A Welcomed Downsize

Even simple outing likes getting ice cream are near impossible for a large house.

Even simple outings likes getting ice cream are nearly impossible for larger houses.

In my first three years in formation with the friars, I have not experienced what many would consider “normal” friar life. Let me qualify: while there are many different types of friar communities and by no means a suggested or preferred arrangement for living together, in the 21st century, communities of 3-5 are much more common than ones with more than five guys. (Of the 31 main friaries in our province, only 12 have more than five friars, including two formation houses, two retirement homes, and a nursing home.)

In three years, I have lived in communities of 10, 21, and 27. By nature of its size, houses like these are not simply larger versions of small houses: they have a completely different culture. With 27 guys, it only makes sense to have a cook, to buy everything in colossal Costco-sized quantities, to develop a house schedule and stick to it rigidly, to rely on the guardian to make many executive decisions rather than have a discussion (more on this in a second), and to live in a place that looks more like an office building than a house.

With a lot more guys, it is necessary, and even cheaper, to have a lot more at one’s disposal. For instance, our house in Silver Spring, MD, is complete with more than 13 bathrooms, an exercise room, three TV areas, a conference room, a library, and a courtyard; we have at any given time five different types of snack food, ten different drink options, and enough food to fill up a dump truck (which, of course, lasts us only about a week.) While this is a great attempt to make everyone marginally happy, the problem with this for me is that I completely lose touch with the things that I consume, where they come from, how much they cost, and what it means to want something. There’s just so much of everything!

Needless to say, this summer is a much-welcomed downsize. When I discerned becoming a Franciscan, I always imagined living in a small community of guys like this in an old, normal-sized house, simply and flexibly. This summer, I love the fact that we take turns cooking and going to the grocery store (buying only what we know we’ll eat that week), have only one common living space to share with one another, and that we don’t have an industrial-sized oven, dishwasher, walk-in refrigerator, or bathroom. Everything is “normal” size. The best part, though, is how flexible the dynamic of the house can be: with so few people, prayer and meals can be adjusted to fit the day’s needs, each friar intentionally commits himself to the community knowing that his absence hinders the community (not the same for a house of 27 in which people can come and go as they please) and most of all, decisions can be collectively and informally made in a matter of minutes. This is a big one.

There’s one story I like to tell people about what I don’t like about large houses. During our novitiate, I went to the guardian with a modest request: “Do you mind if we get a different type of cereal? We get the same six cereals every week.” His response: “Sure! Not a problem. How about you bring that up at our house chapter this Friday and we can all discuss and vote for new cereals.” Aaaaaand pass on that idea. Can you imagine 21 people all “sharing their feelings” about the cereal situation in the house? Now, obviously, this is a ridiculous example, and items like this need not be addressed by every member of the community, but what about changing the prayer schedule? Deciding what to do as a house for Lent? How to celebrate Christmas? These were all things that we discussed as a house, and these were all things that took a very, very long time to decide.

Ultimately, there is no “right” way to live in a friar house. By the looks of how many friars transferred to our large houses in New York, Boston, and Siena College this year, it shows that many actually prefer this style of living. Larger houses offer more opportunities for personal relationships, allow for more profound liturgical and social experiences, and afford a greater flexibility for those preferring a more independent lifestyle. These are all good things! Even though I prefer the intimacy of the small house and the intentionality of a small community, I will look forward to these positive aspects of friar life when I go back to Silver Spring in the fall.

All in all, the fact that I feel more genuine to the vocation I discerned and more responsible to the brothers with which I live when I can count my housemates on one hand, while others feel the same when in houses of 30, is the true beauty of our life. Our Franciscan charism is wide and diverse, open to each brother to follow the way Jesus has called him to Himself. There’s no “right” way to live as a friar. What’s important is not how many friars live together, it’s that they live together, doing so as faithfully and simply as they are able. A downsize in housemates is something that I welcome with open arms, but I recognize that there are as many ways to encounter Jesus as there are ways to live. That is, if we’re open to that encounter!

