|
BONAVENTURE
AND HIS LESSONS ON ST. FRANCIS:
Chapter
II—Francis
gives himself completely to God
and
rebuilds three churches.
 3.
Shortly afterwards his father had to go away and his mother,
who had never approved of her husband’s action, loosed
Francis’ bonds and let him go free. She saw that there
was no hope of breaking his inflexible determination. Francis
gave thanks to God and went back where he had been before.
When his father came home and failed to find him, he heaped
abuse on his wife and then went after Francis in a storm of
rage; if he could not bring him home, at least he could drive
him from the country. But God gave Francis courage and he
went out to meet his father on his own accord and told him
plainly that he was not afraid of ill-treatment or
imprisonment, adding that for Christ’s sake he would
gladly endure any suffering. When his father realized that he
could not make him turn back, he concentrated on trying to
recover his money, and when he eventually found it on the
windowsill, his greed was satisfied and he calmed down a
little.
Now that he had
recovered his money, he arranged to have Francis brought
before the bishop of the diocese, where he should renounce
all his claims and return everything he had. In his genuine
love for poverty, Francis was more than ready to comply and
he willingly appeared before the bishop. There he made no
delay—without hesitation, without hearing or saying a
word—he immediately took off his clothes and gave them
back to his father. Then it was discovered that he wore a
hair-shirt under his fine clothes next to his skin. He even
took off his trousers in his fervor and enthusiasm and stood
there naked before them all. Then he said to his father,
“Until now I called you my father, but from now on I
can say without reserve, 'Our Father who art in heaven.' He
is all my wealth and I place all my confidence in him.”
When the bishop heard this he was amazed at the passionate
fervor. He jumped to his feet and took Francis into his
embrace, covering him with the cloak he was wearing, like the
good man that he was. Then he told his servants to bring some
clothes for him and they gave him an old tunic which belonged
to one of the bishop's farmhands. Francis took it gratefully
and drew a cross on it with his own hand with a piece of
chalk, making it a worthy garment for a man who was crucified
and a beggar. And so the servant of the most high King was
left stripped of all that belonged to him, that he might
follow the Lord whom he loved, who hung naked on the cross.
He was armed with the cross, the means of salvation which
would enable him to escape from a shipwrecked world.
Bonaventure—Major
Life of St. Francis (1263) Part I
VISITOR'S
MESSAGE:
HOMILY
BY FATHER ROBERT ALTIER
Christmas
Day
God,
in His humility, comes down to us in the form of a tiny,
helpless baby. He comes to us just as one of us, totally
dependent upon His mother, and yet with the joy that a baby
brings.
In looking upon
this little Baby in the manger, the shepherds were also able
to discern something that did not seem to make any sense to
them. The sign that was given to them was one that would be
highly unusual: a baby wrapped in swaddling clothes.
Swaddling clothes were the clothes of the dead, the strips of
cloth that would be wrapped around the body of the dead the
way that Lazarus, when he was in the tomb, was all wrapped
up. And this is the way Our Lady clothed her Son. Now one
could try to explain that away and say, “Considering it
would have been cold, it probably was the most reasonable way
to wrap up a child to make sure that he stayed warm.”
But when we look at it, we can understand it from a different
perspective; that is, the very purpose of the birth of this
Child was to die. He came into this world and is born for us
so that He could die for us. And right from the very first
moment of His appearance on earth, with the newness of life
and the joy that a baby brings, there is at the same time
this tinge of sorrow, there is this irony that is present
right from the very beginning. There is new life and it
points to death. Yet each one of us knows fully well that it
is His death that brings about life.
The Church, in
the readings over the last few days, talks about how our
salvation is near at hand and how in the Birth of Christ we
are saved. Yet at the same time, we all know it is not in His
Birth that we are saved, but rather it is in His Death and
Resurrection that we are saved. But there would be no
Passion, Death, or Resurrection without His Birth. And so the
beginning of our salvation has come in that God is willing to
take on our human nature and He is willing to be born in
time. The One who is outside of time, the One who created
time is born in time. The One who created the Blessed Virgin
Mary became created within her. The One who is uncreated from
all eternity took on a created nature and was born for us.
