Minister: Bill Roché 239-248-7489 (New)

Minister: Bill Roché 239-248-7489 (new) Vice Minister: Carol Bart Secretary: Jeanne Sachs Treasurer: Pat Gagnon Directors of Formation: Janet & Roy Eidem Spiritual Assistant: Deacon Bob Kronyak Publishing Editor: Bill Roché [email protected] (new)

To all my brothers and sisters in the St. Clare Fraternity, May God fill you with His peace, His love, His joy and His grace! Since our last edition, we had a very enjoyable social get- The Clarion Newsletter of St. Clare Fraternity, OFS th together on Marco Island on Saturday, October 17th starting with Meeting every 4 Sunday @ 12:30 PM community prayer at 11:15 a.m. followed by a wonderful half- St. William’s Ministry Center hour audio reflection from Fr. Dan Crosby, O.F.M.. Next we had Naples, Florida th a delicious lunch of hamburgers,, hot dogs and all sorts of salads. November 15 Issue #138 The 14 who attended had great social interaction, a long walk on the beach on a very beautiful day and more socializing afterwards. Franciscan Saints & Feasts All who were able to attend had a great day. In fact, the Nov. 15th – Dec. .20th contingent from Ave Maria indicated that they would like to sponsor a similar get-together at Ave Maria in the near future. We Upcoming Birthdays hope to have many such occasions in the future and hopefully Nov. 15 - Roy Eidem these events will have even more people participating.. Nov. 19 - Helen Kronyak Despite the fact that our October Fraternity Meeting was not as Nov. 20 - George Chami well attended as we might have hoped since Janet and Roy were Dec. 11 - Janet Eidem out of town, Carol Bart had a previous commitment and that Anniversary of Profession effected three others who travel with her from Ave Maria. Pepsi none during this time span has medical problems (please pray for her), Joe had family commitments and Dcn. Bob won't be returning from North Franciscan Saints & Feasts we celebrate during this period- Carolina until next month. Despite all that we had twelve in Nov. 17 - St. Elizabeth of Hungary, Patroness of the 3rd Order attendance and had a great meeting. Nov. 21 - The Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary Our prayers go with our two very loved members who have Nov. 22 - Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe recently transferred to their local fraternities, Ed Duff in Nov. 24 - Commemoration of all the Deceased Franciscans Massachusetts and Jiga Piasecki in Colorado. They will always Nov. 29 - All Saints of the Seraphic Order continue to be in the prayers of our fraternity and we look forward Dec. 8 - The Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary to any encounter we might have with them in the future. We truly Dec. 12 - Our Lady of Guadalupe, Patroness of the Americas miss Gisela Schwab and Michael Stuart who have been inactive Dec. 15 - Blessed Mary Francis Schervier, Virgin, 3rd Order for a few years now because of distance and illness. They are Franciscans forever and are still one with us. We pray for them Reminders and hope that they will maintain contact with the fraternity, Fri., Nov. 20 - Franciscan Day of Reflection in Tampa contribute to our fraternity in any way that they can, and Sun., Nov. 22 - Our monthly Fraternity Meeting hopefully join with us whenever such an opportunity might Sun., Dec. 20 - Our Pre-Christmas Fraternity Meeting present itself. They should know that we are more than willing to Thurs., Dec. 24 - We serve dinner at St. Matthew's House meet them more than half-way and to assist them in any way that Fri., April 29 - Sun., May 1: Regional Conference at San Pedro we can. After all, they are part of our family and we have no Thurs., June 30 - Mon. July : XIX Quinquennial Conference Tues., Nov. 1- Sun., Nov. 6: NAFRA Conference at San Pedro option but to love them. We are delighted that God has blessed us Tues., Oct. 23 - Regionally sponsored 10 day trip to Assisi/Rome will a few professed members who have transferred into our Fraternity: Catherina Di Mieri, Marge Rytherm, Jan Snyder, Information regarding the Day of Reflection on Fri., Cindy Phillips. Soon we expect 2 other professed Secular Nov. 20th Franciscans to join us: Sheila Solomon and Marilyn Franz Friday, November 20 the St. Francis of Assisi Fraternity in Your brother and servant in Christ, Dunedin will co-host a Franciscan Day of Reflection at the Bill Roché, OFS, Minister, St. Clare Fraternity Franciscan Retreat Center in Tampa. Rev. Anthony Aarons, TOR of San Pedro Retreat Center, will be presenting : "How Can We If you have an announcement, an article, a suggestion, a picture, Maintain Our Franciscan Charism of Joy and Simplicity in the a poem, etc. that you would like to have included in our Clarion, World We Live in Today?" We all know that he does a great job. please send it by email for consideration to the Editor before the Cost for the day is $35.00 Send checks, made payable to San 10th of each month. Damiano Fraternity, by Nov. 13 to Kristine Littrell, OFS, at 1308 Crystal Greens, Sun Center, Florida 33573. Direction to the Retreat Center and the agenda will be forwarded later. Let Bill Many recall Day saying, "Don't call me a saint; I don't want to be Roche know