FSPA and affiliates gather for 2009 General Assembly

 

The Franciscan Sisters of Perpetual Adoration and their affiliates gathered together June 9 -13, 2009 for the congregation's General Assembly. President Marlene Weisenbeck welcomed participants and officially convened the assembly. The General Assembly will reconvene in March 2010 when the congregation gathers to elect a new Leadership Council.

President's welcome

As we come to this 2009 General Assembly, Franciscan spirit and life is palpably felt in this space. Welcome, O people with hearts enflamed for mission!

Last Saturday, I was listening to a radio interview of a veteran commander in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. He was relating his experience and thoughts about the importance of the mission of these wars. I was captivated – more accurately, actually chilled to the bone -- by his statements that went something like this; I had to keep my focus on the mission at all times. I had to remember that the mission was more important than the men and women who were fighting with me in these wars. Even as I saw my fellow soldiers die, keeping the mission foremost in my consciousness was my duty. I certainly did grieve and mourn the deaths of those who gave their lives for the mission. And when I met their mothers and fathers back home, I held them in my arms and wept with them, assuring them that my greatest regret was that I could not bring their sons or daughters back home to them.

This man’s focus was riveted on mission, and he understood and accepted the cost associated with it. It made me reflect on whether or not our commitment to God’s mission has the same compelling priority over everything and everyone in our lives. It doesn’t seem very Franciscan; nonetheless, the question remains. Do I believe that God’s mission is compelling enough to die for? What is the cost and what are the unavoidable failures in accomplishing God’s mission that cause us to weep?

You might say that military duty and its references to ‘mission’ should have no comparison to the theme we have chosen for our Assembly. I’m aware that it might even make you angry. Yet, in the midst of the varied and shifting concerns within our Church and society and the increasing polarities during this time of globalization, we are called to extend our vision to what is unfolding before our very eyes. A prominent theologian among the Sisters of Notre Dame has stated that “the greatest and single most vexing problem facing humankind today is our inability to deal with pluralism, with those who are ‘other’. . . religious life in all its diversity must respond to this issue of difference, diversity, and otherness. . . Post-modern apostolic religious life will be defined by the call to bear the ancient wisdom of Christianity with a new justice to a world marked by radical pluralism and the inability to deal with difference.” I wonder if our love for God’s mission is sturdy enough for this.

Frequently in preparing for this Assembly, I have heard that there is a kind of itchiness among us that has a sense of urgency about it. What more is there for us to do and to be? We, like all humans, are always seeking and searching for “something more.” Our every attempt to satisfy the “more” ends in more seeking. Francis and Clare’s “heart sight” told them they had found the “more” in God; and God was ever present in the here and now and all around them. Each of them embraced the mystical Christ within themselves and in the world, allowing it to form their holiness before the face of God. As Pope John Paul II frequently noted, it is necessary to continually rediscover in our time this charisma and divine legend of Francis and Clare because it is necessary for the life of the Church.

Francis and Clare became, first of all, the reformers of the inner heart. Whatever situations confronted the brothers and sisters, they were always urged by Francis and Clare to a deep sensitivity to the Spirit’s leading. Our hearts’ longings will prompt us to place our bodies under the discipline of the spirit so that the wholeness of our humanity can be interiorly open and free to see and hear God during this Assembly. The mission calls us to listen to the Spirit and to address the polarities that keep us in battles of the spirit that annihilate the power of God’s purpose in our time – to proclaim and celebrate the Christ among us, and to build up the community through witness and service.

Love for God’s mission! Love runs counter to self-seeking. It requires an exodus out of oneself and it is precisely the way in which we become most who we are meant to be in God’s eyes. Our theme of hearts aflame for mission rests in the mystical realities of the Beatitudes. When our beatitude life is clean and open and on fire, we will be ready to turn to the world, in whatever place we are called, and be a blessing to others. In service with Christ, the fire of love is made pure and unifies all our being. When we are whole, we are prepared and able, as Christ did, to serve the uniting of those who are divided. This is how we abide in the presence of the Living God and learn the meaning of “blessedness.”

The path to God’s mission occurs precisely in humble and just service. Women religious have never been timid in the areas of service and building up the community, both in action and through our witness of contemplative prayer and celebration. I suggest that an area that we take for granted, and sometimes neglect, is the public and vocal proclamation of the centrality of Christ in our lives, owning the deep roots of our faith. If we say, like Jeremiah (Jeremiah 20: 9), "I will not remember God or speak anymore in God’s name," then my heart becomes like a burning fire shut up in my bones; and I am weary of holding it in, and I cannot endure it. If our hearts are aflame for mission, we will not be able to hold in the fire of love that impels us to speak.

In the Canonization process for Clare of Assisi, Alexander IV referred to her as a woman on fire with divine love, refreshed at the wellspring of wisdom, resplendent with joy, overflowing with generosity, radiating a warm and gentle light. Who of us can resist such a woman compelled to be a clear light of Christ’s mission With love as the watchword, with gratitude in our hearts, and with voices proclaiming, let each of us be that woman. Let us be overflowing with the joy that is our birthright as Franciscans. Then we will be blessing for all God’s people, unafraid to serve the dangerous memory of Jesus in a world burdened with danger.

Official Convening of the Assembly
In the name of the Living God,
In the name of all our Sisters who have preceded us in history,
I convene this 2009-2010 General Assembly of the Franciscan Sisters of Perpetual Adoration.

We come here steeped in the abundance of God’s love,
in the strength of our identity,
in a burning commitment to our service in the world, and
in the common responsibility for leadership and follower-ship.

Watch the opening ritual.