The One who has no beginning suddenly has a beginning in
time. The One who is immortality Himself came into this world
with a mortal human nature so that He could die. It makes no
sense if we just try to look at it on the natural level. It
is only with the eyes of faith that we can understand the
mystery that is being unfolded before us this very day.
There is great
cause for rejoicing as there is with the birth of any child:
the miracle of a baby, the beauty of the absolute innocence
of that little soul, the joy of the face that one beholds in
a little child. Yet, with this Child, there is greater cause
for rejoicing. Even though when a child is born, family and
friends rejoice with the parents, the child is born to those
parents. This Child, however, is different. He was certainly
given for His mother, but He was given for each one of us.
Each one of us then shares in the joy that is Our Lady’s.
She alone, of course, had the privilege of being able to
carry Him in her womb and to give birth to the Savior of the
world, but each one of us, like Saint Joseph, is able to
share in the joy. Saint Joseph, knowing that the Child was
conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit, knew fully well
that he was brought into the mystery of the Incarnation but
he himself was not part of it. So it is with each of us. We
can look at the crèche and there we see Mary and
Joseph: Mary, whose fiat nine months earlier has now borne
fruit and given birth to God; and there is Saint Joseph, the
just man, adoring the Child on behalf of each one of us.
Mary, His
mother, extends Him with great joy to the poor, humble
shepherds who came to worship Him—and she does the same
thing for each one of us. We come before Him with the same
kind of humility as the shepherds and it is important for us
to recognize that it was to the shepherds that God first
revealed this mystery. Shepherds, in the ancient world, were
the lowest of the low; they were the unskilled laborers; they
were the ones who were at the bottom of the pile in the
societal pecking order. And yet in God’s mercy, He sent
His Son to be a shepherd, the Shepherd of our souls. He turns
then to the lowly and to the humble, to the ones who would be
the most apt to recognize the grandeur of the mystery that
was taking place. They came at the message of an angel to be
able to see this Baby who looked just like any other human
baby, but they understood that this was the all-powerful God,
the Creator of the heavens and the earth, who has now become
created in His mother.
And now the
angel speaks to each one of us and calls each one of us to
come and behold the glory of God that is shining on the face
of a newborn Baby, to behold His glory, the glory of an only
Son, and to be able to understand that in this Baby we have
freedom for our souls. Indeed, the rod has been broken and
the pole on their shoulder has been smashed if we are willing
to accept Who this Child is and the very purpose of His
birth. Saint Paul, in the second reading, tells us, “The
grace of God has appeared to us.” We look upon the face
of God in this little Child as we still await the coming in
glory of our Savior in His second coming, but that does not
in any way diminish the glory of the first coming. He is the
grace of God, because grace is the life of God and in Him the
fullness of grace resides. And so in this Child, every single
grace that will be given to every human being throughout all
of history is found. In this Child is contained all of the
grace that will ever be given to the world. That is our
salvation: the grace of God given in Jesus Christ, born in
the most humble of circumstances, born for the purpose of
dying, so that those who had chosen death would be able to
have life.
It is this
irony of the mystery of the Incarnation and the Birth of Our
Lord that we need to meditate upon. As I have mentioned
before on Christmas, God in His infinite wisdom not only
gives to us these rather ironic sorts of twists that take
place in this mystery, but in His infinite wisdom He also
gives to us a way to be able to open our hearts. Even the
most closed and hardened heart has to open in the presence of
a baby. A baby is vulnerable and harmless. A baby is nothing
but love. And it does not matter how hardened a sinner we
might become, when we look upon a child our hearts melt and
they open, suddenly we become transformed in the presence of
an infant. We start making funny noises that we would never,
ever make in any other circumstance, and everybody thinks it
is pretty wonderful rather than thinking we are strange
making strange noises. We act in ways that we would never act
and nobody even thinks twice about it because it is a baby.
God has come to us in an irresistible form, in the form of a
newborn infant, and we cannot help but to humble ourselves
before His humility. We cannot help but to open our hearts in
the presence of His vulnerability. We cannot help but to
prostrate ourselves before His divine condescension.
