…and another thing!

It occurred to me only today that my last post was all about the need for flexibility and openness in developing a routine, but that I had shared nothing about the routine itself! The summer heat must be getting to my brain.

Anyway, because of the dual nature of this summer (education and fraternity), our schedule is a bit busy as times, and complicated all the time. Our main focus, I would argue, is class from 8:30-11:20 Monday through Friday. For the last two weeks we were enrolled in “Francis: Life and Charism” which focused on the early history of the order and the foundational texts; starting Monday, we will be taking “The History of the Franciscan Order” with esteemed Franciscan scholar and Vicar Provincial of Holy Name Province, Dominic Monti, OFM. (Dominic came to Wilmington twice this year to give us a workshop on the history of Holy Name Province)  Both are enriching experiences to learn about Francis in a more formalized and rigorous setting than we have been accustomed.

But while I say the academic work is probably our main focus, it wouldn’t be a true Franciscan experience without prayer and fraternity. We meet as a University community for morning prayer Monday through Thursday  at 7:15, mass Monday through Thursday at 4:30, mass on Fridays at 7:15, and night prayer at 9:00 on Wednesdays; as a house community, we meet for mass on Saturday at 8:00, night prayer Mondays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays, and evening prayer Wednesdays, Saturdays, and Sundays. (I mentioned that it was confusing!)

In addition to our prayer life, we meet once a week on Wednesdays for a house meeting in which we give an update of our lives and hear house news. On Tuesdays and Thursdays we meet for a  University run “roundtable” for men and women in formation to get away from their formators and discuss the positive and negative sides of formation.

Our afternoons are free, and so it is a great time to relax, get some classwork done, or spend some time at the fitness center. As for fun, the evenings after night prayer are usually finished with some laughs together, and a few of us have begun a weekend tradition of darts, pool, and dinner at a few of the local restaurants.

All in all, it’s been a great time so far.  It’s much harder to write an academic paper than I remember, but it feels great to be back in the classroom and working on an intellectual level.  I’ve enjoyed living with my new seventeen brothers, and look forward to spending the next year with them in Burlington, Wisconsin! (For a refresher as to what I mean by that, check out a few earlier posts about my new brothers and the novitiate.)

I’m still behind on getting pictures uploaded from campus, but I’ll post about it when I do.

 Posted on July 5, 2012 by

 Fraternity, Postulancy

     , , , ,

A Spirit of Itinerancy

As itinerants, friars are constantly on the move: we change dwelling places, ministries, friar communities, and schedules. As I’ve alluded to here and there, the reason we do this is to avoid attachment and to remind us that all we have and use is borrowed, not owned.

If all of these consequences are true about itinerancy, there is not a more detached and sharing group of men in the whole world than the postulants (and director) of Holy Name Province: having settled into Saint Bonaventure University for a few weeks, I have now slept in twenty-one different beds since August (not including those I slept in while on breaks). That’s what I call itinerancy! On almost a bi-weekly basis, we were forced to adapt to not only new locations, but also new people, new situations, and new ways of doing the same things we were used to doing differently at home.

Herein lies what I believe to be the true benefit of becoming an itinerant: flexibility and openness. While communities that never change may be more efficient and comfortable, they run the risk of stagnation and stunted growth behind the killer of inspiration, “This is the way we do it.” Groups such as ours, ones that are always changing environments and forced to incorporate different members and situations, remain much more flexible in routine, are open to new possibilities, and can experience much greater growth.

Nothing could have prepared us better for our experience here among the other postulants. With men represented from seven different Franciscan provinces across the United States and Canada, we are now all faced with (at least) seven different ways of doing something. Prayer, chores, meals, recreation, personal time, and entertainment now have seven different voices coming together as one, each saying, “This is the way we do it.”

With no established routine or majority, there are two possible results: growth fueled by listening, respect, and compromise, or anarchy.

So far, we’ve leaned towards the former. With two of the seven directors present to facilitate, the nineteen of us have met multiple times already to discuss the needs and expectations of both self and community. So far, we’ve established a signup sheet for particular chores and responsibilities around the house and voted on a prayer schedule that works for most. So far, we’ve avoided anarchy.

The entire experience, big picture as well as here at Saint Bonaventure’s, has been something I believe will better prepare us for lives as friars. Though we will probably never move as frequently as we do this year, we will be periodically faced with situations that upset our status quo, situations that can either make or break community life in our friaries. It is my hope that I may always live with a spirit of itinerancy, flexible and free of attachments, so that I may always be open and attentive to the needs of both brother and neighbor.

[Pictures to come soon]

 2 Comments

 Posted on July 1, 2012 by

 Fraternity, Postulancy, Trips

     , , , , , ,

The “Root” of Our Charism

Manual labor and brothers: the Franciscan way.

After a few long days of packing, traveling, and unpacking, all seventeen postulants and both directors have settled into their new home here at Saint Bonaventure University. Starting Monday, we’ll be in full campus swing, taking classes, attending communal prayers, hitting the books, and of course, spending quality time with our brothers.

But that’s not until Monday and we’ve been here since Tuesday/Wednesday. So what have we been doing to fill the time, you ask?

