Justice, Peace, & Integrity of Creation - ABRAHAM'S VISITORS

2Looking up, [Abraham] saw three men standing near him. When he saw them, he ran from the entrance of the tent to greet them; and bowing to the ground, 3he said: “Sir, if it please you, do not go on past your servant. 4Let some water be brought, that you may bathe your feet, and then rest under the tree. 5Now that you have come to your servant, let me bring you a little food, that you may refresh yourselves; and afterward you may go on your way.” “Very well,” they replied, “do as you have said.”

6Abraham hurried into the tent to Sarah and said, “Quick, three measures of bran flour! Knead it and make bread.” 7He ran to the herd, picked out a tender, choice calf, and gave it to a servant, who quickly prepared it. 8Then he got some curds and milk, as well as the calf that had been prepared, and set these before them, waiting on them under the tree while they ate.

---Genesis 18

This story of Abraham’s visitors is the first example of hospitality in the Bible and sets the tone for all believers for the rest of time.  Hospitality is a key element in our ‘love of neighbor’ that Jesus says is the second commandment. Hospitality is “the friendly and generous reception and entertainment of guests, visitors, or strangers.”  (on-line dictionary)

Throughout the Bible, we see many references to hospitality:

33When an alien resides with you in your land, do not mistreat such a one.  34You shall treat the alien who resides with you no differently than the natives born among you; you shall love the alien as yourself; for you too were once aliens in the land of Egypt.  I, the LORD, am your God. (Leviticus 19)

22You shall have but one rule, for alien and native-born alike.  I, the LORD, am your God.  (Leviticus 24)

49There will be one law for the native and for the alien residing among you.  (Exodus 12)

9You shall not oppress a resident alien; you well know how it feels to be an alien, since you were once aliens yourselves in the land of Egypt.  (Exodus 23)

2Do not neglect hospitality, for through it some have unknowingly entertained angels.  (Hebrews 13)

Now, skipping down a few hundred years, our Declaration of Independence (1776) holds these words

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

Although there has been some debate about the word “men” in this text, when one considers the sources and times when it was written, we understand that it means “humanity,” thus including all people who inhabit the earth.

In describing The New Colossus, the Mother of Exiles, Emma Lazarus writes these words as the last few lines of this memorable poem:

“Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,

 I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

For decades, this poem inscribed on the Statue of Liberty has welcomed countless strangers, perhaps even your ancestors, into the United States.  In keeping with the hospitality of Abraham, the United States has been a welcoming nation opening our arms to the refugees from oppression, fear, and death and those seeking a better economic life. 

The USCCB writes,

Although Catholic theology has always promoted human rights rooted in natural law and God's revelation, it was the encyclical Rerum Novarum (On the Condition of Labor) in 1891 that developed a systematic presentation of principles of the rights and responsibilities of people. Rerum Novarum commented on the situation of immigrants; in later documents, popes and bishops' conferences have synthesized the Catholic theological tradition to articulate three basic principles on immigration.

·         First Principle: People have the right to migrate to sustain their lives and the lives of their families.

·         Second Principle: A country has the right to regulate its borders and to control immigration.

·         Third Principle: A country must regulate its borders with justice and mercy.

Read the full document on the Bishops’ website

All of this brings us around to our Franciscan charism.  Article 13 of our Rule states,

As the Father sees in every person the features of his Son, the firstborn of many brothers and sisters, so the Secular Franciscans with a gentle and courteous spirit accept all people as a gift of the Lord and an image of Christ.

A sense of community will make them joyful and ready to place themselves on an equal basis with all people, especially with the lowly for whom they shall strive to create conditions of life worthy of people redeemed by Christ.

In his piece from #FriarFriday—Welcoming the Stranger (23 FEB 2018) Christian Seno writes

Just as Francis’ embrace of the leper turned what seemed bitter “into sweetness of soul and body,” the embrace of our migrant and refugee brothers and sisters will turn the bitterness of xenophobia and fear into the sweetness of justice and peace. For in welcoming and embracing those whom we consider the stranger and the least among us, we will be welcoming and embracing [Jesus].   

Pope Francis encourages us “to overcome indifference and to counter fears with a generous approach of welcoming those who knock at our doors.”

In the debate of today’s environment, we are challenged to remember these important principles as we formulate and express our views.  We must not cooperate with the xenophobic paranoia that has clutched much of our population in its grasp.  We remember that we have brother and sister Franciscans all over the globe:  66 established fraternities from Angola to Ukraine and 46 emerging fraternities from Albania to Uganda. (CIOFS, 2014) [NOTE: Clearly, in the last four years, these numbers have increased.]

