and were united in mission for peace, justice and integrity of creation through the Joint Committee on Franciscan Unity and the Franciscan Action Network (FAN) — I was overjoyed. Building the Kingdom of Heaven together with Franciscan Ecumenical Interfaith Committee Joint Committee on Franciscan Unity 11 Christians of different denominations and even working through interfaith collaboration for the common good… imagine that! What could we not accomplish?

Sadly, I have often gotten the impression that many Catholics and OFS members seem to talk about following the path of Jesus and Francis as something exclusive to Catholics, instead of seeking to build the Kingdom of God in partner ship with Christians of other denominations and listening to the experiences that Protestants have to share with us.

Jesus’ words were meant for everybody, and there are many Christians who truly live them out. By acknowledging our shared values of baptism, vocation, charism, Christ-Centered spirituality, and prophetic voice, we can identify other Franciscans and Franciscan-hearted individuals with whom we can work to bring the kingdom of Heaven to Earth. Those who serve the marginalized, those who see others’ destinies tied with their own, those who recognize we are cocreators with God in this ever-expanding universe, who speak truth to power to authorities within hierarchies that are not serving God’s people, who commit their vocations to peace, justice and integrity of creation — these are our kin. They are Franciscan-hearted individuals doing what they can to bring Christ to the world.

Non-Catholics may in fact be models of living out Catholic Social Teaching without calling it that. To see Christ in the other and to listen to the calling from God to protect and restore human dignity beyond birth, across the entire span of life — that is Christian and Franciscan. To live as if we are interconnected with one another and all creation is Franciscan.

Christ, Francis, Clare, and the many other prophetic witnesses in our Church’s history meant us to follow them, not just to revere them or to remember them once a year. Our contemporary Dorothy Day, whose canonization is under consideration, said, “Don’t call me a saint. I don’t want to be dismissed that easily.”

So we must ask ourselves, what can we do to ensure the lessons these people taught us while on this earth are taken seriously by all followers of Christ?

Why Is It Important for Catholics/Secular Franciscans (OFS) to Collaborate Ecumenically?

(This article originally appeared in the Summer/Fall 2019 issue of the TAU-USA.)

CELEBRATE AND RENEW OUR FRANCISCAN CALLING IN THE SPIRIT OF CONVERSION

20th Quinquennial Congress Prayer: Lord God, Heavenly Father, we come before you in awe of your love for us. We acknowledge Your divine seed in everyone. Through your merciful compassion, help us to see our need for conversion. In our service to each other let us experience this time of JUBILEE! We walk the path before us upon foundations laid by our brothers and sisters. We are thankful for our present and excited for our future, always believing that You, O Lord, guide our journey. AMEN

With nearly two years to go to the Quinquennial Congress, where we will celebrate the 800th anniversary of our Secular Order, we are actively seeking dynamic presenters who will not only add to our body of Franciscan knowledge but also speak to our hearts to increase our Franciscan spirituality and call us continuously to conversion.

Our first presenter, Father Couturier, OFM Cap, is the Dean of the School of Franciscan Studies at Saint Bonaventure University. He is a 1975 summa cum laude graduate of St. Anselm College. He earned a Masters in Divinity from Maryknoll School of Theology in 1978, a Licentiate in Psychology from the Gregorian University in 1984, and his PhD in Pastoral Psychology (Organization Studies) from the Graduate Theological Foundation in 2005. His familiarity with and expertise in how we are called to conversion and the stages we experience in conversion will bring deep discussions in our Little Fraternity groups, as well as insights in our personal reflection. At the Q, he will address the topic, The Four Conversions: A Spirituality of Transformation; which is the title of one of his books.

Bishop John Stowe, OFM Conv, our second keynote presenter, is from the Diocese of Lexington, Kentucky. He is the third bishop of that diocese and was consecrated as bishop in 2015. He professed his solemn vows in 1992 after completing his studies in history and philosophy at Saint Louis University in Missouri. He received his degree of Master of Divinity and Licentiate of Sacred Theology with an emphasis on Church history. He was ordained a priest in 1995 and served in El Paso, Texas, parishes. Bishop Stowe joined the Pax Christi USA Board as their Episcopal President in 2018. His keen awareness of and active participation in today’s opportunities to follow the Gospel by living our Franciscan lives of mercy and forgiveness will stir us to consider how we can improve our involvement in our individual communities to hear the marginalized and address their needs and to be their voices when they cannot be heard.

In the next article, we will share information about two Secular Franciscan couples who have lived their married life and raised their children in the Franciscan way of life through all ups and downs of today’s encounters.

If you are interested in helping now with the Q 2021 planning, or during the Q, please contact Susan Simeone, 602-315-1950 or sksimeone@cox.net.

20th Quinquennial Congress : Phoenix Arizona – August 18-22, 2021