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 Posted on June 21, 2014 by

 Fraternity

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A Lot to Celebrate in Camden

Camden gets a bad rep. Well, to be fair, much of it is well-deserved: Camden is in fact a high-crime area with drug issues and overwhelming poverty. Regardless, it still gets a bad rep. If you talk to some people you’d be led to believe that it’s some godforsaken, dour land, the likes of which are found in Batman’s “Gotham City” or an American portrayal of the former Soviet Union. To some, Camden is simply a place of fear and sadness, as if crossing the Delaware River was akin to being touched by a  Dementor.

In the last few days, I have experienced nothing but the contrary. Camden is a place of hope and rejoicing. It is a place where people take pride in their city and its future. It’s a place where people recognize the difficulties around them but take joy in the wonders as well.

Clearly the highlight of the parishioners' day was throwing softballs at Fr. Hugh.

Clearly the highlight of the parishioners’ day was throwing softballs at Fr. Hugh, who, deserved everything he got as he playfully taunted everyone who approached.

Last Saturday, St. Anthony’s had its annual Festival in honor of the feast of St. Anthony of Padua. Trust me when I say that there were no sad faces in sight. Beginning with a procession of a statue of St. Anthony around the block and into the church, an almost full church gathered to celebrate their community with the breaking and sharing of bread. Nourished and refreshed, the celebration was just beginning. Awaiting them in the parking lot after mass was a DJ, water slide, bouncy castle, dunk tank, a host of kids games, and authentic food from five different countries. Throughout the day, a day that went until dark I might add, presentations were made thanking a retiring teacher and leaving pastor, dance performances were given by children and adults alike, and police officers and city leaders showed up, not for enforcement or protection, but simply to join the party. (One police officer was convinced to play basketball with the kids, and, wearing his full jacket and belt, made their day by successfully dunking on the 8 foot high basket.) It was a fun-filled day with hundreds of people in attendance dancing, eating, laughing, and playing games.

But wait, there’s more!

After a few days to recover, the party started again yesterday with a two-part celebration. The first was in honor of the 18th anniversary of Francis House, a recreation and prayer center on our campus for those with HIV/AIDS. For 18 years now, those with HIV/AIDS have found a welcoming home to receive a warm meal, judgement-free fellowship, and the support of a close-knit family. People from all over came to the church for a prayer service in the morning where those who had died from HIV/AIDS were remembered and those who had made Francis House possible were thanked. It was a mix of great joy and sorrowful remembrance, a time to mourn the loss of those gone before us but to celebrate the ways in which their lives had been given meaning by others. After a few prayers and songs, our time ended the way any good Franciscan events ends: food! Filling up every square foot of the house, the friars, guests, and volunteers piled into the house to eat and laugh with one another, sharing stories and a great time.

Enough celebration for one day? I think not!

A whole team of police officers took on the kids for almost an hour.

A whole team of police officers took on the kids for almost an hour.

After two years of petitions, meetings, phone calls, and angering defeats, the city of Camden finally installed lights in the park near the church and school. Once called “the most depressing park in the country”, Von Nieda Park has been completely transformed in recent years, due almost entirely to the Student Leaders of Saint Anthony School. In the last three years, they have successfully petitioned the city for nets on the basketball rims, trash cans and recycling bins throughout the park, fences to keep out dangerous four-wheelers, and regular cleanups, not to mention their own efforts to paint the benches and a mural. Last night, the whole neighborhood came out to inaugurate their latest victory. Joined by the mayor, city councilmen, the Camden County Parks leaders, police officers, fire fighters, and a representative from every news outlet in the area, including Telemundo and Univision, the whole neighborhood had a party. Food was given for free, basketball games were played on all four courts (some of which included police officers and friars), music was blasted, and speeches were given. As the sun set, the lights were dramatically flipped on, and light kept the night alive. If you’d like to read more, there are articles here, here, and here.

