HAPPY FEAST OCTOBER 4TH!
Minister’s Corner
Happy Fall y’all! We are slowly but surely coming up on St Francis’ Feast Day. As it approaches let us reflect on our own Franciscan Journey and look forward to “beginning” again!
This could be our “New Year” celebration! The smoke has cleared; the weather is changing, and we can look ahead to family gatherings, maybe being able to “commune” with nature during a long Indian summer. Long talks on the deck in the evenings. Have some actual time to “ponder” as did Mary and Francis as well! We can “see” again the awesomeness of creation, the wonder and majesty of it all, and find ways to give Him thanks.
We’ll be gathering soon for our Annual Retreat and sharing our own personal reflections from this past year. May the Lord continue to bless us in our gatherings and our going forth.
Pax et Bonum,
Debbie Wasche, Min.
FRATERNITY DOINGS
Congratulations to our newly elected Council! Debbie Wasche, Minister, John Goold, Vice Minister, Hank Hohenstein, Treasurer, Joanne Kraan, Secretary and Ralph Wasche, Formation Director. Along side them is Patricia Mihalic Doyle our new SA! Thank you all for commitments of sharing your gifts with us and for us.
Isn’t this a great picture of student and mentor who have travelled together on this special journey? Patricia Mihalic Doyle with Sr. Loretta Schaff, her mentor. It has been a long loving commitment for both of them to reach this day of Patriciia’s commissioning as Spiritual Assistant.
A beautiful gift for Patricia from Sr. Loretta, who kept the artist of the tau private.
Many thanks to Sr. Loretta, Lucy and Juan for their mindful composing, sharing and officiating our elections.
UPCOMING
Our Annual Day of Recollection will be on Saturday, September 29th. All who are able will attend the 8:30 am Mass at Sacred Heart Church and then move on to the home that has been graciously offered to us for our retreat. The emphasis this year will be on The Rule. As always it is a potluck. This year there is no per person fee, so we are asking that donations for Redemption Ridge be brought instead. Any questions? Please call Debbie at 541-205-9502. Please also pray for Patricia, SA as she will be attending the retreat in Washington the following week.
ONGOING FORMATION
We are finishing up with Eager To Love by Richard Rohr, OFM As we will be celebrating Francis’ Transitus and Feast Day, this quote from the final chapter is manna for us:
“Francis has beautifully passed this baton on to those who would receive it. He would not be honored or even interested in us pulling him out of his single place in this eternal Divine Flow and making an exception or idol of him. He himself joined the “great cloud of witnesses” (Hebrews 12:1) and is most honored by you now getting in line with everybody else, just as he did in his time. We are saved by simply remaining in the one circle of life and love, and not by standing separate or superior. This is the One Love that will lead and carry you across when you die. If you are already at home with Love here, you will quite readily move into the eternal home of Love, which most of us call heaven…..Life is never about being correct, but only and always about being connected. Just stay connected!”
THE SUN NEVER SAYS
by Hafiz, Sufi Master
Even
After
All this time
The sun never says to the earth,
“You owe
Me.”
Look
What happens
With a love like that,
It lights the
Whole
Sky.
Who Is My Neighbor in a Climate-Threatened World?
A Feast of St. Francis Webinar
Thursday, September 27th
2:00 p.m. eastern
info@catholicclimatecovenant.org
From Our Candidate Lois McWhorter:
I was reading an article in which there was discussion about the line “lead
us not into temptation.” Pope Francis was supposed to have said
something about eliminating that line since God never leads one into
temptation. There followed a discussion about the controversial idea
of actually changing the words to the prayer. Someone later wrote to the magazine with the suggestion that over the many years of translation the word “You” was eliminated, so I have been trying out adding that word to the lines of the prayer since I too have had some difficulty with the idea of God leading us into temptation. I found
the practice of adding that word to some of the phrases very helpful in meditating on this beautiful prayer. Here’s what it helped me see:
Our Father who art in heaven
Hollowed be thy name.
I think of the desirability and holiness of God
Thy kingdom come
Thy will be done
On earth as it is in Heaven
The Kingdom of God can be found in the here and now, the path to which
is found in the growing awareness and the following of God’s will.
You give us this day our daily bread.
This reminds me that all I have is from God and brings me to gratitude
for the many ways my needs are met.
You forgive us our trespasses
As we forgive those who trespass against us.
This I see as a sacred promise, that in gratitude for the mercy and
forgiveness the Lord has granted me, I will treat others with the same
mercy.
You lead us not into temptation
You deliver us from evil.
If I desire it, the Lord will lead me away from the many temptations
in life and will free me from the grasp of evil, especially the evil I
am tempted to commit.
For Yours is the kingdom and power and glory.
Now and forever.
