Stichomancy
Giovanni de Bernadone was born in 1181, in Italy, to upper middle class parents. His father was a wealthy cloth merchant. Giovanni is better known by his nickname, Francesco. His father often traveled to France, and little Giovanni sometimes wore French styles. His friends called him “Francesco,” Frenchman. We know him as Francis of Assisi. Giovanni had an upper middle class upbringing. He served in the army, and for about a year was a prisoner of war in Perugia. When he was released, he returned home and fell gravely ill. As he was recovering, he began to wonder about the meaning of life, and noticed that, for him, things were not the same. Starting in 1205, he broke with his past; on a pilgrimage to Rome Francis gave his clothing to a beggar, and took the beggar’s clothes in return. Back in Assisi, Francis began rebuilding three ruined chapels out in the countryside; San Damiano, San Pietro della Spina, and Our Lady of the Angels, at Portiuncula. He begged for his food, and he begged for stones for the rebuilding.
On February 24th, in 1208, he was at Mass at Our Lady of the Angels, at Portiuncula, and heard in the gospel “Go, and preach the message, the Kingdom of God is at hand!” Francis realized that this was what God wanted for him, and this is what he did for the rest of his life. He continued begging, and began to preach. Two men joined him in his new way of life. One of them, Bernardo de Quintavalle, asked Giovanni how to best get rid of the money he had. Giovanni suggested they go to church and look in the gospels for guidance.
Francis, Bernardo, and Peter of Catanii went to the Church of San Nicolo in Assisi. After Mass, they opened the gospel book three times, and read “If you will be perfect, go, sell what you have, and give to the poor (Matthew 19:21).” The second time they read, “Take nothing with you for the journey (Mark 6:8).” The third time, they again found a passage from Matthew, “Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me (Matthew 16:24).”* “Here,” said Francis “is what we are going to do, and all those who shall afterward join us.”
Today, after 800 years, we Franciscans still follow Francis’ rule. These three passages from the gospels form the core of St. Francis Rule. Most simply put, St. Francis’ Rule asks his followers to go from the gospel to life, and to life from the gospel.
Sent to us by Deacon William Joyce, OFS
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Austin, Black, Crutched, Grey, Pied, Sack, and White Friars
The first time my wife Judy and I visited London, in 1969, we took a sightseeing cruise on the River Thames. Our guide pointed out Blackfriars Railway Station, on the north bank of the Thames in central London. At that time the only black friars I knew were the Conventual Franciscans, who wore a black Franciscan habit. How wrong I was. Austin, Black, Grey, Crutched, Pied, Sack, and White Friars all ministered in medieval England. Suppression and the Reformation hit them hard, but some orders have returned to England.
In medieval England, the largely illiterate population usually distinguished the various orders of friars by the colors or fabric of their mantles (cloaks). Thus, the Friars Preachers (Dominicans) were the Black Friars. Dominican priests wear a white habit girded by a belt, but their cloak was black. The Dominican Black Friars arrived in London in 1221. Blackfriars Railway Station is on the site of a Dominican church founded in 1276. The Dominican church was suppressed and the friars expelled during the Reformation. The Austin, Crutched, Grey, and White Friars met the same fate.
In 1224, two years before our Seraphic Father’s death, the Franciscans reached London. In those days, the Franciscan Friars wore grey habits girded with a knotted cord, and grey mantles. The medieval English called them the Grey Friars. In colonial Mexico and Texas, Franciscan Friars wore a dark blue habit. In Spanish California, the friars wore grey habits. It wasn’t until 1897, at the decree of Pope Leo XIII, that brown became the official color of all O.F.M. friars’ habits. Even today, in the United States, the shade of brown of the O.F.M. habit varies from province to province. The Conventual Franciscans, who previously wore black habits, are returning to the grey of medieval times.
The Carmelites reached London in 1241. The Carmelites wear a brown habit girded with a belt. Their mantle is white; hence, the appellation White Friars. On July 16th, 1251, according to tradition, Our Lady appeared in England to St. Simon Stock, the first Carmelite prior general, and gave him the brown scapular. Many people today continue to wear the “Brown Scapular.” The Carmelite Priory at Aylesford, Kent, was suppressed by Henry VIII in 1538. In 1949, the English Carmelites were able to buy back their motherhouse. Aylesford is a flourishing pilgrimage destination. On July, 16th, 1951, St. Simon Stock’s relics were returned to Aylesford. The Carmelite seminary in Washington, D.C., is Whitefriars Hall
In 1249, the Crutched Friars arrived in London. The word ‘crutched” means crossed, or marked with a cross. The friar carried a staff topped by a cross, and wore a red cross on his habit. The order known as the Crutched Friars was suppressed in 1656. An order of Canons Regular (not friars), the Crosier Fathers, still exist. They are known as Fratres Cruciferi, but are not friars.