God,
in His all-powerful and infinite knowledge, has presented
Himself in a way that is completely vulnerable and helpless
so that we will not be able to resist the gift which is
given. Open your hearts to Jesus, allow Him to enter in.
Salvation, grace, redemption—these are things we can
talk about but we cannot see, but they are now seen in human
form. Beyond this, Jesus did not merely give Himself to us as
a little baby to look at, but He continues to give Himself to
us in the Eucharist. It is the same Person who was born in
Bethlehem; it is the same Person who died on Calvary; and He
comes to us now in the Blessed Sacrament—Body,
Blood, Soul, and Divinity, the fullness of His Person—to
give Himself to each one of us. And He asks that we will
have, as we come forward to receive Him, the same attitude
and disposition as the shepherds, the same humility and
openness of heart that we have in the presence of a little
baby, that we would come to Him now and open our hearts to
receive Him with the greatest of love, with the greatest of
humility, with the greatest vulnerability, so that our
hearts, hardened by sin, will melt in the presence of this
Infant, that they will open in the presence of this tiny
Child and allow Him to enter in and transform our hearts so
that He—Who is God from all eternity but took on our
human nature and was born in time—will now take us—who
are human by nature and born in time—and transform us
to share in His divine nature and enter into eternity. That
is the gift He is offering: to break the bondage of sin and
give us freedom for our souls, to take our arrogance and
smash it and give us hearts that are humble, open, and free
of sin. The grace of God has appeared, the salvation of our
great Savior, and He has appeared in an irresistible form.
Open your hearts to receive the Child that our Blessed Mother
holds out to each one of us. Open your heart to receive the
grace and the salvation of God given to us in Jesus Christ.
*
This text was transcribed from the audio recording of a
homily by Father Robert Altier with minimal editing.
ADMINISTRATOR'S
MESSAGE...THE VEIL
“On
this mountain the Lord of hosts will provide for all peoples
a feast of rich food and choice wines, juicy, rich food and
pure, choice wines.
"On
this mountain he will destroy the veil that veils all
peoples, the web that is woven over all nations; he will
destroy death forever.” (Isaiah
25:6-8)
Death
be not proud! The Lord has overcome you, though you still nag
us at every turn. How true it is. So long as we live this
veil of death hangs over us and it dominates our thinking
even if we love the Lord. We need to examine it long and
mightily. We need to ponder its meaning in our lives and the
lives of others.
A
friend of ours, who was once an agnostic but who now
believes, told us recently that he has reached the point he
wants to die with his eyes open. He wants to see the Lord
coming to him, and be ready to meet him when he dies so much
so that he can see the Lord coming for him. What a change in
this man from when he was agnostic. Now he has opened his
heart to the reality of living forever with God because God
has made himself very real to him by revealing himself to him
in a special way in his life, at Eucharist no less.
Baldwin,
bishop of Canterbury, said in a recent reading:
“Death
is strong, for it can rob us of the gift of life. Death is
strong, for it can strip us of this robe of flesh. Death is
strong, for no man can withstand it, soothe its sting, calm
its violence, and bring its victory to naught.”
If
that is all we had to ponder it would be enough to destroy
life to us and those around us. The flavor of such
negativism, because it is also reality, is enough to bring us
down. So, we need to ponder it often remembering all that we
have learned about our faith and the Lord’s message. He
came to destroy death, and spoke of eternal life to a world
that had not conceived of it. His message is what we need to
hold in our hearts whenever death’s influence is
strong.
Remembering
that God is first and foremost love, Baldwin goes on to say:
“Love
too is strong, for it can restore us to a better life. Love
too is strong, for it can take death’s spoils away and
give them back to us. The time will come when death is
reviled and taunted: 'O death, where is your sting? O death,
where is your victory?' Love is as strong as death because it
is itself a kind of death: destroying the old life, rooting
out vice, and laying aside dead works.”
As
we ponder the message of Christmas this year we need to put
on love. To do our very best to see the importance of love in
our hearts, lives, and families, and to lay aside all that is
not of love. All that is not of God.
The
Lord calls us to love. We need to reflect on his message when
he said to his disciples, and we are his modern day
disciples, “I
give you a new commandment: love one another. As I have loved
you, so you also should love one another.” (John
13:34)
So,
let us throw the veil of death aside, and focus on love.