if you want to go and then we can arrange a car pool. dismissed that easily." In her youth she was a Marxist and Words of Wisdom from Gandhi agnostic. She had an abortion. She was an anarchist and a zealous (The following was taken from Richard Rohr's Daily Meditation pacifist when it was especially unpopular. Perhaps her own pain on Mon., Oct. 26th entitled Modern Peacemakers) and mistakes became the source of her deep compassion. Day "Gandhi wasn't concerned with defining God, but with writes, "I cannot worry much about your sins and miseries when I experiencing God's loving presence within. This was his have so many of my own. I can only love you all, poor fellow motivation as he fasted for peace, as he embraced the travelers, fellow sufferers. . . . My prayer from day to day is that untouchables (whom he called "Children of God"), as he God will so enlarge my heart that I will see you all, and live with advocated against nuclear weapons. Gandhi writes: "We have you all, in His love." one thousand names to denote God, and if I did not feel the Day, who founded the Catholic Worker Movement, focused presence of God within me, I see so much of misery and both on the needs of individual people and also reforming the disappointment every day that I would be a raving maniac." How entire social system. In that, I would find her a more complete role model than even Mother Teresa. She worked to meet short- do we "live humanly in our inhuman world?" John Dear asks. term goals (such as the hungry person in front of her); and she "Gandhi's answer is always the same: steadfast, persistent, worked for long-range structural change, too. Day's humility and dedicated, committed, patient, relentless, truthful, prayerful, patience continue to inspire me: loving, active nonviolence." In other words, universal compassion She said: "Love and ever more love is the only solution to must become your whole way of moving through life and not just every problem that comes up. If we love each other enough, we an occasional additive to your gas tank will bear with each other's faults and burdens. If we love enough, we are going to light that fire in the hearts of others. And it is love Email recently received from Fraternity in Jacksonville that will burn out the sins and hatreds that sadden us. It is love Blessings my Franciscan Brothers & Sisters. that will make us want to do great things for each other. No Our fraternity would appreciate it if you would consider sacrifice and no suffering will then seem too much.... When we the information below and share with your fraternity members and work for the love of God and others, then it is not work at all. friends. When we suffer for justice for God's little ones, it is not suffering The St Bonaventure Secular Franciscan Fraternity is selling at all." Aprons to raise money for our apostolate. The aprons are Brown wrinkle and stain resistant with adjustable neck made in the USA. Our Spiritual Leaders - from Henri Nouwen's Bread The top is embroidered with the message "Lord make me an for the Journey instrument of Thy peace". The Church as the body of Christ has many faces. The The cost is $30 each including S & H. We are taking prepaid Church prays and worships. It speaks words of orders until November 28th, 2015. We guarantee delivery in time instruction and healing, cleanses us from our sins, invites for Christmas. Please send order request(s) to: us to the table of the Lord, binds us together in a [email protected]. We will then send an invoice covenant of love, sends us out to minister, anoints us with payment arrangements, which will include PayPal. when we are sick or dying, and accompanies us in our search for meaning and our daily need for support. All Quotes from Martin Luther King's " A Testament of Hope" these faces might not come to us from those we look up It is evil we are seeking to defeat, not the persons victimized by to as our leaders. But when we live our lives with a evil. Those of us who struggle against racial injustice must come simple trust that Jesus comes to us in our Church, we will to see that the basic tension is not between races. . . . The tension see the Church's ministry in places and in faces where we is at bottom between justice and injustice, between the forces of least expect it. light and the forces of darkness. . . . At the center of nonviolence If we truly love Jesus, Jesus will send us the people to stands the principle of love. . . . To retaliate with hate and give us what we most need. And they are our spiritual bitterness would do nothing but intensify the hate in the world. leaders. The method of nonviolence is based on the conviction that the Prayer universe is on the side of justice. It is this deep faith in the future Grant me, O Lord, good digestion, and also something to digest. that causes the nonviolent resister to accept suffering without Grant me a healthy body, and the necessary good humor to retaliation. . . . This belief that God is on the side of truth and maintain it. justice comes down to us from the long tradition of our Christian Grant me a simple soul that knows to treasure all that is good faith. There is something at the very center of our faith which