So, as Franciscans, we continue to pray for our brothers and sisters throughout the world who find themselves in desperate situations.  We contribute to organizations like Catholic Relief Services.  We offer our friendship and services to new members of our community—all who have moved whether from another state or country are the “stranger in our midst” and could be/are Christ. We advocate for reasonable rules for safe immigration into our country from other lands. We remember that the Holy Family were migrants.  We understand that, if we have moved during our lifetime, we were migrants and remember what it felt like to move into a new community and remember Abraham’s hospitality to the three strangers.

On his deathbed, St. Francis freed his brothers by saying, “I have done what was mine to do, may Christ now teach you what you are to do.” (Life of Saint Francis, Bonaventure) May we learn from his example and welcome the strangers in our midst.

Pace e bene

Reflections on the Rule - Chapter 2 - Article 10

Chapter Two:

The Way of Life

10. Uniting themselves to the redemptive obedience of Jesus, who placed His will into the Father’s hands, let them faithfully fulfill the duties proper to their various circumstances of life. Let them also follow the poor and crucified Christ, witness to Him even in difficulties and persecutions. 

Because of General Constitutions always shed more light upon the Article of the Rule itself, it is good to remind us of what they say:

Article 10:  Rule 10 "Christ, poor and crucified", victor over death and risen, the greatest manifestation of the love of God for humanity, is the "book" in which the brothers and sisters, in imitation of St. Francis, learn the purpose and the way of living, loving, and suffering.  They discover in Him the value of contradictions for the sake of justice and the meaning of the difficulties and the crosses of daily life.  With Him, they can accept the will of the Father even under the most difficult circumstances and live the Franciscan spirit of peace, rejecting every doctrine contrary to human dignity.

 Article 11:  Mindful that the Holy Spirit is the source of their vocation and the animator of fraternal life and mission, Secular Franciscans should seek to imitate the faithfulness of St. Francis to His inspiration.  They should listen to the exhortation of the Saint to desire above all things "the Spirit of God at work within them."

 Article 12: 

1. Gaining inspiration from the example and the writings of St. Francis and, above all, filled with the grace of the Holy Spirit, each day the brothers and sisters faithfully live the great gift which Christ has given: the revelation of the Father.  They should bear witness to this faith before all: — in their family life; — in their work; — in their joys and sufferings; — in their associations with all men and women, brothers and sisters of the same Father; — in their presence and participation in the life of society; — in their fraternal relationships with all creatures.

2. Rule 10 With Jesus, obedient even to death, they should seek to know and do the will of the Father.  They should give thanks to God for the gift of freedom and for the revelation of the law of love.  In order to carry out the will of the Father, they should accept the help which is offered to them through the mediation of the Church by those who are constituted as authority in her and by their confreres.  They should take on the risk of courageous choices in their life in society with decisiveness and serenity.

Well, that’s a lot to take in!  So, let’s break it down into small pieces so that we may better understand what it all means.

Uniting themselves to the redemptive obedience of Jesus…

We begin with the simple idea of uniting ourselves to a special principle.  In this case, we are asked to unite with the “redemptive obedience of Jesus.”  Those words sound to our ears as a scary option.  When we think about Jesus, we remember how he submitted his life to God’s Will and through Gethsemane and the Cross he redeemed us from our life of sin.  He gave himself over completely to the Father’s Will! 

Wait a minute!  That ended up being an excruciating painful situation!  Are we expected to go to the cross to be a faithful follower of Christ?

What was it he said?

“24 Then Jesus said to his disciples, “Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself,* take up his cross, and follow me. 25 For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. 26 What profit would there be for one to gain the whole world and forfeit his life? Or what can one give in exchange for his life?” (MATT 16)

That doesn’t sound very cushy to me.  Well, that’s the point.  Following Christ is NOT an easy job.  As we read the Beatitudes and remember many of his sayings, we find that they are countercultural--just the opposite of what society says we should be and do.  St. Francis quickly picked up on this idea as he formulated his way of following Christ through Gospel living. 

This whole idea of “redemptive obedience” is going to be difficult.   When we consider that

Christ's whole life is a mystery of redemption. Redemption comes to us above all through the blood of his cross, but this mystery is at work throughout Christ's entire life:

·         already in his Incarnation through which by becoming poor he enriches us with his poverty;

·         in his hidden life which by his submission atones for our disobedience;

·         in his word which purifies its hearers;

·         in his healings and exorcisms by which "he took our infirmities and bore our diseases";

·         and in his Resurrection by which he justifies us. (CCC 517)

If we are to follow St. Francis in his obedience to the Will of God, we will find ourselves becoming “…obedient unto death…”, just as Jesus did.  Now, this “death”, while we are living, is one of sacrifice.  Living simply, and that’s what we’re really talking about, is giving up—foregoing—turning away from—those things that are not required for life in Christ—detachment from the things of this world in favor of union with Christ—where true happiness lies. 

