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N° 282 INDEX APRIL 2015 Brother, layman, for the love of Brother, layman, 01 God for the love of God 02 Research, teach, evangelize! ‘Project Europe’: a Working 03 Br. Joaquim José Hangalo, OFMCap - refl ection on the letter of the General Minister: “The Indi- Group is Created spensable gift of Lay Brothers for our Order” Our Presence in Algeria General Custodies of Sibolga and of the Islands of Nias he letter of the General Minister ‘What does it mean to be brother?’ (Indonesia) - Appointments takes up the concern and worry T The big difference…the answer Jerusalem: “I am the Light of the that the lay brothers should decrease, 04 World” Spiritual Center even to an ‘extinction of a species.’ An can be right here. Franciscans in the midst of old life lesson teaches us to look at the Francis of Assisi helped the Church Refugees in Iraq attitude of the people in a group, like a to meet people and all of creation in community or fraternity as in our case, a universal embrace in the sign of the as the spokes on the wheel of a bicycle cross of Christ, dead and risen, an- working together. When the wheel of nouncing the Gospel in simplicity and the bicycle has all the spokes, you can humility. say: “They are so many for no reason.” But if a spoke breaks, even just one, At the time of Francis, as today, there celebrate the Mass, but he adored the Lord the troubles start: equilibrium can no were clerics and monks: Clerics re- in the Eucharist. This was the ‘mountain longer be guaranteed. Life is the same. sponsible for parishes and monks gathered, by their vocation, in the of the Transfi guration’ from which Francis A small change makes a big change. always descended to fi nd people and bring monasteries. Clerics and monks, to them to Christ. The friars whose centenaries If today we fi nd ourselves, with wor- which the people turned and went to we are celebrating, Felix of Cantalice and Fe- lix of Nicosia, are friars of ‘the mountain and the street.’ They prayed and descended to fi nd people. They knew the people and the people knew them. The grace of the priest- hood is a service to the People of God that some friars must fulfi ll with all dignity, with- out compromising their proper identity. To be a Brother like Francis is to set one’s sights on the path to Christ. The Gospel, the Rule, and the Constitutions must be at the cen- ter of our ‘construction’ of opinions. To be a friar is simply to be brother; seeking every day to place a stone in the construction of a more fraternal, more human, world. It is im- portant to be ‘brother’ and to seek to leave the world better than we found it. ry, before the problem of the dimin- see. ishment of non-clerical brothers, the question must be faced starting from Francis, on the other hand, without the fundamentals. We are an ‘order of losing anything of the beauty of the brothers’; this is our ideal. What do life of clerics or of monks, invented we ourselves communicate and trans- a ‘novelty.’ To go and fi nd people. To mit to others? By profession, every- speak, smile, and cry with them. Fran- one takes the title, new and humble, cis did not have a ‘dignity’, he cried and of ‘Brother.’ Without other qualifying sang like people sing. Francis was life. adjectives. And so it is every day. The Like a monk, ‘he escaped to pray and problem comes up right here. Between contemplate,’ ‘he worked with his own the title and being in fact, a brother. hands.’ He was not a priest, he did not HIGHLIGHTS Research, teach, evangelize! Interview with Br. Tom Weinandy (PR Pennsylvania), member of the International Theological Commission and visiting professor at the Pontifi cal Gregorian University, Rome ow would you present yourself and teacher. Franciscan way of life; it’s a Franciscan Hyour work? way of proclaiming the gospel, it’s a You are a teacher, you teach and write. way of working with young people, it’s Most of my life as a Capuchin over How would you characterize such work a way of working to bring the gospel the past forty-fi ve years—I’ve been done by a Capuchin friar? to others. a Capuchin longer—but for the past Another thing too—so often in our forty-fi ve years I’ve been a teacher. I’ve always looked upon my time in the classroom, and also in writing, as a Order we have rightly stressed the I look upon myself as being a Capu- need to work with the poor. But I chin, a priest, and a teacher. And from way of evangelization and catechesis. sometimes think that we forget that the perspective of being a Capuchin I’ve never done academics just for there are the materially poor, but I Iook back over the history of our the sake doing academics, writing there are also the intellectually poor, Order both as Capuchins and Francis- scholarly articles, or books, or being cans, and I would like to think and I learned in the classroom. I’ve always the poverty of ignorance. Young peo- tried to use the classroom as a means ple, even older people, can be poor do think of myself very much follow- in their lack of understanding, of not ing in the tradition of St. Anthony. It of evangelization and as a means of knowing what the Church teaches, was our Father Francis who autho- catechesis. I’ve always tried to turn the scholarly podium into a pulpit. what the Fathers have taught, what rized St. Anthony—we even have his the great Scholastics have taught, and little letter, note, giving St. Anthony And recently now that we have a great so there’s a poverty there. permission to be a teacher—he said stress on the new evangelization and I that he didn’t want academics just to think that the classroom is a marvel- In light of preparations for PCO VIII on be something in the head but some- ous place, and writing too, of evange- ‘the Grace of Working,’ what do you think 02 lizing people. thing that was truly, by learning every- about this topic? thing, that it would move our hearts to love Jesus, to love the mysteries There are fewer friars who dedicate them- It takes a lot of work to write; you of the faith, and to love the Church, selves to scholarship. What could be the can’t write a book or an article in an and I think our Franciscan tradition reasons for this? What would you suggest? afternoon. I’ve written quite a few has done that over the years. We see I think one of the reasons that fewer books, and when I undertake the that not only in St. Anthony but in St. writing of a book I know I’m taking Bonaventure, and in St. Duns Scotus, friars are going into teaching is that we have fewer friars, especially in the up a labor that’s going to take, often, Lawrence of Brindisi, the one doctor two or three years. And so it takes for- of the Church within the Capuchin West, in Europe [and North Ameri- titude, it takes discipline. It also takes Order. ca]. a lot of prayer, because, in one sense, I’m also a Capuchin priest and I see I also think that one of the other you can read a lot, you can learn a lot, it as part of my priesthood as well; reasons is that so often, more in Eu- you can write a lot, but again going priests are ordained to be ministers of rope and the United States, the friars back to my original understanding of that have come to us have been older. the Word and to be ministers of the what it means to be a Capuchin teach- Sacraments and I see my ministry as I went to the seminary when I was er, a Franciscan academic, you have a Capuchin priest as being part of the fourteen. But so many of our friars to pray, because it’s only in prayer ministry of the Word, being able to today are older, they’re in their late that your teaching and your writing teach people the great truths of our twenties sometimes, or thirties even become evangelistic. Unless you’re Catholic faith, the great mysteries of or forties. So even if you have a good, alive with the faith, unless you’re alive the faith, the doctrines of the faith. bright young man coming to us, he’s with Jesus, unless you love the Trinity, not young enough to do all the study unless you love the Eucharist, you’re I’m a teacher and I think it’s part of it takes to become an academic. being who I am; the combination is not going to convey that love and the coming together of nature and But I see now especially in my own enthusiasm and excitement to your grace. Province, that we have two or three students or your readers. You might friars now that I know of at Capuchin be able to communicate some knowl- The Lord has given me natural talents College who are bright young men to learn but it’s the grace that has edge, but you’re not going to engen- who are interested in further study der love.

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