What we do in life isn't as important as how we do it.

Our highest vocation in life is to glorify God! People who live at peace with God can hope to bring it about, by living in brother/sisterhood with all. Jesus made this abundantly clear in this Scripture passage, when he was asked: "Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?" He said to him, "You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and the first commandment. The second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself." (Mt. 22:36-39)

As Franciscans, we adhere to the Franciscan Rule for the Secular Franciscan Order, which makes this concept of being brother and sister to all one of the key elements of the Rule, after bringing the good News of Jesus Christ to all (See Rule 4), followed by "Secular Franciscans, therefore, should seek to encounter the living and active person of Christ in their brothers and sisters, in Sacred Scripture, in the Church, and in liturgical activity. The faith of Saint Francis, who often said " I see nothing bodily of the Most High Son of God in this world except his most holy body and blood," should be the inspiration and pattern of their eucharistic life." (Rule 5)

Our Franciscan brothers who are friars are known as the "lesser brothers" (cf. 2 Celano 148), or "Friars Minor" as in "Order of Friars Minor" - this designation doesn't speak to the work they did, but how the work was done. "As lesser brothers they were always concious of being submissive to all, especially those who were numbered among the poor. Clearly poverty cannot mean material poverty alone.†" In the Middle Ages, they worked with uneducated people, the poor.

St. Francis is noted for his love for the poor, the sick, the uneducated, ordinary brothers and sisters we meet wherever we travel. In 2009, Cardinal James Stafford made the homily at Rivo Torto, Assisi, on the feast of the Pardon of Assisi, Aug. 2. The cardinal recalled the saint's special form of addressing his followers: "Fratelli minori" or "lesser brothers." By choosing this phrase to describe the community, the prelate explained, St. Francis was "placing it squarely within the mystery of the kenosis, the self-emptying, of Jesus." The saint "chose that he and all his followers would be identified with the humble of the earth," the cardinal added.

The cardinal told the story of an example of "being a lesser brother" that took place in Rivo Torto, in a cowshed's "unprepossessing shelter from rain and sun."..."After their return from Rome through Orte back to Assisi in the summer of 1209, the small band of brothers needed a place to sleep and pray. "Francis chose this hut beside a stream bed, which in the springtime became a dangerous torrent of water. It barely was large enough for the small group of young men. "With his usual humor Francis joked that, as a springboard to heaven, this was better than a palace." During the night, the prelate said, "one of the brothers unexpectedly cried out in the darkness, 'I'm dying.'" The saint "realized that being a lesser brother meant to have the gift of love especially in the awkward darkness of the night," Cardinal Stafford said. (from: "Franciscan Virtues Worthy of Imitation, zenit.org)

Kenosis - the self-emptying of Jesus is in Scripture, "Rather, he emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, coming in human likeness; and found human in appearance, he humbled himself, becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross." (Phil. 2:7-8)

Let's return to the SFO Rule. In Rule 11, "Trusting in the Father, Christ chose for himself and his mother a poor and humble life, even though he valued created things attentively and lovingly. Let the Secular Franciscans seek a proper spirit of detachment from temporal goods by simplifying their own material needs. Let them be mindful that according to the gospel they are stewards of the goods received for the benefit of God's children." And the second part of Rule 11, "Thus, in the spirit of the Beatitudes, and as pilgrims and strangers on their way to the home of the Father, they should strive to purify their hearts from every tendency and yearning for possession and power."

When we come to the point in our pilgrimage where it gets easier to depress these urges for possession and power, you will find that other people become more important to us and we might even encounter the living and active person of Christ in them. St. Francis saw only the good in every person. Let us try to do the same.

God bless you!

Fred Schaeffer, SFO
6/18/10