We are not without help, however; even amid this challenge

In order to carry out the will of the Father, they should accept the help which is offered to them through the mediation of the Church by those who are constituted as authority in her and by their confreres.  They should take on the risk of courageous choices in their life in society with decisiveness and serenity.  (GC 12.2)

All of this is not as complex as it sounds.  The Catechism reminds us:

Outward sacrifice, to be genuine, must be the expression of spiritual sacrifice: "The sacrifice acceptable to God is a broken spirit...." The prophets of the Old Covenant often denounced sacrifices that were not from the heart or not coupled with love of neighbor.  Jesus recalls the words of the prophet Hosea: "I desire mercy, and not sacrifice.”  The only perfect sacrifice is the one that Christ offered on the cross as a total offering to the Father's love and for our salvation.   By uniting ourselves with his sacrifice we can make our lives a sacrifice to God. (CCC 2100)

In our obedience, then, we become a sacrifice when we supplant our own personal desires for those of God.  We stop trying to be “in-charge” and allow God to show us how to live out our lives in an honest, other-centered fashion.  Simply put, we think of others before ourselves and give our time, talent, and treasure for their benefit.  In so doing, we truly follow St. Francis’ example of Christ’s way of living—loving God with everything we have and our neighbor as ourselves.

…let them faithfully fulfill the duties proper to their various circumstances of life.

We are called the Secular Franciscan Order.  That Secular is a very important part of who we are!  We live in today’s world and are charged to change it as a result of our witness to the Gospel values that we profess.  Though our daily lives, we encounter the world and infuse it with the gifts of faith, hope, and love.  What we say and do truly reflects the Gospel lives that we live and, hopefully, infects those around us with similar desires.

By reason of their special vocation it belongs to the laity to seek the kingdom of God by engaging in temporal affairs and directing them according to God's will.... It pertains to them in a special way so to illuminate and order all temporal things with which they are closely associated that these may always be [affected] and grow according to Christ and maybe to the glory of the Creator and Redeemer.  (CCC 898)

We are obligated to change the world into a Gospel centered society through our interaction with society at our job, school, home, sports, arts, extended family, and…. well, the list goes on.  Essentially, everywhere we go, we should leave the mark of the Christ-life as an example and role model for everyone we meet.  Now, you can easily understand why we have already talked about prayer and devotion to Mary—both will help us achieve this goal, when we remember that we are obedient to God’s will, not our own.

Let them also follow the poor and crucified Christ, witness to Him even in difficulties and persecutions. 

The Catechism offers clarity to this last phrase of Article 10:

The cross is the unique sacrifice of Christ, the "one mediator between God and men". But because in his incarnate divine person he has in some way united himself to every man, "the possibility of being made partners, in a way known to God, in the paschal mystery" is offered to all men. He calls his disciples to "take up [their] cross and follow [him]", for "Christ also suffered for [us], leaving [us] an example so that [we] should follow in his steps." In fact Jesus desires to associate with his redeeming sacrifice those who were to be its first beneficiaries. This is achieved supremely in the case of his mother, who was associated more intimately than any other person in the mystery of his redemptive suffering. (CCC 618)

Apart from the cross there is no other ladder by which we may get to heaven... (CCC 618)

Christ unites us with his Passover: all his members must strive to resemble him, "until Christ be formed" in them. "For this reason, we . . . are taken up into the mysteries of his life, . . . associated with his sufferings as the body with its head, suffering with him, that with him we may be glorified."  (CCC 793)

Hence the laity, dedicated as they are to Christ and anointed by the Holy Spirit, are marvelously called and prepared so that even richer fruits of the Spirit maybe produced in them. For all their works, prayers, and apostolic undertakings, family and married life, daily work, relaxation of mind and body, if they are accomplished in the Spirit - indeed even the hardships of life if patiently born - all these become spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. In the celebration of the Eucharist these may most fittingly be offered to the Father along with the body of the Lord. And so, worshipping everywhere by their holy actions, the laity consecrate the world itself to God, everywhere offering worship by the holiness of their lives.   (CCC 901)

We encounter the difficulties of daily life with all its vicissitudes in the Spirit of Christ as a follower of St. Francis.  In so doing, we help bless the world and make it more holy.  Our witness to the good life that Christ calls us to live is a transformative experience for everyone we encounter, if we are in proper alignment with God’s will.  This is accomplished through our obedience to the commandments of Jesus outlined throughout his entire ministry.  We watch St. Francis and follow in his footsteps. We bring grace to a troubled world!  Much of Chapter Two of our Rule is designed to show us specific ways that we accomplish this ministry and, through understanding and living this Way of Life, we evangelize the world and transform it into what God intended in the first place.

Pace e bene.