Focus on God, and the good we can do our neighbor. When we
come to the New Year let us make resolutions to be more
loving, and set aside the things of death, especially the sin
in our lives. Our Rule will help us to do that in a mighty
way, and the Gospel, which for us is our "first rule”
will call us to be more perfectly servants of God, and to
love others with a mighty love. Love conquers all.
Bruce
and Shelley Fahey BSP
Administrators, Minnesota
NO
GREATER LOVE: by
PAUL BEERY BSP
“A
man can receive only what is given him from heaven. You
yourselves can testify that I said, ‘I am not the
Christ, but am sent ahead of Him.’ The bride belongs to
the bridegroom. The friend who attends the bridegroom waits
and listens for him, and is full of joy when he hears the
bridegroom’s voice. That joy is mine, and it is now
complete. He must increase, and I must decrease.”
(John 3:27)
John the
Baptist makes the human condition very clear: our joy comes
from hearing the Bridegroom’s voice and responding to
it in love. The Bridegroom is Jesus, the Bride is His Church.
It is an unbelievable privilege to be a faithful member of
that Church, and know that we belong to the Bridegroom.
Normally
when a person seeks another for a suitable marriage partner,
he looks for the best in a potential spouse, all the good
qualities that would attract him. Jesus knows all our best
qualities, but he also knew all the worst qualities of the
human race before
He chose to seek after this Bride for a divine love affair.
One could say He had no choice since He is the Creator. And
God certainly had second thoughts after He saw how wicked the
human race could really be after voluntarily choosing to
leave the Paradise into which it was placed. It happened not
only once, but twice. Noah had another new start with a
handful of “good” people, but somehow Genesis
records the same wicked ending.
It didn’t
take Jesus long to understand the human heart inside and out.
From Mark 7:21:
“For
from within, out of men’s hearts, come evil thoughts,
sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice,
deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly. All
these evils come from within and make a man unclean.”
We find
ourselves in the same fix as Adam and Eve, Noah and his
descendents. Each of us has the capability of being as wicked
as any of them.
Why then does
God pursue the wicked? Every one of us plays out in our lives
the mystery of good and evil. Which will triumph? I think God
takes great delight in seeing the results of the cataclysmic
struggle in every soul to overcome its natural inclination to
do evil. We see the Father watching and waiting for the
Prodigal Son to return home. We hear the parable of the lost
sheep, where Jesus left the ninety-nine to seek out the one
that was lost.
That
is the mystery of God’s love for us. Somehow the weak
creature is able to attract the attention of the All Powerful
Creator: “I
was helpless, so He saved me,” says
the Psalmist.
That mystery is
played out in prayer, the dialogue between the Bridegroom and
the bride, our soul. St. Augustine said that the purpose of
prayer is to “exercise our desire to prepare our hearts
to receive what God wishes to give us.” Desire is the
key to the mystery. “The more God wishes to give us,
the more He makes us desire.” (John of the Cross). Our
desire to listen to and respond to the Bridegroom (prayer) is
so important that Tertullian in the third century said
“Prayer is the one thing that can conquer God.”
We are in the
period of waiting, of advent. I never cease being amazed at
this time of year that the Son of God has humbled Himself to
join His creatures who have gotten rather off the track. The
birth of Jesus is one of the two most important events in the
history of the world, the other being His Resurrection from
the dead. He didn’t come in Glory as would be fitting
His status. He didn’t announce a Grand Opening Event.
He came with incredible humility, born in a stable, to an
audience of shepherds keeping their sheep.
The
message is: “I am not going to bowl you over with
overwhelming proof of My Divinity. You are going to have to
figure it out on your own, and accept My Word on faith.”
See how often Jesus looks for faith in His followers and
potential followers. “When
the Son of Man comes (again), do you think He will find faith
on the earth?”
In
the political realm is a great saying: “There
are those who seek Utopia, and those who pay for it.”
The
liberal left seeks an earthly Utopia, because they do not
believe in God or heaven, nor understand the nature of evil.
