Formation program for the Eighth Centenary of St. Elizabeth of Hungary  

 Month 5

 Vital reciprocal union: Meeting the Franciscan Family and the Church; Spiritual direction

 Elizabeth's first meeting with the Franciscan friars in Eisenach, eventually led to a great change in her life. She already felt called to become more devoted to God, care for the poor and bring the Gospel to the secular world. But the Franciscans she met helped her channel her attraction to some particular aspects of Gospel life into a Franciscan vocation. This is a process that all of us have gone through. Our discernment of our vocation and our initial period of formation were vitally important to us in our decision to join the SFO. But the ongoing formation is just as important. This is where we have a continual need to receive support from the whole fraternity and our SFO spiritual assistants. This is the foundation we need to be sure that we have "built on a rock."  

Elizabeth's first Franciscan spiritual director, Brother Rodeger, taught her to "to preserve chastity, humility and patience and to keep watch in prayer and to apply herself to works of mercy." It is important to note that Rodeger's advice was comprehensive, and applied to all areas of her life. It began with her marriage, where chastity meant ordering that relationship and its physical expression to God.  It also extended to prayer and patience in her relations with others and her vital vocation to serve the poor. We know that all of these teachings were reflected in Elizabeth's life; this means that she was faithful to the direction she received.  This period of discernment eventually lead her to become one of the Franciscan Brothers and Sisters of Penance.   

Not only is it important to have a good formation, we must persevere and continue to grow in our vocation. We need to constantly ask ourselves whether we are ordering our lives according to the Gospel, and living our Franciscan virtues of poverty, simplicity, humility, mercy, love and peace. We cannot go halfway in this commitment, once we have made it, or turn back on it, because we have promised it to God with our profession in the Order.  Elizabeth was completely faithful to her commitment all of her life.        

We have our spiritual assistants among the Franciscans to help us maintain "fidelity to our charism" and be faithful in our observance of the Rule. Today we in the SFO, as individual Secular Franciscans and as fraternities, bear a great deal of responsibility for our own work and decisions in our secular vocation, but we also need to have a sense of fraternity with the other branches of the Franciscan Family to whom our Order "has been attached for centuries." We should always feel grateful for those who have helped us in this way and be ready to offer our help in return, just as Elizabeth's gratitude to the friars led her to work for their needs in their ministry. Let's pray for our spiritual assistants and for an increase in vocations to their Orders.  

We must also do our work as a vital part of the Church as a whole and also of our parish community, as we try to "make our Franciscan charism present" to everyone.  As Landgrafin, Elizabeth played a very vital part in parish life in Eisenach, where she took part in the Rogation Days and Holy Week celebrations, and brought her children to church for the rite of purification. She also looked to the guidance of the Pope as she continued to live her Franciscan charism and struggled to find a form of religious life after her husband's death. Let us always listen to the Pope and Bishops, who were sent to us by God, as we follow our vocation in the Order.  

Scripture

 "Everyone who listens to these words of mine and acts on them will be like a wise man who built his house on rock. The rain fell, the floods came, and the winds blew and buffeted the house. But it did not collapse; it had been set solidly on rock" (Mt. 7:24-25). 

Jesus said, "No one who sets a hand to the plow and looks to what was left behind is fit for the kingdom of God" (Luke 9:62). 

[Jesus said to the Twelve]: "Amen, amen I say to you, he who receives the one I send, receives me; he who receives me, receives the One who sent me" (Jn 13:20). 

Franciscan Rule

 I. 1. The Franciscan family, as one among many spiritual families raised up by the Holy Spirit in the Church, unites all members of the people of God--laity, religious, and priests-- who recognize that they are called to follow Christ in the footsteps of St. Francis of Assisi. In various ways and forms but in life-giving union with each other, they intend to make present the charism of their common Seraphic Father in the life and mission of the Church.  . . .  

II, 26. As a concrete sign of communion and co responsibility, the councils on various levels, in keeping with the constitutions, shall ask for suitable and well-prepared religious for spiritual assistance. They should make this request to the superiors of the four religious Franciscan families, to whom the Secular Fraternity has been united for centuries.

            To promote fidelity to the charism as well as observance of the rule and to receive greater support in the life of the fraternity, the Minister or President, with the consent of the Council, should take care to ask for a regular pastoral visit by the competent religious superiors as well as for a fraternal visit from those of the higher fraternities, according to the norm of the constitutions.