Once again the memory of the transitus of our Father Francis draws us in mind and heart to the Portiuncula to renew our bonds of brotherhood. In this spirit, we whom you have called to minister to the worldwide fraternity would like to share our life and concerns with you and put before you some of the things we've been reflecting on.

1. A Year goes by

First, some of the things that have been happening during the past year. A big change for us was when Brother Adriano Langa was called to serve the Church in his own country as a bishop. Our prayers and good wishes go with him. In his place, Brother Peter Williams was elected to resume the post of Definitor for Africa and the Middle East which he previously held.

Most of our time was spent in visiting the friars around the world. Visiting their brothers is the first task Saint Francis enjoins on the ministers, and we strongly believe that being with you where you are, sharing your life and placing before you the 'priorities' of the Order and the experience of other fraternities, is the most effective means at our disposal for creating in all of us a real and effective awareness that we are a universal brotherhood. We must continue to work on this so that our instinctive individualism, nationalism and provincialism will gradually be eclipsed.

Balancing our visits to you with the administration of the Order is something we are still trying to get right. It involves adaptation also by the brothers who work in the Curia, and we want to record our thanks to them for their generosity and flexibility.

When our first year of ministry ended in June we decided to do an evaluation of our experience as individual friars and as a fraternity. In order to give ourselves space and time for this we traveled to the hermitage of Montepaolo near Forlì in the north-east of Italy. There the local fraternity joyfully acted as Martha while we took the rôle of Mary. Montepaolo is the place where St Anthony ended up after he arrived at the Chapter of Mats in Assisi an unknown, bewildered, foreign friar. Here he had plenty of time to wrestle with what was happening in his life, to ask himself, "Who am I? Where am I going? Where is God in all this?" Those weeks and months in Montepaolo were surely providential, because Anthony came down from that mountain his face radiant, his whole being aflame with the Good News he was sent to bring to the poor.

We asked the same questions - in less dramatic circumstances, of course - "How am I finding it? Does it give me space to be myself? Have I grown, can I grow, as a follower of the Gospel and as a Franciscan in these new circumstances? Have we become a fraternity and not just a set of individuals?" We shared the answers frankly in a spirit of prayer and having pondered the scriptures, and in the sharing our sense of God's purpose became more vivid and our gratitude more heartfelt. One thing we reflected on, and decided to talk to you about in our letter of the Feast of St Francis, is the initial sense of uprooting and disorientation, even loneliness, that we experienced in adjusting to our new situation. It led us on to thinking of the loneliness and isolation we have sometimes seen among the friars in different circumstances, and what we - and you - can do to prevent or alleviate their pain.

We thought of the loneliness that can be the lot of our brothers who have left home and family to labor for the Gospel in far away lands. We thought of the loneliness of ministers, who have undertaken the service of authority in provinces and local fraternities, and whose efforts are misunderstood; of our brothers whose lives were blighted by harsh and domineering ministers; of those whose gifts have never been acknowledged and who yet serenely serve; of whose who have been worn out by illness or the struggle with addiction; of those who see what they have labored long to build up being dismantled. We reflected on the pain and isolation inflicted on brothers who, in response to repeated invitations of the Order, have set up fraternities among the marginalized, only to find that they are themselves marginalized within their provinces; or on brothers who dedicate themselves to the traditional friary apostolates and are dismissed as outdated freaks, not to be taken seriously in a 'modern' province; or on the young brothers whose enthusiasm is cynically crushed by friars who have lost their own joy and cannot bear to see it in others.

Brothers, let us never rob the joy of our brothers, because that would be to tear down what the Lord is building up through the holy friars of our Order, and Francis cursed it. But something further needs to be said. Were all of us Friars Minor to become perfect, all so compassionate towards one another as never to cause deliberate pain but rather to heal all wounds, there would still be loneliness and heartache in life. Loneliness and heartache are an intrinsic part of the dynamic of growth, from youth to maturity and from maturity into old age. We leave in order to arrive, and in the process may feel "without a home and without love". We can react to this by flinging ourselves headlong into the quest for compensatory surrogates - activities, projects, needs, persons. Or we can acknowledge the hunger of the heart and befriend it, integrating it into the texture of our Franciscan commitment. The glorious adventure of living for Christ and our brothers has at its core this restless ache: the Lord wants us more and more as his own.