If you guessed weeding carrots at an organic farm, you’re right! As a way to get in touch with the original Franciscans that worked with their hands each day and took for wage only enough food for the day, we rolled up our sleeves and put in an honest day’s (three hours) work. We left dirty, sweaty, and exhausted two days in a row, but not without a sense of accomplishment for a job “well” done (by which I mean, “well, it’s done,” and not to indicate any quality in our work, as none of us appeared to be called to this line of work…)

That being said, as much as this type of labor would not fulfill me as a full-time ministry, there is something to be said about our ability as friars to do the “dirty work” ourselves rather than leaving it to someone else. Sure, I understand that it may be more efficient or even more cost effective to have outsiders take care of tasks around the house (i.e. cooking, cleaning, maintenance) so that we can focus entirely on our work for others in our parishes and schools. But is this the sort of trade-off we want to make? Just as Francis told Anthony he could teach theology as long as he didn’t “extinguish the Spirit of prayer and devotion,” we should not wish to approach our ministry with the risk of extinguishing our Spirit of poverty and humility.

By that I do not mean to romanticize manual labor or in any way to say that it is more fruitful to our charism than intellectual labor is. Rather, what I mean to say is that a friar or friar community that refuses to engage in any form of manual labor or “dirty jobs” for the sake of others, runs the risk of becoming lazy, developing a feeling of entitlement, and ultimately losing the sense of poverty and humility that is at the root of our Franciscan charism. I would much rather clean a toilet, cook a mediocre dinner, cut the grass in the hot sun, or clean a hundred dishes, than allow myself to feel that I deserve these things to be done for me because the community needs me in some way.

My hope, as always, is that this reflection will be taken simply as that: a reflection of what I feel to be an ideal for my life. In no way do I mean this as a criticism to those who do have cooks, cleaners, landscapers or anyone else serve them on a regular basis, whether one is a friar or not, as there are always different circumstances that call for different solutions.

 6 Comments

 Posted on June 23, 2012 by

 Fraternity, Postulancy, Poverty

     , , , , , ,

What’s Next?

My new home for the next six weeks

After a five-week Vocation Vacation, a period of discernment away from religious life to determine whether or not to return to it, I have come to a very shocking conclusion: I’m going to return to Delaware to continue my formation as a Franciscan Friar. Okay, so it wasn’t all that shocking, but it is a conclusion.

So, what’s next? If there was one thing that was unanimously misunderstood among the people I spent time with this break, it was the upcoming steps in the formation process (and who can blame them?) Everyone knew that we would eventually make it to Wisconsin, but most didn’t know when that would be.

For now, Wisconsin (the second year in the process) will have to wait. For the next six weeks we’ll be attending summer classes with our fellow postulants around the country at Saint Bonaventure University. All of us are enrolled in two introductory level graduate school classes, Francis: His Life and Charism and Survey of Franciscan History, so as to formalize a lot of the information we have been learning all year.

The time together will go beyond simply our classroom experience, however, as each of us will be attending integration seminars, sharing meals, worshipping together, and living together (the true test for next year). The six weeks will be a time for academic advancement, but the true growth will no doubt occur in our ability to form and build relationships with our new brothers. This part will certainly be more difficult than the work inside the classroom, but potentially more fulfilling.

We’ve got a busy few days and weeks ahead of us, but look for more posts with a bit more regularity once we’re up and settled in Olean.

 3 Comments

 Posted on June 18, 2012 by

 Postulancy, Trips

The End As We Know It

It only feels like it is!

After nearly nine months of attending workshops, meeting friars, ministering, praying, reflecting, and so on and so forth, the postulancy year is just about over… Well, with the exception of the final three months we have yet to complete.

With all the goodbyes we’ve said over the past few days, and the fact that our bodies are naturally attuned to the academic calendar, we’ve all allowed ourselves to believe that we were approaching the end by completely forgetting about the final three months. This minor lapse in memory aside, the fact of the matter is that the postulant year will come to an “end as we know it” next Saturday.

The reason I say this is because on that day (which is the day before Mothers’ Day) we will all board flights for our respective homes for “Spring Break.” For five weeks, we’ll break ourselves from the typical routine of a religious house and be thrown back into the secular world, free to run our lives how we please and adopt any old habits we so desire.  Like our Christmas vacation, it will be both a test and an affirmation of the life we’ve chosen as friars.

Upon returning from vacation (on the day after Fathers’ Day), we’ll have one day to do laundry and repack before it’s off to St. Bonaventure University for a retreat with the other postulants and five weeks of classes at the Franciscan Institute.  Living in a community of more than twenty brothers divided into eight townhouses, we’ll forces ourselves back into the “normal” routine of the year, i.e. communal prayer, but the experience will be an entirely different one than we’re used to. It will be, in a sense, a different postulant year with different expectations and challenges before us.

Assuming that we all survive such an experience, we’ll spend the final two weeks of the summer in Wilmington, at which point our entire focus (I imagine) will be on preparing for the Novitiate.

In this way, I think it’s acceptable, even necessary, to say that the postulancy ends in less than a week. From a psychological standpoint, it brings closure to the feelings each of our subconsciouses are already recognizing, that the end is near, by allowing ourselves to feel accomplished with what has already passed. The clear end of one part, and the clear beginning of another, though completely artificial in nature, allows each of us to return rejuvenated and excited for the final three months because it is, in a sense, a new year. The temptation to coast through the final three months is almost eliminated, then, because the mindset is very different: instead of “trying to get through the last little bit of the big year,” we are “starting a new chapter in our lives.” The latter is something for which we all need to strive.

Ultimately, no matter how I explain it to my subconscious, the point I’m making to myself through this reflection is that the year is not over, and that there is still room for growth and discernment. To allow myself to believe that we’re approaching the end is to close myself to new experiences that may shape my life in unknown ways. It may be the end of the postulancy as we know it, but if we begin to see each day as a new day to be formed by God, a chance to break in the habit, what’s it matter what “year” it is?

 7 Comments

 Posted on May 5, 2012 by

 Formation, Postulancy

Breaking In The Habit

Blog at WordPress.com.