Third Letter of the Conference Of The Franciscan Family

Third Letter
Of The Conference Of The Franciscan Family
On The Jubilee Year 2000,
For The Year Consecrated To The Father

I - The Father: Theological and Spiritual perspectives

II - The Father in Christian life today

III - Pointers for individual and communal reflection

" Holy Father, we thank you for yourself "

Dear Brothers and Sisters

1. In the Apostolic Letter Tertio Millennio adveniente, Pope John Paul II called upon Christians to consecrate 1999, the third and final year of preparation for the Jubilee of the year 2000, "to our Father in heaven, by whom Jesus was sent and to whom He returned"[1]. This cycle of preparation began with an in-depth study of the mystery of Jesus Christ the Messiah and Son of God. Already the simple word "Son" turns our gaze toward the Father, who is origin and source. Thus, by the very fact of being Son, Jesus introduces us to the Father and "sees fit to reveal Him to us". [2].

In order to ensure that this revelation of the Father is not something abstract or purely theoretical, we were invited, in the second year, to let the Holy Breath of the Lord, His Spirit, take hold of us and carry us along, for the Spirit gives us knowledge and experience both of the Father and the Son. This year, we have now reached the end of the journey: the Son and the Spirit have led us to "the Father, the Holy and Just one" (Jn 1, 11-25), who has the Son close to his heart (Jn 1, 18) and who is the source of the Spirit (Jn 15, 26).

2. As in the two previous years, we wish to meditate with you, Brothers and Sisters, lay and religious members of the Franciscan Family, on the mystery of the Father, drawing from the experience and testimony of Francis. With our eyes and the understanding of our hearts, we shall ponder the inexhaustible wealth contained in the Father’s name, which Jesus saw fit to make known to us when He prayed on our behalf.[3]. We shall try to discover what practical consequences such a discovery has for our attitudes and conduct in everyday life.

I - The Father: Theological and Spiritual perspectives

Francis discovers the fatherhood of God
3. We all know the spectacular scene - that great turning-point in Francis’ life - where he strips naked before his father and the bishop[4]. As naked as the day he was born, Francis declares to his earthly father: "From now on I can freely say ‘Our Father who art in heaven’, not father Peter Bernardone". Breaking with his physical origin, in some sense repudiating his first birth, he refers to Him who is "the one Father" (Mt 23,8),[5] from whom "all fatherhood in heaven and on earth is derived" (Eph 3,15). In saying this, was Francis simply affirming a vague fatherhood of some supreme being, the "Father of the world" on whom all existence depends? Or did he already glimpse something of the depths of "the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ" (Eph 1,3)? The account of his spiritual journey found in his writings shows that it really was an intuition that would subsequently grow.

Francis enters the experience of the only-begotten Son
4. The Christian has only one means available to discover the reality hidden behind the words "God the Father": namely, "the only Son, who is nearest to the Father’s heart" (Jn 1,18). This is precisely what Francis did. In the psalms which he collected and arranged to celebrate the various stages of salvation accomplished by Christ - His birth, passion, death, resurrection, ascension, return in glory and judgement - it is not Francis who speaks, but Christ. The Son stands in the presence of the one He tenderly calls "my Father", dialogues with Him, complains or rejoices, confides in Him, surrenders to Him, showing close familiarity mingled with filial respect and reverence. The only-begotten Son, alone, lives this primal experience of fatherhood and sonship together - the two terms are inseparable. Listening to this dialogue, by turns painful, confident, even joyful, and entering into it through faith, Francis learns from Jesus who the Father is, and what it means to be Son.

5. He does so again when, on three occasions in his writings,[6] he quotes long passages from the admirable prayer of Jesus in chapter 17 of John’s Gospel. There, in a brief but dense account, he describes the role of the Father in the sending of the Son and in the struggle of his agony[7]. The Father appears there as one with authority; He is the first, and all initiative rests with Him, but He is also above all gift and love, who sacrifices Himself with His Son.

Who is the Father?
6. The journey Francis undertook - to enter into the experience of Jesus, Son of the Father - led him into the very depths of the divine mystery revealed by the Son and believed by the Church. The one God is never solitary or closed in on Himself, since in his essence He is communion and relationship. He goes out of Himself, surrenders Himself, begets; He is the Father who gives Himself a Son whom He loves, as scripture says (Col 1, 13). That love in turn, a burst of passion moving from Father to Son and vice versa, is a personal being, the Breath of life, the Holy Spirit. Lacking theological terminology or a systematic vision, Francis - as a true Christian believer, one of those little ones to whom the Father reveals the deepest mysteries (Mt 11, 25) - placed the mystery of Father, Son and Spirit at the heart of his spiritual vision.

7. This vision is a trinitarian one: the Father is always to be found at the center. The initiative is His in all things: creation, incarnation, redemption, return of the Son in glory: everything starts from Him and returns to Him[8]. The Son and the Spirit share in the work of the Father, but they are also heralds of His glory. Francis entreats them to give thanks to the Father, something which we, being unworthy to speak His name, are unable to do[9]. But this "primacy" of the Father in no way implies inferiority or subordination of the Son or the Spirit. It is a mutual gift on either side, an interdependence born of love, a self-emptying, a kind of mysterious divine poverty where none of the Persons has anything "of their own".