Camden may be an unsafe place with a lot of poverty. Many would see it as a hopeless city. Don’t tell that to the children that were instrumental in fixing up this park. No, to them, Camden is a place of hope and a place of change. As one student said last night to everyone gathered, “We’re a faith-based community, and we must always hope for a brighter future for Camden. But that doesn’t tell the whole story because Camden has brightened so much in the last few years, we’ve accomplished so much. Our present is bright.” Well said. There’s still a lot of work yet to be done, but Camden is a place worth celebrating. St. Anthony’s certainly is.

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 Posted on June 18, 2014 by

 Ministry

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A “Quest” For Community

Quest members take turns hosting a Bible Study in their house each week.

Quest is among the many ways that people can come together to build intimate bounds of prayer and fellowship.

It is easy to feel anonymous and even alone at church. In large churches, there can be more than 10,000 parishioners at the same parish, attending any of the five or six masses on a weekend. Many get lost in a sea of faces: not knowing anyone and never getting chance to regularly see the same people, they find themselves joined together with others in proximity only, each practicing a private devotion. What a sad irony.

This is by no means a problem for large churches only. No matter the size of the church, unless people make a concerted effort to get to know the people with whom they are worshipping, (and I don’t just mean names, I mean knowing the person in their struggles, prayers, joy, and life) “community” worship does not take on its fullest expression. I sympathize with those who feel that it would be a better experience to simply stay home and read the bible than to go to church because they simply do not know what it means to worship with their brothers and sisters in Christ. Their experience has been one of boredom, loneliness, and anonymity, and they do not know that it can be different, let alone how to do it.

To me, the answer seems obvious: get involved with what the Church is doing the rest of the week! Sunday is a time for the community for worship, but it is not all that the community does. For example, at St. Anthony’s in Camden, a group of people meet each Thursday evening for a Bible study called “Quest”. Unlike other Bible studies that meet in the church and are led by one or two people, this one is hosted in a different person’s house each week where there is food and fellowship in a comfortable environment. There is a guide to how the time should go, but in the two times that I’ve went we have yet to follow any sort of strict program. The whole point of the time together is to listen to the readings for the upcoming Sunday and to share our lives with one another. That’s about it.

For me, the activity itself is incidental. Sure, bible studies are great. But it’s not about the bible study, it’s about the community coming together each week around a common focus as a way to know one another better, pray with one another, and form intimate bounds within a worshipping community. It’s a time to share our own struggles with faith, ask questions, offer support, learn from those who are walking with us, and really, to just spend some time laughing with good people. For this Quest group, it all started with a longing to build a community; six years of faithful meetings later, they continue to meet each week because they have developed a spiritual bond that keeps their faith alive.

It’s communities like these that every church needs if it wants to have life in mission and worship. They are the building blocks of the Church, its place of strength and love. Because, honestly, how can we possibly worship or work with one another if we don’t recognize a single face or know where each of us is coming from?

I guarantee you that there are communities of people like this at your church already. Take a look at your bulletin this weekend and I bet that you’ll see a dozen different ways to get involved with the people around you throughout the week. Why not try one out? Pick any event, ministry, or prayer group and commit yourself to it for a few weeks to see what it’s like. My guess is that you’ll find people you don’t know, good people, struggling with your same struggles, wondering the same things, and looking for companions of the journey.

If the Church is something you’re already committed to each Sunday and yet, it’s not fulfilling you like you would hope, why not go on a “quest” for community on a different day of the week? The Church is alive seven days a week, 365 days a year, engaged in the world in almost every way you can imagine. Trust me when I say that Sundays mean so much more when there’s something from Monday to Saturday to bring to worship!

 1 Comment

 Posted on June 13, 2014 by

 Prayer

Message From the Minister General

Michael Perry, OFM, is the Minister General of the Order of Friars Minor.

Michael Perry, OFM, is the Minister General of the Order of Friars Minor.

In an unprecedented fashion, Minister General Michael Perry, OFM, attended the first day of our provincial chapter and addressed Holy Name Province friars about the state of the Order and its future.