and that doesn’t frighten easily at the sight of evil, reminds us that Good Friday may reign for a day, but ultimately it but rather finds the means to put things back in their place. must give way to the triumphant beat of the Easter drums. Give me a soul that knows not boredom, grumblings, sighs and We must never forget that there is something within human laments,nor excess of stress, because of that obstructing thing nature that can respond to goodness, that man is not totally called “I.” depraved; to put it in theological terms, the image of God is never Grant me, O Lord, a sense of good humor. Allow me the grace to totally gone. be able to take a joke to discover in life a bit of joy, and to be able The nonviolent resister is willing to accept violence if to share it with others. necessary, but never to inflict it. Generously endured suffering —Prayer for Good Humor, St. Thomas More for the sake of the other has tremendous educational and transforming possibilities. Words That Become Flesh - from Henri Nouwen's Bread for the Journey Excerpts from Richard Rohr's Daily Meditation on 10/28/15 Words are important. Without them our actions lose Dorothy Day (1897-1980) was hardly a poster-child for meaning. And without meaning we cannot live. Words sainthood, although she's now being considered for exactly that. can offer perspective, insight, understanding, and vision. Words can bring consolation, comfort, encouragement and between us and Christ as well as among ourselves is as real and radical as hope. Words can take away fear, isolation, shame, and sexual union. Thus, for instance, he argues against sex outside of marriage by saying that our union with Christ and each other in the Body guilt. Words can reconcile, unite, forgive, and heal. of Christ is so intimate and real that, in effect, we would prostitute that Words can bring peace and joy, inner freedom and deep Body if we had illicit sex. These are strong words. They’re predicated on gratitude. Words, in short, can carry love on their wings. a very earthy conception of the Eucharist. The early church followed A word of love can be the greatest act of love. That is Paul on this. They understood the Eucharist as so real, so physical, and so because when our words become flesh in our own lives intimate, that they surrounded it with the taboos of privacy, reverence, and reticence that we reserve for sexual intimacy. For some centuries, the and the lives of others, we can change the world. early church had a practice they called the DISCIPLINE ARCANI. Their Jesus is the word made flesh. In him speaking and acting rule was that nobody who was not baptised or not fully initiated into the were one. community could participate in the Eucharist (beyond the liturgy of the Word) and that Christians who were fully initiated were forbidden to Prayer speak to outsiders about the Eucharist. The intent of the discipline was Living God—stand by me. Hold me up. not to create a mystique around the Eucharist so as to draw people to it Be my strength when I am tired, my inspiration when I am bored, through curiosity; just the opposite. The idea was more that the Eucharist my life when I am listless. is so intimate an act that propriety, respect, and reverence demand non- Living God—I cannot always meet the standard exhibitionism: you don’t make love in public and you don’t talk to expected of me, cannot always be outsiders about this kind of intimacy. the personality I am known for. We tend to shy away from that kind of talk. Partly that’s Abba when I fail, Abba when I stumble— understandable. It’s hard to be comfortable religiously with how Stand by me. Christianity understands the physical and the bodily. Christianity is the —Edwina Gately, in For You, O God: Prayers and Reflections, © 1998, most earthy of all religions. It doesn’t call you out of the physical, out of Loyola University Chicago the body, or out of the world. Rather Christ enters the physical, becomes one with it, blesses it, redeems it, and tells us that there is no reason to When you say yes to love, you also say yes to suffering. escape from it. Something in that goes against the grain. Christ’s Fr. Richard Rohr - June 10, 2015 relationship to the physical scandalized his contemporaries (“This is One of my fellow Franciscans, Murray Bodo, wrote a wonderful and intolerable language!” is what the crowds said when Jesus spoke of the poetic book about the life of Francis entitled The Journey and the Dream. physical character of the Eucharist in John’s gospel) and is still hard for this excerpt from the book captures how letting go, or kenosis (self- us to accept today. But it’s also a wonderful part of Christianity. In the emptying) made space within and without, allowing Francis to be filled Eucharist, our skin gets touched. with divine love that then flowed out in joyful service to the world. And, given all our tensions, we need that touch, frequently, daily "The demands of Jesus were hard, but to Francis they were love- even. The late essayist and novelist, Andre Dubuis, once wrote a requests and the harder they seemed, the more elated he was that Jesus wonderful little apologia as to why he went to Eucharist regularly, despite should