That brings me full circle to the desirability and holiness of God.
Glory be to God for dappled things….. (Gerard Manley Hopkins)
Autumns Lullaby: peaceful and calm is autumn’s swan song, for she understands that hidden in winter’s death grip is spring’s open-handed, full brimmed breath of life. I also wrote: Sleep in peace, all that lives; slumber secure all that is dying: for in every fall there is a rising, whose Sister’s name is Spring. Noreen Muldoon, CSJ
From Our Minister Debbie Wasche:
Having come across this (in the FUN Manual) while getting things together for our candidate, I felt it needed to be shared once again with the rest of our community. It just resonated so well with me, I said “This is why I am a Franciscan!”. It is very basic information but I hope you enjoy it as much as I. I hope to share other info with our community as I come across them in the future.
Comparison of Schools of Theology
The Western or Latin Fathers The Eastern or Greek Fathers
(Cappodicians)
Saint Augustine Athanasius, Basil the GreatSaint Anselm of Canterbury Gregory of Nyssa, Gregory Nazianzus
“Cur Deus Homo” Pseudo-Dionysius
Doctrine of Salvation The Victornies
Rupert of Deutz (Benedictine)
Robert Grosseteste The Penitential movement in the Church
THE DOMINICAN SCHOOL THE FRANCISCAN SCHOOL
Thomas Aquinas Bonaventure of Bagnorigio
John Duns Scotus
Jesus comes (Incarnation as Jesus comes (Incarnation)
Atonement and expiation for sin) because this was always
God’s desire and intention
Without sin – Incarnation was unnecessary Incarnation was never dictated
By any need of man,
But by God’s free desire
Redemption and salvation centered God is the ultimate Good=Love
Love is the reason for creation
Atoning for personal sins Redemption and salvation
Are the results of God’s love
Conforming oneself to Jesus
In radical sonship
This path became the This path towards humility & poverty
Primary theology of the Church Remains as an alternate & accepted theology
Pope Leo XIII (OFS)-“Aterni Patris” 1879
More judicially based Based on the gift of the Father’s On rules & moral codes love
From Our SA, Patricia Mihalic Doyle
St. Pio
Through mission mailings I became aware that September 23, 2018 is the 50th Anniversary of the death of St. Padre Pio.
I have been using his wisdom when my family members and friends have a concern. I tell them Padre Pio said, “Pray, Hope & Don’t Worry.” I found gift items with his words of wisdom, too.
I remember hearing about Padre Pio from my Dad and his sister, Aunt Kate, in my teen years. I remember thinking he is in Italy – that’s SO far away. Now in eternity, for me, he has come closer!
Padre Pio is a contemporary of my grandparents, born May 25, 1887. He was named Francesco Forgione. His parents were poor peasant farmers in Pietrelcina in Campania, Southern Italy. They were a very religious family,
In his youth he expressed the desire to be a monk. It wasn’t an easy thing to accomplish because he was poor. He entered the novitiate at age 15, taking as his name Friar Pio. He was ordained a Capuchin Priest in 1910 – A FRANCISCAN.
He served in the medical corps in the Italian Army in the First World War. Illness caused his discharge in 1918.
Then, he served as Spiritual Director to the friars, and his daily life was spent offering Mass and hearing confessions. He lived a long life in the same place.
Church Authority had their concerns and even stopped him from saying Mass publicly in the 1920’s. Later, Pope John Paul II canonized him on June 16, 2002.
When he was still young he received the stigmata of Christ. The wounds bled constantly, but infection never set in. His hands and feet had the smell of roses. The wounds were perfectly round, which surprised doctors. He was embarrassed by the wounds and prayed about it. At one point they weren’t visible, but the pain remained. When they were visible again they remained for 50 years.
He was a man of persistent illness and suffering. He said suffering in the right spirit could take the soul to God. He was prayerful and humble, and had many gifts.
Padre Pio died on September 23, 1968. His last words were, “Jesus, Mary.”
On March 3, 2008 Padre Pio’s body was exhumed from the crypt for public viewing. In 2017, his body was brought to the USA for viewing.
Padre Pio said that his real mission would begin after his death, so let us offer prayers of thanksgiving for St. Pio’s exemplar life, and let’s not hesitate to ask our Franciscan brother for his intercession for our current needs, both personal and faith related.
An OFS, a Benedictine Oblate, a St. Benedict Labre Ministry Worker and others attend the rally with hundreds in Medford to protest the immigration policy of separating families
“There is nothing passive about this life of nonviolence. It requires positive activity every day.” — John Dear, SJ
Jesus then asked those closest to him, the Twelve, “Do you also want to leave?”