8. This explains, then, why practically all of Francis’ prayers, like those of the Church, are addressed to the Father, and why it is that the Father is given so many lofty titles: all-powerful, most holy, sovereign, holy and just, king of heaven and earth.[10] It also explains why the "Our Father" is so important to him.[11]He mentions it eleven times in his writings, and wrote an admirable commentary on it.[12]

9. If the whole of Francis’ perspective begins with the Father and His initiatives, the Christian’s spiritual journey also ends with the Father. Indeed, the goal we must pursue in the footsteps of the beloved Son, Jesus Christ, once we have been purified, enlightened and set ablaze with the fire of the Holy Spirit, is none other than to share in the life of the Most High Father Himself, who reigns and is glorified in the perfect Trinity and simple unity[13]. This, in outline, is the vision of the Father that Francis drew from the Gospels, especially that of John, and which he made his own as a result of spiritual experience. This was the fruit of the one who is "Spirit and life" (Jn 6,13),[14]which he hands on to us as a precious heritage.

II - The Father in Christian life today

10. The richest pages where Francis speaks of God as Father are not addressed to a privileged category (Friars Minor or Poor Sisters), but to all Christians - men and women, clerics and lay[15] and even to "all peoples everywhere on earth, present and to come"[16]. Francis was not afraid that his words might appear remote from people’s lives. On the contrary, his discovery of what it means for God to be Father gave to everyday life a firm foundation and a wide horizon.
The Father at the heart of the life of faith
11. All too often our view of God is vague and abstract. Francis however, on the basis of what the Gospel taught him, shows us the mystery of Father, Son and Spirit, not as a complex problem, but as the overflowing of a living relationship, of communion and sharing. In his first Admonition he tells us, simply and profoundly, how the Lord Jesus, as the way, the truth and the life, leads us to the Father. But in order to reach Jesus and discover who He really is as Son, we need the Holy Spirit, who alone can give us eyes to see what is unseen.

12. Yes, the heart of Franciscan spirituality, around which everything else is harmoniously arranged and structured, is found here, in this faith dimension which can rightly be called the contemplative dimension of our life. Francis boldly puts forward for everyone so lofty a goal, and in this he is faithful to the Gospel (cf. Jn 14,23)[17], Inspired and enlightened by this teaching, we are invited to take up the "Our Father", meditate upon it, study it in depth and recite it once more in the spirit of Francis’ commentary. This will stop us "babbling as the pagans do" (Mt 6,7) the prayer taught to us by our Lord, which we so often pray inattentively.
The human being, image of God as communion
13. Francis insists that human beings are created in the image and likeness of God, and that their bodies are modelled on that of the beloved Son.[18] But since God, at the very heart of His oneness, is difference, otherness, relationship and communion, we human beings who bear His image are not condemned to live in solitude, closed in on ourselves. We too, created male and female from the beginning, are otherness, difference, complementarity, called to share in a communion of love and to transmit the life we have received. We are community beings because we reproduce the divine "society" of Father, Son and Spirit, and thereby experience fatherhood-motherhood, filiation and fraternity. And this is just as true for a couple, a family, the communities we form, the community of the Church, and for society in its different forms. It is even true, up to a certain point, of all living things (animals, vegetable life...). This world with its abundance of life forms has one unique origin - the unseen Father, source of all that is, through the free movement of "his holy love".[19].
To be Father means going out of oneself, giving oneself....and serving
14. Human parenthood and filiation have never been lived without tension, rebellion and even murder. Even Francis’ relations with his father were not always tranquil. As we know, they eventually broke up altogether. Today, fatherhood has a bad image, it is often weakened or non-existent, often challenged. Its authority is rejected as far as its preventative function is concerned, and also because it is accused of claiming superiority, domination and being an obstacle to autonomy, freedom and growth. There is no doubt that it is frequently exercised in such a way. But the true fatherhood of God, which the Gospel claims to be unique (Mt 23,8), is not of this kind, and it alone must be the model of all fatherhood and authority.

15. The Father we hear about in the Gospel of John and other biblical texts, the Father contemplated by Francis, is the one who begets a beloved Son, to whom He gives all that He is and has, and whom He associates with the Spirit- Paraclete in the work of creation and redemption, and when delivering him up to his Passion and death, He awaits his free consent[20], before taking him by the hand and raising him in the glory of the Resurrection and the Ascension (Ps. 6, 12).[21].