Some brothers fly straight as an arrow to the heart of Jesus; most of us muddle along in easygoing mediocrity. This thought led us to thinking about the value of example, and the friars we remembered who inspired us. Most we could remember were old, but their ministry to their brothers was the most precious one imaginable, as important as that of General Definitors or General Ministers. They taught us what is essential. And so we resolved on the second element of our letter to you - the life and ministry of the senior friars.

We've been talking about loneliness and isolation; the third age is often a prey to both. There can be the physical afflictions of progressive immobility and failing memory and senses, but often far harder to bear is the dismissive attitude of society. As you get older you're no longer "productive" and they consign you to the rubbish heap as a has-been. Only the latest technical innovation counts: all previous models are discarded. And we friars can thoughtlessly and uncritically adopt society's patterns. We confuse "know-how" with wisdom, and slap sell-by dates on the opinions of our brothers. Huge strides are being made nowadays in prolonging our life on earth: what are we doing to enhance the quality of the added years, to make them really count?

We don't need to buy into the mentality which marginalizes the elderly. We need you, our older brothers, at the center of our life and witness. And we would like to share with you some of the areas where we believe your ministry is irreplaceable.

You are our living memory as an Order and the guardians of our charism. All we are, we have received from you: all our values and patterns as a brotherhood. It was you who formed us in love for our Franciscan way of life. You have seen many changes in your lifetime, especially in the wake of the Second Vatican Council. Perhaps we asked too much of you. However, you accepted change humbly and serenely, even when you felt that the changes being implemented were incomprehensible and excessive. Today our fraternities are still enriched by your silent and faithful presence, at once welcoming and considerate. Even when your capacities are diminished, your good will is evident and is deeply appreciated.

Your wealth of accumulated wisdom and experience is invaluable. It will help us to avoid hasty and superficial decisions. It will make us less prone to half-baked improvisations which are at odds with our true charism. It will give a solid basis to our planning and continuity to our prophetic initiatives.

You enable us to see life as a journey with meaning and shape. In your lives, the ultimate truth of things has become visible. You have weathered the storms and borne the heat of the day, and you have acquired a sense of the essential. The years have brought you the ability to distinguish what is important from what is secondary, and a depth of judgement and farsightedness. With age, the real reference points upon which a man has constructed his life will emerge. It becomes clear in whom he has placed his trust.

You are called to be living witnesses of what is essential, of that profound and renewed experience of the living God which resolves into a serene unity all the stages and events of an entire lifetime. Here you have an important message for people today whose lives are so fragmented and divided: you become messengers of peace and unity, whose lives have been brought to unity in God.

Your specific mission is to bear witness to hope. "Do not fear what they fear, and do not be intimidated, but in your hearts sanctify Christ as Lord. Always be ready to make your defense to anyone who demands from you an accounting for the hope that is in you" (1Pet 3:14-15). To account for your hope means to offer a solid basis for gospel hope by grounding it in faith: "The Lord says: the faith I love is hope" (Ch. Peguy). It is to discover and point out the signs of newness present in the world and in our lives.

In order to see this new life, this Kingdom already at work within us, we need to lift up our eyes to the goal which awaits us and to look on everything from the perspective of the final encounter. In old age, one becomes capable of such an open and dynamic synthesis.

Being witnesses of hope in later years involves the ability to make the connections between this life and the next, but without creating an opposition between them and without being alienated from one or the other. It means living the creative tension between the "already" and the "not yet" in such a way that the interval between them is pregnant with active hope, since "the Father is with me" (Jn 16:32). Even difficulty and loneliness, should they come, will be filled with the 'company' of the Word, of the Bread, of the many-shaped and faithful presence of God.