The Augustinian Friars trace themselves back to St. Augustine’s Rule of c.400 A.D. The Augustinians, or Austin Friars, arrived in London in 1253. The Augustinians are the only medieval mendicant (begging) order known by the name of their founder.
In 1257 the Brothers of Penance of Jesus Christ came to London. The English called them the Sack Friars, because their habit was made of sackcloth. The Second Council of Lyon suppressed them in 1274, but friars were allowed to continue in their Order until death. The London friary disappeared between 1302 and 1305.
The Pied Friars (Friars of the Blessed Mary) were in England before 1274. These friars wore a black habit with white mantle, hence pied (black and white). Pope Gregory X suppressed all mendicant orders but the Augustinians, Carmelites, Dominicans, Franciscans, and Servites at the Second Council of Lyons in 1274.
Sent to us by Deacon William Joyce, OFS
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Canticle of the Sun
Four years ago, in July of 2006, my wife Judy and I took two of our grandsons, Ed and Tom Mahoney, on their first airplane ride. We had an hour long flight, from Baltimore to Detroit. We visited the Henry Ford Museum and Greenfield Village, but the first place on our agenda was the Solanus Casey Center, in central Detroit.
We had known of Capuchin Franciscan Father Solanus Casey (1870-1957) for four decades. We had prayed to him, for his intercession and help, on many occasions. The Solanus Casey Center celebrates his long life- he lived to be eighty-six; the Center also celebrates his belief in social justice, and his complete trust in God. I’ll write more about Father Solanus himself another time.
One enters the Solanus Casey Center through the Creation Garden. The garden is reminiscent of Franciscan architecture, such as Judy and I have seen in the Franciscan missions in Texas and California. A covered walkway surrounds a Franciscan garden, which almost always has a fountain.
The “fountain” in the Creation Garden is a ceramic sculpture, designed by an Arab-American Muslim, depicting the four rivers of paradise. Verses of the Qu’ran, referring to water, adorn the four sides of the rectangular artwork.
The seven artworks in the Creation Garden pray our Holy Father Francis’s Canticle of the Sun. Francis penned the Canticle of the Sun (also known as the Praises of the Creatures) at San Damiano, in the year 1224. He had just received the Stigmata, and was in pain from his wounds. Our Seraphic Father was also losing his sight to glaucoma. Nevertheless, his thoughts ran to his Creator, and how all creation offered Him praise. St. Francis wrote in the Umbrian dialect of Italian; many scholars consider The Canticle of the Sun the first major work in Italian literature. St. Francis wrote The Canticle of the Sun at least eighty years before Dante started the Divine Comedy.
Our Holy Father Francis praises God for Brother Sun, who signifies God to us humans. In the Creation Garden, a modern sundial represents Brother Sun.
Francis praises God for the moon, and the stars, which God has set in the heavens. An abstract sculpture of the moon’s phases depicts Sister Moon.
The Poverello praises God for the wind, the air, the clouds, by which God gives life to all creatures. A set of wind chimes, designed by an African-American artist, rings out in the breeze.
Deacon Francis praises God for Sister Water, humble; precious, and clean. The ceramic sculpture honors Sister Water.
Our Seraphic Father praises God for Brother Fire; bright, pleasant, mighty, strong. Painted steel “flames” spiral up to heaven.
Father Francis praises God for Mother Earth. An abstract sculpture depicts a woman, Earth, giving birth to all life.
The last praise, of Sister Death, Francis wrote on his deathbed in the Cell of the Transitus, at Santa Maria degli Angeli, just a few minutes before his passing on October 3rd, 1226. A dead tree trunk reminds us that no one escapes, but “Blessed are those who die in Thy most holy will, for the second death will have no power to do them harm.”
Sent to us by Deacon William Joyce, OFS
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Franciscans on Molokai
The November 22nd, 2008, Honolulu Star-Bulletin featured a story, “Father Damien’s Canonization Spurs Travel Plans.” Father Damien de Veuster, SS.CC., will be canonized in the autumn of 2009, but the exact date has not yet been determined. In Hawaii, folks are planning to be in Rome for the canonization.