16. We who experience fatherhood and motherhood in their most varied forms, and exercise functions involving power, authority or "superiorship", need to turn our eyes to our "Father in heaven". His "almighty power" is that of an unconditional, self-giving love; it goes out of itself and seeks the life, growth and freedom of the other. His demands and prohibitions are only warnings against anything that threatens or destroys the person’s dignity and value. Jesus, following His Father’s example and in His name, lived and taught aspects of the exercise of authority - one of the Father’s attributes - which we find in the writings of St. Francis:[22], being simple servants, lowly[23], washing one another’s feet[24], not dominating, but serving.[25] All of this points the way for us and shows the true meaning of fatherhood and real authority according to the Gospel.
Fatherhood, filiation and fraternity
17. The Father has an only-begotten, beloved Son. But this unheard-of gift of being a son or daughter is communicated to all people. "Think of the love the Father has shown us, by letting us be called God’s children, and that is what we are" (1Jn 3, 1). In one of the most significant passages of the letter Francis wrote to all Christians, he stands in amazement at such a gift as he describes its effects.[26]. When we live Christ’s Gospel and persevere in it despite the wear and tear of life, the Spirit of the Lord rests on us and dwells in us. We thereby become sons and daughters of the heavenly Father who act as He does, like true sons and daughters. As for Jesus, the only Son, we then become His brothers and sisters, even more, his spouses and his mothers. Once again, Francis bases the human values of filiation and brotherhood not on biological and psychological relationships alone, but on those that exist in the very depths of God. In the only Son, and with Him," we are all God’s children" in the truest sense ( cf.Ac 17,28), and all human sonship and daughterhood points us to that fact. The same goes for fraternity, which is not only a sense of belonging to the same human race, but a conviction that all of us "were born not from human stock, or human desire or human will, but from God himself" (Jn 1-13).
18. Fraternity, brothers, sisters: in every circumstance we are challenged not just to proclaim, but to live these words, so dear to our Franciscan tradition. The realities they refer to are rooted in the mystery of the One Father. Since we have one Father, Jesus Christ is our first brother, but every human being - man or woman, small or great, poor or rich, wicked or good, healthy or sick, marginalized or in the main stream, is our brother and sister[27]who will always be received kindly and treated properly[28]. Other living beings - animal and vegetable, and the cosmic realities themselves - share in this mysterious brotherhood, since they too have no other source and origin than the heart of the Father overflowing with being and life, which He alone possesses in their fullness.
Invitation
19. Encouraged by Pope John Paul II, we members of the Franciscan Family, together with our Catholic Church and Christians all over the world, have embarked upon the journey of preparation for the year 2000. In that year we shall celebrate the unique event, the entry of God into our world and our history, when "the Word became flesh and dwelt among us" (Jn 1,14). At each stage of that journey we have been brought face to face with the love of our God. Jesus, our saviour and our God, as well as our brother in human flesh, after showing us the Father, leads us back to Him by the movement and impulse of the divine Breath, the Holy Spirit the Paraclete. This profound gaze of faith, centered on essential realities, gives us inner identity and solidity and impels us to concrete acts of commitment in the service of the Church and the world.
20. As Francis invites us to do, let us "give praise to God, for He is good, and exalt Him by your deeds.This is the very reason he has sent you all over the world, so that by word and deed you may bear witness to His message, and convince everyone that there is no other almighty God besides Him". [29].

III - Pointers for individual and communal reflection

The Father is at the heart of the experience of the Church and of St Francis: everything starts from the Father and returns to Him through Jesus Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit.
Is our individual and communal spirituality directed to the Father? Can we give to our prayer a more filial, trustful tone?
The mystery of the Father’s love for the Son in the Holy Spirit gives us a glimpse of how, in God, absolute communion is lived in the fullest possible distinction.
In our relationships within the family, our religious community, our parish etc., are we able to harmonise the need for unity of purpose and action with respect for the individual and acceptance of differences?
All fatherhood (motherhood) has its origin in our heavenly Father, is named after Him (cf. Eph 3,15) and should in some sense reflect Him.
In our families, religious communities, etc. is fatherhood/motherhood exercised in the spirit of love, gift and service, as these are resplendent in the relationship of God the Father to the Son? Or are there forms of authoritarianism, dominion or possessiveness?
Do we know how to be "merciful, as our heavenly father is merciful"? (cf. Lk 6, 36), and how to be full of tender mercy towards the needy, the suffering, and those who have erred?
How do we, brothers and sisters and disciples of Francis, fulfil the task of revealing the humility, lowliness and mercy of God the Father?
St. Francis understood that God is the Father of all people, poor and rich, near and far, saints and sinners.
Are our hearts open enough to recognize all people as sons and daughters of the one Father, and therefore also as our brothers and sisters? How can we be messengers of this fatherhood in our society?
Are there concrete signs we could give as families, as religious communities, as a Franciscan movement: e.g. take a stand on behalf of immigrants in our countries, or on behalf of the nations in debt to the IMF? ...
What initiatives could we suggest or support in defense of human life in this year dedicated to the Father, who is the source of all life?
St. Francis contemplated the fatherhood of God also in animate and inanimate creatures, which he called "brother" or "sister".

How can we foster respect for nature and the struggle against waste and consumerism, against the selfish use by the few of goods which the Father created for the joy of all His children?
Rome, 1 January 1999