The deacon and the Franciscan mystique

My spirituality is deeply Franciscan – not the Francis of bird baths and sermons to birds, but the Francis who sought to identify with the poor Christ and thus to live as a poor man, preaching the Good News of Jesus. Thus I want to make an initial attempt to connect my upcoming ordination as a permanent deacon with Francis and Clare.

Francis was ordained a deacon but I don’t think that he made any reference to it in the writings and sayings that have come down to us. There are only two accounts of his serving as deacon in the Eucharist.

Thomas of Celano wrote of the well-known story that presents him as a deacon at the first Christmas crib at Greccio at the Christmas Mass in 1223. There is also an account of Francis singing the Gospel and preaching at the 1221 Pentecost chapter of the Franciscans.

But he was a deacon, a servant of the poor, an ambassador of God, a servant of the Gospel, even before he would have been ordained.

Central to Francis is his identification with Jesus as God made flesh for our salvation. Thus both the Incarnation and the Cross are indispensable parts of his spirituality. Both point to the God who emptied himself, even to the point of handing himself over to be crucified.

This means responding to the poor Christ and the poor person in front of me. As The Assisi Compilation notes:

When you see a poor person, [Francis] said, you must consider that person in the name of the one who comes, that is, the Christ who took upon himself our poverty and our infirmity. Thus the poverty and infirmity of this person are the mirror in which we must contemplate in love the poverty and infirmity that Our Lord Jesus Christ suffered in his own body in order to save humankind.

For me this means that a deacon has to accompany the poor, for that is where we find Jesus. He also has to find his strength from a relationship with God-made-flesh, Jesus.

It’s not one or the other – it’s both. When we let ourselves be loved by God-made-flesh we can more readily offer ourselves to others.

I see this as part of the diaconal vocation – making clear the connection between serving at the Table of the Lord and serving at the table of poor. In that way we can see and live the loving mercy of Jesus.

But it also means being a servant of others, doing the simple and humble tasks.

Saint Clare is the example to remember. According to several reports she would wash the feet and kiss of the sisters when they returned from begging.

A few months ago, I came across an icon of Clare washing the feet. I have not been able to identify the source. But it so impressed me that I had a card made for my Franciscan friends, since Clare's humble service is what the deacon is called to do.

Incarnation, identification with the poor by emptying oneself, humbling oneself and washing others’ feet – these are aspects of Franciscan spirituality that are helping me understand the mission of the ordained deacon.

Saint Bonaventure and a diaconal spirit

God willing, Monseñor Darwin Andino will ordain me as a permanent deacon for the diocese of Santa Rosa de Copán, Honduras, on Friday, July 15, which is the feast of St. Bonaventure.

Saint Bonaventure was an early Franciscan noted for his learning who lived from 1221 to 1274. He is noted for his learning and his writings as well as for his leadership of the Franciscan order in times of turmoil. He was a friend and colleague of St. Thomas Aquinas, though their theological and theological approaches were quite different. He produced a life of St. Francis as well as a work that treated Francis in philosophical and theological terms, The Journey of the Mind to God.

But Bonaventure was still a humble friar. He didn’t want to be a bishop, to climb the hierarchical ladder. In fact, he refused to accept the office of archbishop of York. But a later pope finally forced him to become cardinal bishop of Albano. The papal delegates who came pursuing him found Bonaventure in a remote friary, washing dishes. They had to wait until he was finished, according to one story putting the cardinal’s hat on a bush while waiting.

I did not plan to become a deacon. In fact, I forcefully turned down a suggestion in May 2014 by my pastor. But when the bishop independently asked me to consider the permanent diaconate that October I took a second look.

To become a deacon is not to have a higher place in the church. It is not a question of power or privilege or prestige. I think it is a question of washing dishes.

The deacon prepares the table of the Eucharist and presents the bread and wine to the priest during the Offertory. The deacon is also one of those who can purify the vessels after communion – washing the dishes.

In my mind, the deacon should also prepare the table for the poor, working with them to see that all are fed, not just at the table of the Lord but at the family table. Father Paul McPartlan puts it beautifully:

The deacon stands at the altar and prepares the gifts with clean hands, but he stands also where the practical need is greatest, getting his hands very dirty.

May I learn to get my hands dirty, at the side of the poor, so that I might become worthy to stand as a waiter at the table of the Lord.

Rev. Paul McPartland, “The Deacon and Gaudium et Spes,” in The Deacon Reader, edited by James Keating (Paulsit Press), p. 67.

Image found at http://jesus-passion.com/Saint_Bonaventure.htm

A change of p(l)ace

Today I leave for Italy.

Last year I turned 65 on June 1 and on June 13  celebrated five years in Honduras.