Their
evil passions are “good,” while their political
opponents—Christian
conservatives—are
“evil.” It is the latter, of course, who will pay
for their liberal fantasy known as Utopia.
In
the spiritual realm the saying is even more accurate. We
humans seek Utopia, and Jesus paid for it. All I have to say
is, we
darn well better be grateful to Him!
Those were my thoughts over Thanksgiving, a wonderful holiday
that is uniquely American. Jesus shows us how to live and
love and be happy now and for all eternity, yet He continues
to be rejected on a massive scale then and now as though it
were no big deal: God becoming man. There is a lesson
here. Those of us who do accept and return His love have
to say a great big Thank
you Jesus!—to
make up in some small measure for those who don't—in
reparation. And I guess that is the best part of
Thanksgiving! It
makes us aware of the great debt we owe to Jesus.
In
fact, that is the meaning of the sixth Word from the
Cross. “All
is completed,” which
really means: "The
debt is paid in full." I
think nothing describes as well the reason Jesus appeared
among us as that statement. He paid our debt in full, so
we can overcome the evils that come from within through a
massive infusion of His grace. It's a beautiful thing.
Our holy father
Francis helps us prepare for His coming. Listen to how he
takes full advantage of the opportunity for the bride to
respond to the Bridegroom in the introduction in the First
Life of Thomas of Celano, Chapter 30:
“Francis’
highest intention, his chief desire, his uppermost purpose
was to observe the holy Gospel in all things and through all
things and, with perfect vigilance, with all zeal, with all
the longing of his mind and all the fervor of his heart, to
follow the teaching and the footsteps of our Lord Jesus
Christ. He would recall Christ’s words through
persistent meditation and bring to mind His deeds through the
most penetrating consideration. The humility of the
Incarnation and the charity of the passion occupied his
memory particularly, to the extent that he wanted to think of
hardly anything else. What he did on the birthday of our Lord
Jesus Christ near the little town of Greccio in the third
year before his glorious death should especially be noted and
recalled with reverent memory.”
The chapter
goes on to tell of how Francis set up the Nativity scene to
bring home to simple people the incredible reality of God
becoming man, so with Paul the Apostle we too can say:
“We
eagerly await the coming of our Savior, the Lord Jesus
Christ. He will give a new form to this lowly body of ours
and remake it according to the pattern of His glorified body,
by His power to subject everything to Himself.”
(Philippians 3:20).
Paul
Beery BSP
Morning Star Chapter
Minnesota
A
MEDITATION: by
JANET KLASSON BSP
From
the First Reading of the Second Sunday of Advent
"The
wolf shall live with the lamb, the leopard shall lie down
with the kid, the calf and the lion and the fatling together
and a little child shall lead them." (Isaiah 11:6)
Advent is given
to us as a season of joyful hope. The Christian world
anticipates the birth of the Incarnate Word along with Mary,
Joseph, and the entire heavenly court. as Christians, we are
called to clothe ourselves in the attitude of joyful hope. It
is expected. However, the reality may be somewhat different.
Certainly, the
daily news gives us little reason to hope, and if our life
circumstances have taken a turn for the worse recently, the
joyful anticipation of Christmas may seem a distinct
impossibility. How can we celebrate when our hearts are
broken, our homes are torn to pieces, or our lives are
shattered? If we feel bogged in the miry clay in the lowest
crevice of the valley of tears, just putting one foot in
front of the other requires a miracle. Joy? It can seem as
faint and fleeting as the morning mist.
Yet Nehemiah
tells us that the joy of the Lord is our strength. This bears
pondering, because it reminds us that the true nature of joy
is not a feeling, but a grace. In every age it is true that
if our joy is tied to earthly circumstances, we are in deep
trouble. Our joy must have its source in the Lord and be
independent of our earthly circumstances. It is vital that we
remember and believe this as the world continues to spiral
into catastrophe.
A few weeks ago
we celebrated the memorial of Andrew Dung-Lac, priest and
martyr. The Office of Readings contained this poignant
illustration of joyful hope in dire circumstances:
"The
prison here is a true image of everlasting hell: to cruel
tortures of every kind—shackles,
iron chains, manacles—are
added hatred, vengeance, calumnies, obscene speech, quarrels,
evil acts, swearing, curses, as well as anguish and grief.