The statues of King Kamehameha and Father Damien de Veuster represent the State of Hawaii in the U.S. Capitol. Belgian Joseph de Veuster joined the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary in 1858, taking Damien as his name in religion. As a seminarian he volunteered for service in the Kingdom of Hawaii, and was ordained in Honolulu’s Cathedral of Our Lady of Peace on May 21st, 1864, at age twenty-four. Father Damien served at missions on Oahu and Hawaii until 1873.
Hawaii was an independent kingdom until 1893, when the descendants of Protestant missionaries overthrew Queen Liluokalani, establishing a republic. In 1898, the United States annexed Hawaii.
Contact with Europeans and Americans introduced many diseases to the island kingdom. Common childhood illnesses raged as fatal epidemics among the native Hawaiians, who had no immunity. Leprosy also broke out among the Hawaiians. The Kingdom of Hawaii forcibly isolated the victims of leprosy (Hansen’s disease) on the Kalawao peninsula, on the north side of Molokai. The Hawaiian authorities forced the lepers ashore, sometimes at gunpoint, providing food and supplies, but no medical aid. Bishop Louis Maigret, SS.CC., the Vicar Apostolic of the Sandwich Islands, saw the need for a priest at the Kalawao leper settlement, but realized that such an assignment could be a death sentence.
In 1873, Father Damien volunteered to go to Kalawao. Bishop Maigret escorted Damien to Kalaupapa, the lepers’ settlement on the Kalawao peninsula. On May 10th, 1873, Bishop Maigret told the lepers, “Father Damien is one who will be a father to you, and who loves you so much that he does not hesitate to become one of you; to live and die with you.” Father Damien immediately set about building a church, St. Philomena’s. Damien tended the lepers’ wounds, built their homes, made their coffins, and dug their graves. After eleven years as a tireless advocate among the more than eight hundred lepers, Father Damien realized he has contracted leprosy. Damien died April 15th, 1889, Monday of Holy Week. Pope John Paul II beatified Damien on June 14th, 1995.
Father Damien did not die alone. Among those helping him at Kalaupapa was Ira Barnes Dutton., who was born in Stowe, Vermont in 1843, but moved to Wisconsin as a child. Dutton was a veteran of the Civil War, serving in the Union Army’s 13th Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry Regiment. After the war and a failed marriage, he spent ten years as an active alcoholic. He studied religion and began his recovery. He spent some time at the Trappist abbey in Gethsemane, Kentucky. In 1886, he learned of Father Damien, and traveled to Hawaii. He arrived at Kalaupapa in July, 1886. Dutton offered his services to Damien, who named him Brother Joseph. Dutton built houses, cooked meals, and cared for the lepers. Brother Joseph never accepted any pay, and had his Civil War pension donated to Gethsemane Abbey in Kentucky. Brother Joseph made his profession in the Third Order of St. Francis (Secular Franciscan Order) in 1893. Brother Joseph remained at Kalaupapa until his death on March 26 th, 1931, at the age of 88. He was buried next to Father Damien. Brother Joseph spent over half his life on Molokai, among the lepers. He never contracted the disease.
In 1883, Mother Marianne Cope, and six Sisters of Saint Francis of Syracuse, N.Y., were the only American sisters to respond to a call for help from Hawaiian King David Kalakaua. The sisters established the first general hospital on Maui, and, in the tradition going back to St. Francis himself, ministered to leprosy patients on Oahu. In 1888, Mother Marianne and two sisters began their health care ministry at Kalaupapa. Mother Marianne declared, “I am not afraid of any disease.” She promised her sisters that none of them would contract leprosy, and none ever has. She served on Molokai until her death on August 9th, 1918. She is buried at Kalaupapa. Mother Marianne was beatified May14th, 2005, the first person beatified by Pope Benedict XVI.
Sent to us by Deacon William Joyce, OFS
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La Conquistadora
By Deacon William Joyce, OFS
Nombre de Dios Fraternity
St. Augustine/Palm Coast, Florida
I’m new as a resident of St. Augustine, Florida, our Nation’s Oldest City, and I’m proud to be an adopted St. Augustinian. I bristle when I hear of something in America, outside of St. Augustine, referred to as “oldest.” We’re the oldest! We almost have a copyright on the word!
Imagine my surprise when I heard a claim that a small statue of Our Lady, in Santa Fe, New Mexico, was the oldest Marian image in the United States. Our own Shrine of Nuestra Senora de la Leche y Buen Parto notwithstanding, this statue is older than any image at Nombre de Dios.