To celebrate I am taking a pilgrimage/retreat/vacation for 15 days in Italy (plus three days for travel). I had enough miles to be able to get tickets for only the cost of taxes, though lodging and food won’t be cheap.

I am somewhat reluctant to go and feel a little guilty spending so much money, but at this point I feel it’s something that may be a time of grace.

I’ll be spending the first few days in Florence and Ravenna, looking at art. In Florence I’m looking forward to see Fra Angelico’s paintings in the Dominican Convent of San Marco and the images of Francis by Giotto and others in the church of San Croce. In Ravenna I’m be looking at the mosaics.

But at the center of my time in Italy will be five days in Assisi, which will include Ash Wednesday. The spirituality of Saint Francis has been at the center of my life for many years. My recent re-connection by becoming an associate of the Dubuque Franciscan sisters has deepened my connection with the Little Poor Man of Assisi. I look forward to visits to places connected with him.

I did visit Assisi in 1973, while bicycling through Europe. The highlight for me were the visits to San Damiano (where Francis experienced a call from the crucified Christ) and the Carceri (where Francis spent time in solitude). I hope to get up early several days and walk to these places, hopefully arriving in time for an early Mass. (If it’s too cold, I might take a taxi.)

In Rome, I will probably concentrate on some churches – including the room of St. Ignatius Loyola by the Jesuit Gesù, the mosaics in Santa Prassede and Santa Pudenziana that moved the young Thomas Merton, and maybe a trip to Subiaco to recall the witnesses of Saints Benedict, Scholastica, and Francis. If I can I also hope to get to the church of San Bartolomeo when the San Egidio Community has a shrine to modern martyrs.

In Rome I also hope to meet some friends.

 Part will be vacation – I’m looking forward to some good Italian food and wine. But it is also a pilgrimage, a visit to places made holy, a visit to some “thin places,” as Jim Forest notes,  “where ordinary matter seems charged with God’s presence…. What marks any thin place is the time-stopping awareness of God’s presence.”

And so I go – my heart heavy about leaving Honduras for this time, but hoping and praying that God may use this time to open my heart even more to His love, so that I may continue to serve Him with the poor of Honduras.

Please keep me in your prayers. May it be a time of conversion.

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--> “To be converted is to go out of oneself, to walk toward the other, to be a pilgrim.”

Fr. Jaime Restrepo, martyr of Antioquía, Colombia, 1988  

Confirmations, a Franciscan get-together, and transforming conflict

Monday morning I went out to San Agustín, Copán for confirmations by Monseñor Darwin Andino, our bishop.

Monseñor Darwin, Padre Efraín, Padre Henry

 San Agustín is about 40 kilometers from Santa Rosa – about 90 minutes by car. Surprisingly the last portion of the road is fairly good since the mayor of San Agustín has done much for the municipality.

Those to be confirmed came from San Agustín and from four nearby villages. Most were young people from 14 to their early twenties, but there was one older man from San Agustín, probably in his seventies.

After Mass and a meal, I headed to Gracias, to spend some time with the Dubuque Franciscan Sisters there. A special treat was the visit of a good friend, Sister Pat Farrell, one of the members of the congregations whom I have known since about 1987 when I met her when she and another sister were serving in a  displaced persons camp outside San Salvador, El Salvador. In 1992, I volunteered for six months in Suchitoto, El Salvador, where I worked with the Salvador parish priest and six US sisters, including Pat and Nancy (who has been ministering in Gracias for more than six years.)

We talked of many things but the highlight was centered around evening prayer. We – Sisters Pat, Nancy, and Brenda and Betty, a volunteer living with them and I sat in prayer in their small chapel. At the end of Evening Prayer, I signed the Mutual Covenant as an Associate, as a sign of my connecting myself in prayer and mission with the Franciscan sisters of Dubuque.  After this, Pat and Nancy, who had served together in Chile and El Salvador, sang a few songs. Their harmony was outstanding.

Pat and Nancy singing, such harmony!

 I left Tuesday morning for Siguatepepque, after taking Pat and Nancy to the bus station and getting a piece of furniture with Brenda from the local jail.

I’m here in Siguatepeque until Saturday for the final follow up of a series of Caritas workshops on Constructing Peace and Transforming Conflict.

Each morning a team shares a review of what happened, often including memorable quotes. Among the quotes heard yesterday, someone had said: “When I have a nightmare; I think of Juancito; when I am sad I think of Juancito.”

An activity during the Transforming Conflict Workshop

I thank God for this chance to share a bit of the joy I have experienced. I guess that too is part of my Franciscan spirit.

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If you haven’t read Pat Farrell’s address to the LCWR assembly, you can find it here in both English and Spanish. It’s worth study and prayer.