Formation

First, prayer. St. Pio said, "Pray, hope and don´t worry. Worry is useless. God is merciful and will hear your prayer." He also said, "Prayer is the oxygen of the soul." Prayer is the breath of the Spirit; prayer is our communication with God.

The Blessed Mother certainly does not need me to sing her praises! Our Father Saint Francis did a far greater job both in word and in action; in word, by his Praises and Salutations, and in action, by entrusting the whole Order to her protection.

Our faith begins not in a thing, nor in a doctrine, nor in a church, … No, our founding stems from none of these, although many things of various natures may stem from our one foundation, who is not a what, nor a when nor a where nor even a why. The heart of our faith is the person of Jesus Christ, true God and truly human.

Friar Matthias said to the effect that despite all the “new scholarship” and “new insights” into Franciscan spirituality, he still felt that what he had learned and always believed and taught was true: that the four basic aspects of the Franciscan Charism were the Crib, the Cross, the Cup and Creation.

Permit me to offer in this article the "flip side" of the article "Miserando atque Eligendo.” In that article, I focused on Christ’s “looking with mercy” (miserando) on Levi, a tax collector, on our Holy Father Pope Francis and on all of us in “choosing” (eligendo) us to follow Him. In this article, I will focus on our response to our Lord's merciful choice or election of us to "Follow me."

Please permit me to request every Secular Franciscan in the United States to pray the Third Decade of the Rosary for our One Secular Franciscan Order and our Four Fraternities to which each of us belongs!