Audio Course: St. Francis of Assisi: A New Way of Being Christian

Blog Author: Br. William Short

Yes, it was snowing in Milwaukee yesterday as we headed toward the airport. When I arrived in San Francisco four hours later, it was 75 degrees. But the trip was not just about differences in weather: I was meeting with the Sponsored Ministries of the School Sisters of St. Francis, headquartered in Milwaukee, to talk about the way that Assisi is connected with Milwaukee. 60 members of various ministries linked to the School Sisters were present to learn about the ways in which lay men and women can cultivate in their work the “way of the Gospel” shown to us by Francis and Clare. We had people from centers offering services to seniors, neighborhood development groups, educational institutions, and even artists and musicians. We told the story of “Perfect Joy,” in which St. Francis instructs Br. Leo about how to deal with disasters of various kinds (everybody could relate to that one!) And it led us to reflect on how we measure success: by the measure of our competitive society? or by the measure of the Gospel? The results really come out differently!

I am now back at Mission San Miguel, mulling over this chilly but beautiful weekend in the Midwest. Around here we are facing many of the same questions: how can we do the important work the Lord gives to us in a way that preaches through deeds, not just through words. It is a point worth considering. If the Word became flesh, as we believe, in Jesus of Nazareth, every word that we say about Him needs to find some visible expression in a gesture, an action, a deed — what we used to call “good example.” When I was growing up, my Mom had a cutting from a Parish Bulletin from Our Lady of Lourdes Church in Seattle which she had taped to the refrigerator door (in the days before refrigerator magnets). I still remember its faded calligraphy: “Be careful how you live. You may be the only book on Christianity some people will ever read.”

May the Lord make us good reading.

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Audio Course: St. Francis of Assisi: A New Way of Being Christian

Blog Author: Br. William Short

Fr. Emmanuel Muessiggang, OFM (1908-2008)
My nearly-one-hundred-year-old friend and fellow gardener, Fr. Emmanuel, has joined the great Easter Liturgy of heaven. We celebrated his funeral this week at St. Elizabeth’s Church in Oakland CA, where he had lived for many years before he retired to San Damiano Retreat in Danville CA. In the picture above, you can see this extraordinary gardener at work. He could coax a bloom from a stick with little more than a prayer and great patience. Also a great friend of animals, he would take his daily walk around the Retreat Center with his faithful friend, Blackie the Cat, who followed him in the early years, and led him in his later years as they went on their daily rounds. Few would suspect that this was one of the last of our “China Missionaries,” the son of German immigrants, for whom English was a second language, and China his home for thirteen years. A true son of St. Francis, his love for the Chinese people, for beautiful flowers, and for animals are all of a piece. At his deathbed, Fr. Sebastian, a companion of his years in China, reminded him (as we listened), “Emmanuel, you saved your church from being desecrated by the Communists — you have nothing to worry about when you meet the Lord!”

He witnessed the cruel execution of his confrere, Br. Benedict Jensen, the Franciscan martyr of the Chinese Missions of Santa Barbara Province. Yet he never spoke in hatred of those who had imprisoned him or killed his fellow Friar, only saying that he had not really done anything significant during his long years of faithful Franciscan presence so far from his beloved home in San Francisco.

Who knows what irony may be contained in the news report that Mikhail Gorbachev, former head of the Soviet Union and its Communist Party, had spent a quiet half-hour in prayer at the tomb of St. Francis in Assisi on March 19? Assertions were first made that he was acknowledging his identity as a Christian believer, soon followed by well-publicized denials. As Fr. Emmanuel, who had suffered at the hands of Communist Party members in China, completed his Franciscan journey toward his Father’s house, one whom he could have well considered his enemy was praying at the tomb of his Brother Francis, the Little Poor One of Assisi. Were they praying for each other? “The Lord only knows,” as my grandmother would say. Yet we remember that the same Brother Francis went to meet Malek el-Kamil, Sultan of Egypt, during the time of the Fifth Crusade in order to fulfill the Lord’s command: “Love your enemies.” And perhaps he too was surprised to find that “the enemy” showed him kindness.

Two brothers who never met, Mikhail and Emmanuel, joined by a thin but very strong bond, a devotion to a Poor Man who shows us a new way of being Christian. May we have the grace and courage to follow their example.

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Audio Course: St. Francis of Assisi: A New Way of Being Christian

Blog Author: Br. William Short

We have a very prickly, rather forbidding-looking cactus outside the novitiate building at Mission San Miguel CA. Yet each Spring it amazes us by its delicacy and beauty during the brief time of its flowering. It may serve as a good symbol of a rather off-putting Sister whom Sts. Francis and Clare recognized as beautiful, and appropriate to this Easter Season.

