Troubadours of Peace Region

Secular Franciscan Order

2006-2007 OFS Formation Resource Manual.pdf

Troubadours Formation Outline Guide & Bibliography 12-12-2009

Where do we go from here?  Bob Fitzsimmons OFS -- Regional Formation Director

This first article is a shameless plug for incorporating more consciously, a healthy dose of spirituality into our formation process.  We “study” the history, the charisms and life of our Seraphic Father Francis, as well we should, but just as important is his spiritual journey becoming mature in Christ.  An overlooked reference reading (see “Come & See” orientation session 4 pg 53), a book titled “The Holy Longing” by Ronald Rolheiser, is an excellent resource and I challenge you all to spend a year with it as a spiritual refresher for on-going formation.

As Rolheiser puts it “We are fired into life with a madness that comes from the gods which would have us believe that we can have a great love, perpetuate our own seed and contemplate the divine[1].”   So how we channel this passionate energy describes who we are (our being), what we consider important (our priorities), what we pursue in life (our actions), and therefore our spirituality. 

Francis and many of the medieval mystics modeled how to focus this energy into a life-giving union, beyond the bounds prescribed norms, to the place of the “lover and the beloved.”  I believe it is here that as Franciscans we are called to be, to live the dynamic cycle of the gospel life, and to embrace littleness.  It is hard in our American society, a society of consumerism i.e. a spirituality of “addition” to simplify your life, to become little, to foster solidarity with the poor, to embrace a spirituality of subtraction.  I believe we usually re-live, over and over again the same levels of spirituality, i.e. our “start up work”, staying in our comfort zone.  We like to add more things, more activities, prayers, rosaries, Masses, retreats, programs etc, not that these actions are bad in themselves, but they can serve to keep us numb with business, so we never allow ourselves to sit still at the feet of the Master and there be captured by His loving gaze.  Until we are comfortable standing naked before God in solitude, we can not enter into the life of the lover and beloved, the root of being Franciscan.

Teachers like Richard Rohr & Ronald Rolheiser (CD conference titled “Adult Christianity & How to Get There”) give voice to this need to develop spiritually mature faith and they challenge us to search for a vibrant adult Christ-centered Christianity.  To go beyond our comfortable daily rituals and journey into our inner most heart, there to find God waiting to embrace us.  The Gospel which comforts the afflicted, also must afflict the comfortable forcing us never to sit still complacently.  Its call is to bring about the Kingdom, to struggle against individual and communal structures of evil, and through love, to plant peace and justice.  The message is equally precise in calling us to be, to balance our actions, which we are so good at, with our contemplation, which we often prefer to avoid.  We are called to make a soul space of solitude where we can be alone and vulnerable, but not lonely.  A place to be free to “waste” time with the Lord, the place to focus our energy properly and to receive empowerment to live the Gospel, this is the challenge of being Franciscan.  The lives we live, our attitudes on society, politics, money, retirement, careers, prayer, community, our willingness to serve etc. etc. give witness to our spirituality.  Can we rise to do what the Lord requires of us, “to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God” ^[2]  from Micah 6:8? Will we willingly venture into the place of “lover & beloved?”

Pace e bene