Sr Anne's Reflections

Dear Sisters,
A number of Franciscan Scholars have contributed to a Booklet celebrating the 800th Centenary of St Francis of Assisi: 2023 – 2026.
• 2023 the Rule and Greccio
• 2024 the Stigmata
• 2025 the Canticle of the Creatures
• 2026 the Transitus of St Francis.
This booklet was sent to me by Sister Kathleen Moffatt, a sister of the congregation of St Francis of Philadelphia, who knew Sr Margaret McGrath from the Franciscan Study Centre in Canterbury, where Kathleen taught a course for 7 years. The contents of the booklet can be found on the website: https://osfphila.org/spiritualityprayer and they are completely free to use or copy.

As we celebrate the Feast of St Francis, I would like to share with you some insights from this celebratory booklet:
“Always be ready to give an account of the hope that is within you with gentleness and respect.” 1Peter 3:15

W. J. Short OFM says: “to give an account of the hope that is within us” is our challenge. Short offers a few areas in which our Franciscan tradition, the hope within us, offers the possibility of speaking a “new” language in today’s church and society. He gives the example of Ministry and Authority from Francis and Clare’s lives. Francis asked that the passage from John’s gospel: “the Lord Jesus on the night before he died, washed the feet of his disciples” be read as he was dying. Clare would wash the feet of her sisters when they returned to the convent of San Damiano after walking the dirty streets of Assisi. Both Francis and Clare identified themselves as servants, in the manner of John’s gospel. They point out to us in this way the revelation of the divinity of Christ as servant. Short affirms that this picture of the humility of God is one we enact when we put aside status, rank, and power to “become lesser” and thus reveal our own likeness to God. He asks what “word” can this speak to our approach to ministry and mission in our communities?

We might take the opportunity of St Francis Feast to reflect on our own understanding of being a Franciscan religious woman shaped by a model which follows the gospel account in John of the washing of feet? How do we witness to this model in our way of reaching out to those we serve in our various ministries, in our communities?

In a recent reflection by Richard Rohr (from Eager to Love) he also speaks of a radical Franciscan spirituality. In his First Rule, Francis wrote, “They must rejoice when they live among people considered of little value.” The early Franciscan friars and the Poor Clares wanted to be gospel practitioners instead of merely “inspectors” as Pope Francis calls some of today’s clergy. Both Francis and Clare offered their Rules as a “form of life”. Rohr quotes the author Jon Sweeney describing how Franciscan preaching took place in everyday circumstances which is in line with the reflection on Ministry and Mission. He says:
The earliest Franciscan sermons were more like open-air discussions, encouragements, inspirations – usually while the preacher or another friar were on the road walking, beside the road begging, in hospitals caring for the ill and accompanying the dying, repairing crumbling churches, acting as intermediaries between people in trouble and people in power, and touching with tenderness the creatures and creation around them.

May we all continue to be inspired by this radical Franciscan spirituality as we do our best to live it in 2024.

Wishing you a happy, hope-filled Feast of St Francis.
Love & prayer,