He told us the latest numbers appeared bleak to some, but that they were misleading. As of December 2012, the order was “down” to 14,077 friars worldwide with 1,400 men like myself in initial formation (with my province accounting for 17 of those men, the most of any of the United States provinces. In fact, the 2000s produced more vocations than the 1990s, showing a small, but important upswing in vocations!) We have friars in 113 countries and have 125 semi-autonomous entities of leadership, i.e. provinces.

For those who know the order, these numbers are drastically lower than they were fifty years ago, and for some, this is reason to panic. Quite the contrary. In some places like Mexico and Vietnam there are two or three young friars (under 40) for every old friar (over 65). This is tremendous news, and great perspective: we are a part of a larger Church than the experience of this country, and although it may look bleak in the Northeast United States, there’s a whole wide world of faithful people out there building up the church (and sometimes even in this country… Southeast United States anyone?)

In this way, our Minister General’s message was not of death but of new life. How, as friars minor or the Church in the United States, are we to live in order to promote the growth of Gospel living and Christian fellowship in our world? The five points he gave are tremendous reminders to us as friars but are also values that would no doubt help any part of the Church grow.

Clarity of Intention 

Who are we, and where do we want to go. Any good business requires a mission statement. Why not the Church? Sometimes with a two-thousand year history, 1500 page sacred text, and countless popes, bishops, and priests each giving helpful guidance, it can be difficult to clearly state who we are and what we are about. As Christians and friars, we need to make it clear what we believe, why we believe it, and how we are going to live that message. Even for those who have been Christian all their lives, it is helpful to remind ourselves of what called us to this life in the first place: the eternal and all loving God, wanting to be one with all that God created, became human, experienced all that we experience, died and rose again forgiving all of our sins. It is a message of love, forgiveness, peace, mercy, and justice; it is one of eternity.

Authenticity of Life

I can only assume that Michael Perry, ofm, is an avid reader of my blog because the next two points are exactly what I wrote in The Medium is the Message (clearly, he could not have gotten the idea anywhere else…) He spoke to us of the power of symbol, that the message of how we live, how we treat others, and how we stick to our own ideals, speaks much louder than the words we actually say. It is a call to authenticity and integrity, like our chapter theme, to be who we say we are. It is quite easy to criticize the world we see around us, but are we living up to the same standards we place on the rest of the world? I am not saying, and I do not believe he was, that we may only speak truth to power if we ourselves are perfect; this can never be the case. What I believe he was saying, though, is that our words and actions must be one if we are to ever be heard.

Simplicity of Life

More specifically, this means a simplicity of life, materially and spiritually. How easy it can be to become cluttered and distracted, focused on the things that do not matter. When we possess something tightly without our hands they cannot be open to receive the graces that are always being given us. As friars, we are called to be itinerants and poor men; as Christians, we are called to remove everything that impedes are relationship with God. With Jesus, our Pope, our patron Saint Francis, and many others in the Church, Michael called us to simplify our lives of the clutter, whatever that may be.

Commitment to movement, risk-taking

“The devil you know is better than the devil you don’t.” Because the “unknown” poses such a risk to our comfort, change can be traumatic to some. More times than not, we seek to maintain the status quo, even when it’s clear that it is not fulfilling. The easiest path is the one of least resistance, but it is not the one of movement. We are called, especially in this time, to be risk-takers. We are called to step out of our comfort zone, to allow ourselves to be moved, and to move the world. Do we want to sit idling by as the world continues to change all around us, tightly holding to what once was rather than accepting what is now, or do we want to step out there and be the change we wish to see in the world? The Church needs creative thinkers that are willing to risk everything for the life of the Gospel message.

Become and remain brothers (and sisters) on the road of the Gospel

Lastly, this is a journey that we must do together. Like it or not, we are all brothers and sisters on the same road, and we need to find a way to not only “get along,” but to grow in love and respect for each other. Having now lived with more than fifty different men in the past three years, I understand completely that it is impossible to like everyone. I simply cannot like everyone. But that doesn’t mean that they are unlikeable, and it certainly doesn’t mean that they don’t deserve my love and respect. Michael pointed out that dialog, transparency (of self and finances), communication, prayer, and fraternal love are all essential to walking this road together. We must always remember that Jesus is the center of our lives. If we do this, Christian hope will always be alive, and we will be able to live with hospitality, nonviolence, liberty of spirit, boldness, tolerance, and care for the poor and marginalized within our homes.