As he lay dying, Francis taught his brothers a new verse for the “Canticle of Creatures” or “Canticle of Brother Sun,” in order to welcome his sister, Bodily Death, “from whom no living person can escape.” And he gave praise to the Most High, good Lord for this Sister, who seems so unwelcome a visitor to so many. Since Holy Week, the Lord has called several of my brothers into the Easter Banquet: Fr. Michel, Br. Bart, Fr. David, Fr. Lester, another Fr. David, each day seems to bring the news of another Brother passing into the glory of the Risen Lord. On Wednesday a number of us were privileged to accompany Mother Clare, Abbess of the Poor Clares at St. Joseph’s Monastery in Aptos CA (near Santa Cruz) in her Mass of Resurrection and burial in a beautiful light Spring rain. Last night I was called to be with Fr. Emmanuel, who is just six weeks short of his 100th birthday (we share May 19th as our birthday) as he seemed ready to join this great Easter Procession of 2008. As we took turns during the day and the night, praying the Franciscan Crown of the Seven Joys of the Blessed Virgin, reciting the Prayers for the Dying, as I held onto Fr. Emmanuel’s right toe, I thought of the beauty of Sister Death, who accompanies us so that we do not go to the Lord alone, but in the company of a Sister. (This morning, Fr. Emmanuel seemed rosy-cheeked and warm again, so perhaps the Lord has not called yet).

During this beautiful and life-filled Easter Season, for some reason known only to Him, the Lord of Life has opened wide the gates to the dwelling place He has prepared for us, and many of my Brothers and Sisters are being “lifted up” with Him, just as He promised. Yes, we are sad that they have left us, but we also try to remember that this is the fulfillment of our vocation, as Franciscans, as Christians: to be with the Lord, which is what He wants for us. Please join me in praying for these faithful followers of Francis and Clare, and for all our loved ones whom He has called to Himself, to Life itself.

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Audio Course: St. Francis of Assisi: A New Way of Being Christian

Blog Author: Br. William Short

I have just returned from a moving series of meetings with the Franciscan Friars, in Boston (well, West Falmouth MA) and in Baja California (Mexico). In two different countries, in two different languages, we celebrated the Sacred Triduum and the Easter Octave with the same spirit, that of our founder, St. Francis of Assisi. In Massachusetts, we used the “Office of the Passion” composed by Francis as our guide, a devotional Office for the entire Liturgical Year which begins, oddly enough, with Compline (Night Prayer) of Holy Thursday.

We were able to glimpse through the creative work of the Poverello of Assisi how he weaves together phrases from the Book of Psalms in order to retell the story of Jesus’ last hours in the most poignant way. By Vespers of Good Friday, as the sun was setting over Buzzard’s Bay off Cape Cod, we already heard the triumphant verse, “All you people, clap your hands!”

This was Francis’ way of saying that the Gospel of St. John was his guide in understanding the death and resurrection of the Lord. Jesus is being “lifted up” on the cross as the beginning of his journey into the glory of the Father, so beautifully represented in the icon of the Crucified and Risen Christ of San Damiano, the image so well-known to Francis and to Clare of Assisi, and still preserved in the Basilica of St. Clare there. Though on the Cross, this is clearly the Lord of Glory, who “reigns from the tree,” in the wrods of the Office of the Passion. The figures close to Him are also being “lifted up” off the level of the ground, as He “draws all to Himself.”

In Baja California, Mexico, I was privileged to spend the days following Easter with the brothers of the Province of Bl. Junipero Serra, OFM, in their “Chapter of Mats,” a gathering that recalls the meeting of Francis with thousands of brothers (housed in huts made of woven rush “mats”) in the early 1220s around the chapel of St. Mary of the Angels of the Porziuncola, near Assisi’s leper hospital. Ths Gospel reading for Easter Wednesday, of the disciples on the way to Emmaus, was the focus of our meditations and discussions, as we asked what it means to be “on the way” with the Risen Lord who so often accompanies us without our recognizing Him, in the context of suffering and discouragement that seems also to have kept the disciples from recognizing Him as He walked and talked with them. We concluded each day with the celebration of the great Easter Eucharist, affirming that we know the Risen One in “the breaking of the bread.”

Yes, a lot of travel, from Boston to Baja, but an Easter I will treasure for years to come, learning once again that love for the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and the desire to follow His footprints still animate my brothers in the United States of Mexico and America, and ninety-four other countries as well.

Happy Easter!

Brother Bill

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According to my well-informed sources, Palm Sunday fell on this day (March 18) in the year 1212. The procession to receive palms from the Bishop in the cathedral of Assisi on that day was considered a kind of “debutante parade,” in which the eligible young women of the town dressed in their finest clothes, and the young men of the town would search among them for a future bride. The wealthy young Lady Clare did not participate in the procession (a boycott?) — and Bishop Guido, perhaps knowing her intentions, came to give her her palm at her place in the church. Later that night, with one companion, she left her family home without permission, and hurried down to the little church of Saint Mary of the Angels of the Portiuncula, near the leper hospice, to be received by Brother Francis and his companions into their way of life based on the Gospel. Today we commemorate the anniversary of that turning point in her life, her “conversion” to a new way of life.