ask him. It was a privilege for surpassing any gift that earthly the critical circles he moved in: “This morning I received the sacrament I lovers gave one another.... still believe in: at seven-fifteen the priest elevated the host, then the "He knew Jesus loved him because He made such terrible demands on chalice, and spoke the words of the ritual, and the bread became flesh, the hinm, the most difficult of which were the invitations all through the wine became blood, and minutes later I placed on my tongue the taste of Gospels to leave everyone and everything for His sake. But the more forgiveness and of love that affirmed, perhaps celebrated, my being alive, Francis renounced the more he possessed, pressed down and flowing my being mortal. This has nothing to do with immortality, with eternity; I over. It seemed that Jesus wanted Francis to give up everything so that love the earth too much to contemplate a life apart from it, although I He could have the joy of returning it as a gift to Francis. That way Jesus believe in that life. No, this has to do with mortality and the touch of could keep handing back what Francis had first given Him, and there flesh, and my belief in the sacrament of the Eucharist is simple: without would be an eternal effort to outdo one another in selflessness. They touch, God is a monologue, an idea, a philosophy; he must touch and be understood each other and were becoming one flesh in a manner than touched, the tongue on flesh, and that touch is the result of the man and woman could never duplicate. And that was love as Francis monologues, the idea, the philosophies which led to faith; but in the had hoped it would be. instant of the touch there is no place for thinking, for talking, the silent "The paradox in Francis' life was that his exclusive love for Jesus was touch affirms all that, and goes deeper: it affirms the mysteries of love at the same time inclusive of all humanity. Again what he had renounced and mortality.” had come rushing down in waterfalls of new capacities for love and Skin heals when touched. It’s why Jesus gave us the Eucharist. giving. And the pool of self was constantly refilled with the flesh and clean water of love that flowed out of Francis in countless streams of Franciscan Powerty - Richard Rohn - Thursday, June 18, 2015 attention, affection, and service of others. The living waters of Jesus had Poverty for Francis is not just a life of simplicity, humility, restraint, or become his own, and he thereby became a reservoir of unselfish love for even lack. Poverty is the freedom to recognize that myself -- by itself -- is all creatures." powerless and ineffective. This is not a low self-image but a very It is no accident that Francis of Assisi in the first documented person liberating and utterly honest self-image. In his Gospel, John puts it quite to ever carry the physical wounds of Jesus in his hands, feet, and side, honestly when he says that a branch that does not abide in a Higher which he did for the last two years of his life. These wounds are called Power "is withered and useless" (John 15:6). The transformed self, living the stigmata of the "marks of Jesus"/ They surely demonstrate Francis' in union, no longer lives in shame or denial of its weakness, but even complete psychosomatic identification with Jesus, both crucified and lives with rejoicing because it does not need to pretend that it is any more resurrected. Both Jesus and Francis believed, lived, and taught that we than it actually is -- which is now, ironically, more than enough! dare not define love apart from suffering. Without suffering, "love" is Paul understood this kind of joy. God revealed to him, "My grace is mere sentimentality and not nearly enough to save the world - or sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness." This gave anybody. Paul the courage to write, "I will rather boast most gladly of my weaknesses, in order that the power of Christ may dwell with me....for Fr. Ronald Rohlheiser, OMI on the Eucharist - The Eucharist isn’t when I am weak, then I am strong" (2 Corinthians 12:9-10) abstract, a theological instruction, a creed, a moral precept, a philosophy, There is nothing that God cannot and will not use to bring us to divine or even just an intimate word. It’s bodily, an embrace, a kiss, something union -- even sin. That is the full glory, effectiveness, and universality of shockingly physical, the real presence in a deeper way than even the old the Gospel in its simple and clear splendor. In short, Francis metaphysics imagined. democratizes the whole spiritual journey, and lets us know that it is For whatever reasons we tend to shy away from admitting how available outside of monasteries, celibacy, moral heroics, or any false radically physical the Eucharist actually is. St. Paul didn’t share that fear. asceticism. Surely, this is why G.K. Chesterton called Francis "the For him, the physical communion that takes place in the Eucharist, world's one quite sincere democrat." The Gospel sense of "poverty of spirit" (Matthew 5:3) is the first necessary Beatitude because it allows us to join the whole human race in a willing and honest way. All pedestals are henceforth unnecessary.