But the God who once freed the three children from the fiery
furnace is with me always; he has delivered me from these
tribulations and made them sweet, for his mercy is for ever.
In the midst of these torments, which usually terrify others,
I am, by the grace of God, full of joy and gladness, because
I am not alone—Christ
is with me."
God
has not left us orphans; he has not abandoned us and will
never leave us—much
less in our time of direst need. Scripture is steeped in hope
and full of promise. As we read passages like the one above
about the wolf and the lamb, the leopard and the kid, we can
be confident that what the Lord has promised, he will
deliver. As Our Lady of Fatima told the children, "In
the end, my Immaculate Heart will Triumph."
The signs of
our times are rife with meaning, and undoubtedly there will
be much to endure in the days ahead. But the Lord does not
send a deluge without a rainbow. Every crucifixion leads to a
resurrection. Nine months of expectation culminates in the
birth of the Incarnate Word.
St. Louis-Marie
de Montfort's prayer to Mary includes the following passage.
As penitents, we can absorb the hope and joy so beautifully
expressed in the prayer and make it our own.
"(Blessed
Mary), as for my part here below, I wish for no other than
that which was Thine, to believe sincerely without spiritual
pleasures, to suffer joyfully without human consolation, to
die continually to myself without respite, and to work
zealously and unselfishly for Thee until death, as the
humblest of Thy servants. The only grace I beg Thee, for me,
is that every moment of the day, and every moment of my life,
I may say, 'Amen, so be it, to all that Thou art doing in
Heaven. Amen, so be it, to all Thou didst do while on earth.
Amen, so be it, to all Thou art doing in my soul,' so that
Thou alone mayest fully glorify Jesus in me for time and
eternity. Amen."
May
this Advent lead you on the path of joy to the glorious
promise of the birth of Emmanuel, God With Us. "And a
little child shall lead them." Have a blessed Christmas,
dear brothers and sisters in Christ.
Janet
Klasson BSP - Divine Mercy Chapter - Canada
From
www.pelianito.stblogs.com September 19, 2009
Micah
7:9 The wrath of the LORD I will endure because I have sinned
against him, until he takes up my cause, and establishes my
right. He will bring me forth to the light; I will see his
justice.
“My
child, can you fault God for his wrath? Is not the punishment
due for sin a just judgment? Yes, I have told you there is
much to come, much to endure. This you have heard from
prophets, popes, and saints, that the Body of Christ must
follow him into his passion and death. Yet, my child, your
hope does not end in death, but lives in the resurrection.
The glory of the Lord cannot be overcome by death, but death
is dissolved in it, darkness is swallowed by light. And this
light is unimaginable to the human heart. Rejoice always, my
child. I say it again—rejoice! For he comes to rule the
world with justice and the peoples with fairness.”
Alleluia
Lord! Maranatha—come Lord Jesus! Grant us strength and
faith that will not fail. May your kingdom come and your will
be done on earth as in heaven. Amen.
Author:
Janet Klasson
A
THOUGHTFUL STORY: THE CHRISTMAS SPARROW
It
was an exceptionally cold Christmas Eve night and a very
severe snow storm was dumping snow on everything in sight—it
would be a record setting night. A man was sitting in his
easy chair in front of a roaring fire in the fireplace. He
had a newspaper in his hand and at times he would look out
the large picture windows at the howling wind and drifting
snow. He shook his head as he thought, What
a terrible night for man or beast to be outside.
His wife came
and asked him if he would like to go to midnight Mass. No, he
said, with firm conviction. He had long since given up
trying to believe. His faith had grown almost as cold as the
weather outside his window. He could not fathom nor
understand the Incarnation. How could a majestic God of power
and might leave a glorious heaven and enter life as a
defenseless baby...then become a child...and later a man?
There was no logic in the Incarnation for it did not make
sense and this put him in a dead stop in his walk of faith
with the Lord.
He was saddened
and a little angry about it. If only God could explain His
wisdom in such a course of action. But God had not given him
any answers and he was alone now, his wife having left for
midnight Mass, as he stared out the window into a night that
gave him no answers.