May your Holy Week be filled with the spirit of conversion, as St. Clare was during this week so many centuries ago.

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Audio Course: St. Francis of Assisi: A New Way of Being Christian

Blog Author: Br. William Short

This weekend we will celebrate Palm Sunday, the beginning of Holy Week. For two thousand years Christians have recalled the events of the final days of the life of our Lord, beginning with Palm Sunday, passing through Holy Thursday and Good Friday, to the rest of Holy Saturday and the glory of Easter.

Saint Francis and Saint Clare of Assisi knew this same rhythm of the great feast of the Paschal Mystery of Jesus. Inspired by the preaching of “Brother Francis,” and her conversations with him, “Lady Clare” of the nobility of Assisi embraced the way of Gospel. But she did it in a way that would give rise to scandal. On the night of Palm Sunday (probably in the year 1212, when that Sunday fell on March 18), “Lady Clare,” about eighteen years of age, with a faithful companion broke through the side-door of her family home in the “uptown” part of Assisi and hurried out of town, down toward the old dilapidated chapel of St. Mary of the Angels, in the part of “suburban” Assisi known as the “porziuncola,” the ‘little portion,” near the leper colonies where the city’s “infected” citizens lived out their lives in isolation. But there were friends waiting to welcome her at that little chapel among the lowly and despised “infected” of the town, Brother Francis and the other brothers of the new group calling themselves “penitents of Assisi.” She was joining their “brotherhood!” That didn’t seem to bother any of them. Now they had a “sister,” in addition to having brothers.

They stood with her and her companion in the little church dedicated to Saint Mary “of Los Angeles” — (yes, that is where the city in California gets its name from its Franciscan founders!) and Francis cut off her hair and gave her the clothing of a “penitent” (a devout Christian dedicated to following the Gospel). Accompanied by the brothers, Clare went to spend the night (and the rest of a tumultuous Holy Week!) with the Benedictine nuns at the Abbey of San Paolo delle Badesse, one of the most noble, and one of the most stringently protected local monasteries for women (by the authority of Pope Innocent III).

Tune in soon to find out a little more about the “debutante ball” on the morning of that Palm Sunday in 1212, which “Lady Clare” boycotted, and how in the world she turned out to be the “Patron Saint of Television” fifty years ago …

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Audio Course: St. Francis of Assisi: A New Way of Being Christian

Blog Author: Br. William Short

Addressing a gathering of Abbesses of the Poor Clares from throughout the world, a “first” in their 800-year history, was a great opportunity for me for get to know my sisters. (Many thanks to my confrere, Fr. John Abela of the OFM Communications Office in Rome for the photo). I was asked to address the Assembly on the upcoming eighth Centenaries — two of them — that of the first approval of the Order of the Lesser Brothers (Friars Minor) by Pope Innocent III in 1209, and that of foundation of the Order of the Poor Sisters (Order of Saint Clare or Poor Clares) in 1212. The task was daunting, because so often we are accustomed to celebrate such events by a lot of self-congratulation and spiritual back-slapping, rather than a serious reflection on the profound responsibility we hold as the spiritual heirs of a demanding tradition, one founded by two outstanding disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ, Francis and Clare of Assisi.

The spirit of the “Saints of Assisi” could be felt throughout the meeting, as we learned about what it means for the Poor Clares and Lesser Brothers to express our shared charism in different ways, in diverse cultures and languages on five continents in the 21st century. It certainly helped me to appreciate all the more the reasons for being a Franciscan today, if for no other deeper reason because these consecrated religious Sisters were so deeply joyful!

The stereotypes many of us have about gloomy, somber enclosed contemplative nuns would be dispelled in a minute by the infectious smile of Sister Paola, a Poor Clare nun (and a medical doctor) trying to distribute at least some cough syrup to everybody with colds (we brought them to share from around the world) while quietly observing that there is no cure for the common cold, “but take some anyway if it makes you feel better.” After observing my runny nose and hacking cough (and perhaps my well-filled stomach), she wryly advised, contrary to American popular thinking: “The best cure for a cold is fasting.” Well, good advice, especially in Lent.

And, yes, all such Franciscan medical visits are free of charge.

The many excellent addresses in text form (in English, Spanish and Italian) and in podcast can be found, because of the hard work of Fr. John Abela, OFM at the Website of the Order of Friars Minor at www.ofm.org/events.

My address (in English) can be read at:

http://www.ofm.org/ofmnews/?p=1763

The podcast (in English) can be heard at:

http://www.ofm.org/ofmnews/?p=1767

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