A further prophetic mission which is entrusted to you, our senior brothers, is that of restoring to love the freshness of being an undeserved gift, and responding to love with simple completeness. Your life has entered the season of peace, and your love is no longer expressed in an abundance of energetic activity, but rather in simple and serene acceptance. Its core is being rather than doing. You have assimilated the great lesson of allowing yourselves to be loved, and your response to love is the silent offering of a life which has become wholly gift. There is now more time - how much more time! - for giving, for loving, and one can find "simply in being loved and in loving a sufficient occupation" (M. Dêlbrel).

It falls to the lot of all of us to learn to accept and embrace this time of life, with its attendant frailty, weakness and limitations, so as to make it a further time of growth, of quiet but eloquent serenity, and of intense dialogue with the Lord and with others.

Living one's closing years in the light of the Gospel means living them as a word of God which cries: "God alone matters: only in God can we build our true identity which stretches beyond time". Thus inactivity and in some cases marginalization should not lead to bitterness or to disdain for life or for the world, but should rather encourage us to push on towards liberation and fullness of life.

The concern that old age be imbued with the Gospel will be expressed in initiatives aimed at providing for formation and accompaniment for brothers reaching this stage of life. This will be a human formation which sometimes was not provided in times past. It will aim at equipping the senior brother to read again his own life story and become reconciled to it in its entirety, pleasant and bitter, so that he can own it and place it before the Father of mercies. It frequently happens that much interior tension, sadness, cynicism and lack of self-esteem have their origin in unresolved and unreconciled episodes from the past. Hence the importance of acquiring a global perspective on one's whole life.

Formation at this time of life will also entail entering into a deeper dialogue with God, especially by means of Lectio divina. How many of our brothers have rediscovered in old age the value of the Word of God as a personal encounter with their Lord! Being assiduous about this will help us to accept in the depths of faith the progressive loss of the ability to be active, and to pronounce once again that "yes" of total offering to God which echoes and fulfills the "yes" we first pronounced many years ago on the day of our religious profession.

The absence of older brothers from our fraternities would be an inestimable loss for the younger friars, as it would entail the loss of the sense of time and of the true direction and meaning of life. Prophecy needs Memory, and vice versa, and the vital link between them is dialogue. It is necessary to learn to "waste time" in listening to the older friars. The ministry of listening isn't always easy, and its value is not always esteemed as it should be. As well as being an authentic expression of love and communion, it bridges the gap between the generations, makes for a harmonious relationship between the different stages in one's life, and eases the tension between the ideal and the real. Listening can often be less gratifying than engaging in pastoral work, but the excuse of efficiency (which is often ambivalent) should never be used to neglect the friendship and companionship which creates a true fraternity in which the senior friars fully participate and where they feel at home.

To all the friars we say: attend to the experience of the older brothers. By their serene acceptance of their radical and irreversible expropriation, they invite each one of us to freedom - to a swifter way towards what is essential. The senior brother has become a teacher of detachment, helping and preparing us to face the final stage of life.

The words of the aged Simeon, holding in his arms the promised Messiah, come to mind when we think of the final years of a friar: may they always be a "letting go… in peace". We, like Simeon, hold in our hands each day the Lord who gives himself to us in the Eucharist. At the end, the rôles are reversed: we entrust ourselves to him, to lead us by the hand to the Father. Saint Clare too, in her final moments, gives proof of the serenity of a Franciscan passing:

Dear Brothers, before ending this letter we want to ask the support of your prayers, for ourselves and for some of the important meetings planned for the near future: the meeting of the General Visitors, the gathering of those brothers who have been called during the past year to assume the service of provincial Ministers, and the first formation course for those entrusted with the ministry of formation in the Order which is about to conclude in the Pontifical Athenaeum Antonianum.

The year 1999 has been proclaimed "Year of the Elderly" by the UNO. This affords all of us and each of our fraternities another opportunity to give expression to our gratitude and affection for our brothers who have achieved that venerable status. Upon them and upon all of us we invoke the Lord's blessing. May Saint Francis, whose feast we celebrate, help us to be his true "brothers".

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Created / Updated Tuesday, September 22, 1998 at 11:57:04
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