This is always the question we must ask in our own commitment to the way of Crucified Love, especially with the challenges before us today. Living attentively and faithfully means that we cannot turn away from the truth of the destruction and deterioration that we are inflicting on our Sister Mother Earth. We cannot turn away from the harsh and callous policies that separate immigrant infants and children from parents who are seeking asylum and a better way of life for themselves and their children. We cannot turn away from the apprehension and fear that many children, teens and families face as they prepare for another school year without changes that are needed in our policies on gun control that would protect them and allow them the safety and peace they deserve.
Living each day, faithfully and attentively, is a call to speak out, to advocate for change and to work for justice. Our Franciscan call to ongoing conversion challenges us to change our ways and our attitudes, so that we may effect change and promote deeper connectivity among all people and all of creation. Let us not turn away! Let us truly live our Spirit and Life!
Sr. Margaret Magee, OSF
FAN (Franciscan Action Network) Board President
October/November is the month of All Souls/All Saints. We are all aging! We have lost loved ones or are tending to those nearing the end of their lives. Let us pray for the holy souls in Purgatory and for those nearing Sister Death. Here is an excerpt from an article to help us as we near Home by Margaret Mary Knittel, RSM:
“There lives …. a compassionate God within each believing heart, understanding this reality of aging and the relentless demands of disinterested love. No one owes you or me a returned youth, a controlling power over adult children, a reversal of a doctor’s diagnosis – that is the grit of it all. And yet the necessary ingredient could be at hand, this reality called attention: Paying attention to the ordinary events in our lives can help us to develop a friendship with God.
Kindnesses will be tucked into moments given to us by strangers who bless us with their disinterested love and whom we prophetically greet as well, shedding the self-absorption that wants to possess us completely. New friendship with God lies outside the circle we had drawn for ourselves and is inside the ordinary known as the unexpected.
We await this Jesus the Christ who, according to Dr. Kosuke Koyama, will look into our “eyes and heart.” For our part we will try hard not to blink….. Your life and my life have been the work of living through countless orientations, disorientations, and new orientations and the faith movements that span them. The rest happens with a disinterested heart – no further accumulation of money, fame, or power. Virtue seeks attention to the Good, not blinking. We ready ourselves for the Banquet that has been prepared throughout our years.”
SFRV Fraternity Members Birthdays
September
28 Hank Hohenstein OFS
29 Paul Williams OFS
October
19 Michele Brodoski OFS
29 Debbie Wasche OFS
November
26 Elsie Williams OFS
SFRV Fraternity Members Profession Dates
September
Joanne Kraan OFS (2001)
Elsie Williams OFS (1990)
Paul Williams OFS (1990)
October
Michele Brodoski OFS (2001)
Hank Hohenstein OFS (1946)
Glenn Ray OFS (1987)
Gloria Ray OFS (1987)
November
Debbie Wasche OFS (1996)
Ralph Wasche OFS (1997)
Franciscan Calendar, USA
September
1 Blessed Beatrice of Silva, virgin of II Order
2 Blessed John Francis Burte, Severin Girault and companions, martyrs, I and III Orders
4 Saint Rose of Viterbo, virgin of III Order
17 Stigmata of Our Holy Father Francis
18 Saint Joseph of Cupertino, priest of I Order
20 Saint Francis Mary of Camporosso, religious of I Order
23 Finding of Body of Saint Clare
26 Saint Elzear of Sabran and Blessed Delphine, husband and wife, III Order
October
4 Our Holy Father, Francis, deacon, founder of Three Franciscan Orders
6 Saint Mary Frances of the Five Wounds, virgin of III Order
10 Saint Daniel, priest, and companions, martyrs of I Order
12 Saint Seraphin of Montegranaro, religious of I Order
20 Blessed James of Strepar, bishop of I Order
20 Blessed Contardo Ferrini, member of III Order
21 Blessed Josephine Leroux, virgin and martyr of II Order
22 Saint Peter of Alcantara, priest of I Order
23 Saint John of Capistrano, priest of I Order
26 Blessed Bonaventure of Potenza, priest of I Order
30 Anniversary of Dedication in Consecrated Franciscan Churches
November
4 Saint Charles Borromeo, bishop of III Order
7 Saint Didacus of Alcala, religious of I Order
13 Saint Frances Xavier Cabrini, virgin of III Order
14 Saint Nicholas Tavelic, priest, and companions, martyrs of I Order
17 Saint Elizabeth of Hungary, widow, member and patron of III Order
18 Blessed Salome, virgin of II Order
19 Saint Agnes of Assisi, virgin of II Order
24 Commemoration of all the Deceased of the Franciscan Orders
26 Saint Leonard of Port Maurice, priest of I Order
27 Saint Francis Anthony Fasani, priest of I Order
28 Saint James of the March, priest of I Order
29 All Saints of the Franciscan Orders