He
looked back at the fireplace while pondering these questions
and all of a sudden he heard thump, thump, thump on his
window. Turning he saw a flock of sparrows flying into the
window—they
couldn't see the glass—only
to fall back and onto the snow covered ground where many were
lying dazed and flopping about. Some regained their wings and
tried to fly through the window again only to be knocked back
down to the ground.
My goodness the
man thought...they are lost and cold and have seen the warmth
and fire of my living room and have tried to fly in to save
themselves from the winter storm. He decided to help them and
he ran and opened his garage door and then went out in his
yard and tried to herd the sparrows into the light and warmth
of his garage. But the sparrows became frightened of him and
the more he waved and moved his arms the more they scattered
in their panic and confusion of this man that they did not
know or recognize.
In
his frustration at failing and being unable to help them the
man said, "If only I could be a sparrow for a moment I
could then communicate and lead them into the light, warmth
and safety of my garage!" At that very moment the Church
bells in the distance at midnight Mass rang ad the man knew
he'd been given his answer by God to the reason of the
Incarnation as he sank down into the snow on his knees in
tears as he realized Jesus has come as a baby...to become a
child...and then a man to communicate with us and lead us
into the light, warmth, and safety of heaven and to His
Father.
Robert
Hall BSP
MORNING
STAR
NEWS ON
THE ASSOCIATION
OUR MOVE:
We are
officially relocated to northern Minnesota! Yeah! Our new
address is: 65774 County Road 31, Northome, Minnesota, 56661.
Our new phone number is: 218-897-5974, our operational email
addresses are minncc@aol.com for Bruce, and
jasp102577@aol.com for Shelley.
The BSP
business will go on as usual. So, don’t hesitate to
contact us on questions or problems in the BSP as you have in
the past.
NEW CHAPTER
IN PENNSYLVANIA
Since
our last newsletter a new Chapter of the BSP has been born in
Red Lion, Pennsylvania. The Chapter minister is Chuck Wiley,
who only recently joined the BSP. He has undertaken to meet
with his bishop on the BSP and has received his blessing to
form the Chapter. He has identified a spiritual director and
taken a name for the Chapter—Padre
Pio Chapter. Please keep Chuck and the Chapter in your
prayers. There are others seeking to form Chapters also. If
anyone wants information on how to form a Chapter please drop
us a line and give us an email or postal address and we will
get the information to them.
IMPORTANT
THOUGHT:
Let us all keep
all of our members and causes in prayer. We are in trying
times to say the least, and the world is in dire need of our
prayers and sacrifices. If there is anyway any of us can help
to promote the faith, or encourage others to draw closer to
God, particularly in our own families, as family always comes
first, we should all do that. One thing we can all do is love
God with all our hearts, minds, souls, and voices. Speak
favorably of God to all we meet regardless of their faith or
circumstances, and hold dear in our hearts all that Jesus
loved.
THE
CHRISTMAS SEASON
This
season is very special to all Christians but also certainly
to us who seek to more perfectly follow the life that Christ
called us to by living the Rule of life that St. Francis gave
us. Since this is so, we now are in preparation for the
celebration again of the birth of Jesus—Christmas.
Part of these preparations, of course, is the fast of St.
Martin, that we are in now. We lay waste to our desires and
do penance to prepare for the greatest event in world
history, the coming of the Son of God. Praise God that St.
Francis called us to do this. In this we are unique through
the Rule of 1221, the Rule of the BSP.
After Christmas
we enter a period of great joy. To celebrate this joy the
Rule is set aside during the Octave of Christmas, the eight
days after Christmas, as relates to all fasting and
abstinence. It is a time for wine, good spirits, fellowship,
family, food, and of course, our prayers. So, in your
planning keep this in mind.
From all of us
in leadership in the BSP, to all of our members and their
families, we wish you a holy and happy Christmas, and a most
Blessed New Year. Make some new resolutions to become ever
stronger in your faith and devotion, for the love of God and
neighbor, and the salvation of your soul.
MERRY CHRISTMAS
TO ALL!
Bruce
and Shelley
Administrators
|