Peace and good be with each of you. I hope that this paraphrase and interpretation of our Minister General’s message finds you well and that you may join us friars in trying to live it out.

 Posted on June 10, 2014 by

 Fraternity, Ministry

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Fraternal Embrace

10155617_10152103519320009_8599643951739093513_nEvery three years, the friars throughout the world come together within their respective provinces in what is called a “chapter.” At this meeting, new leadership is elected, reports are made about the previous three years to identify areas of success and failure, legislation is presented and voted on, and direction is given for the future. In many ways, the focus of these meetings is very practical.

This, I might say, was not what I experienced this past week, nor is it what I think Francis had in mind when he instituted it 800 years ago. Sure, we elected a new Provincial, Vicar, and Provincial council; sure, we went over the financial report of the province, heard presentations from each of our directorates, and voted on a new course of action; and sure, we even heard an hour and a half speech by a friar from another province, appointed to us by Rome to spend six months in our province as a consultant and meet with each individual friar for an hour (I wrote about this in Canonical Visitation). But these are not the things I will remember in thirty years.

10271610_10152098857015009_5400523980374350046_nWhat I will remember is joy that each friar exhibited to be with one’s brothers again. Like a big, extended family, the friars span a large geographic area: with the majority living up and down the east coast of the US, some are as far as Arizona, Peru, and even Japan. We are hardworking men that have little time for ourselves let alone our distant brothers a thousand miles away. For many, this one week every three years is the only time we see each other. Witnessing each friar embrace the other was a sight that reminded me of this passage about Francis of Assisi:

Only a short time had passed when Saint Francis began desiring to see them all. He prayed to the Lord, who gathers the dispersed of Israel, mercifully to bring them together soon. So it happened in a short time: they came together at the same time according to his desire, without any human summons, giving thanks to God.

Coming together in one place, they celebrate with great joy on seeing their devoted shepherd and they are amazed that the same desire to come together moved all of them in this way. They report the good things which the merciful Lord was doing for them, and if they had been somewhat negligent and ungrateful, they humbly ask and carefully accept correction and punishment form the holy father.

The Life of Saint Francis by Thomas of Celano, FAED I, 207

One can only imagine (and will have to because I will not go any further into detail!) the stories that are told by a group of men that love one another, see each other very infrequently, and live such unusual lives! I heard stories about their early years, mistakes they made, and embarrassing situations; I heard stories that only close friends can tell about one another, ones that made me laugh until my sides hurt; I heard stories about their ministry to the marginalized, their successes and failures in tough situations, and the extraordinary people they met; I heard about their hopes for the future, their sources of inspiration, and the struggles they will face implementing them.

10351380_10204094269816490_2469087448990386158_nFormally, a chapter is a place and time for very important practical matters; without an administrative structure we would be like a heard of sheep running amuck. In reality, however, a chapter is a time for the fraternity to step outside of the world in order to catch up with itself. When you think about it, we spent a lot of money and took 250 men out of the workforce for five days or more when we could have put that all towards the poor. That’s true. But where would we be without our relationship with our brothers? As brothers, we rejuvenate one another’s spirit through prayer and reflection; we offer each other the spark of inspiration to keep us fresh in our work; we hand down the gentle (or sometimes not-so-gentle) fraternal correction to keep us healthy, all while making each other laugh like we’ve never laughed before.

This fraternal chapter was a good one. I have little with which to compare it, but the response was overwhelmingly positive: there was a buzz of excitement from the brothers about where we stand and what the future holds. All I can say is that it is an exciting time to be a brother in the Order of Friars Minor!

 Posted on June 7, 2014 by

 Fraternity

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Breaking In The Habit

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