Spaniards had explored New Mexico as early as 1539, but did not settle the region until 1598, when 500 colonists, accompanied by ten Franciscan friars, arrived from old Mexico. In 1608, Juan de Onate established Santa Fe, which became a municipality in 1610. Santa Fe was the center of missionary activity in New Mexico.
In the early 1600s, a Spanish artisan carved a statue from willow wood; the statue was 29 inches high, and beautifully depicted a young woman. The statue bore the name “Our Lady of the Assumption.” Some time before 1625 the statue was brought to New Spain. In 1625, Franciscan Fray Alonso de Venevides accompanied a group of settlers on the 1,300 mile journey from Mexico City north to Santa Fe. Fray Alonso placed the small statue in the parish church at Santa Fe, which also bore the name “Our Lady of the Assumption.”
At the time, the Spanish clothed their church statues in the styles of the day. Our Lady of the Assumption was dressed in a silk gown. The practice of clothing the statue continues today.
Spanish Franciscans established missions throughout the region. By 1630, Santa Fe was the headquarters of a system of twenty five mission centers and churches, ministering to some 60,000 Puebloan Indians at ninety pueblos. All was not peaceful, however. In 1631, Indians at Taos Pueblo, incited by the local shaman, murdered Fray Pedro de Miranda. Fray Francisco Letrado met a similar fate at Zuni Pueblo in 1632, where again the shaman incited a friar’s death. Raiding Navajos killed Fray Pedro Avila y Ayala at Zuni in 1672. Navajos killed Fray Gil de Avila at Senecu Pueblo in 1675.
On August 10th, 1680, a Tewa shaman, Popay by name, led a revolt against the Spanish, from Taos to Santa Fe to the Hopi Pueblos, 300 miles west in what is now Arizona. Tewa, Picuris, and Taos Indians killed twenty one of the forty friars in New Mexico, and about 380 Spanish men, women, and children. The surviving Spanish settlers took refuge in Santa Fe. On August 21st, they fled Sante Fe for El Paso del Norte, 328 miles to the south along the Rio Grande. The refugees rescued the statue of Our Lady of the Assumption from the parish church as they fled the city.
In 1692, Don Diego de Vargas led a military expedition up the Rio Grande to Santa Fe, surrounded the city, and called on the rebels to surrender. The night before the final battle, Don Diego and his soldiers prayed for victory at a small shrine and altar in their camp, before the statue of Our Lady of the Assumption, which had accompanied the Spaniards back to Santa Fe. The next day the Indians met with Vargas, and surrendered without bloodshed.
De Vargas attributed this bloodless victory to Our Lady, whom he named “La Conquistadora.” He even placed a small general’s baton in the statue’s right hand. The statue of “La Conquistadora” remains in the oldest part of Santa Fe’s Cathedral-Basillica of St. Francis of Assisi. “La Conquistadora” is America’s oldest Madonna.
The full name of Santa Fe is “La Villa Real de la Santa Fe de San Francisco de Asis,” the Royal City of the Holy Faith of St. Francis of Assisi.
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New Yorker to Be Named First United States’ Citizen Franciscan Saint.
On December 9th, 2011 the Honolulu Star-Advertiser headlined, “Sainthood for Marianne Cope Gratifies Kalaupapa Residents.” The Vatican’s Congregation for the Causes of Saints reported that a miracle worked through Marianne Cope’s intercession was scientifically inexplicable, and recommended her canonization to Pope Benedict XVI. Marianne Cope, more correctly Mother Marianne Cope, O.S.F., will be Hawaii’s second canonized saint.
The statues of King Kamehameha and Father Damien de Veuster represent the State of Hawaii in the U.S. Capitol. Saint Damien de Veuster, SS.CC., is the first canonized saint so honored. Belgian Joseph de Veuster joined the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary in 1858, taking Damien as his name in religion. As a seminarian he volunteered for service in the Kingdom of Hawaii, and was ordained in Honolulu’s Cathedral of Our Lady of Peace on May 21st, 1864, at age twenty-four. Father Damien served at missions on Oahu and Hawaii until 1873.
Hawaii was an independent kingdom until 1893, when the descendants of American Protestant missionaries overthrew Queen Liluokalani, establishing a republic. In 1898, the United States annexed Hawaii.
Contact with Europeans and Americans introduced many diseases to the island kingdom. Common childhood illnesses raged as fatal epidemics among the native Hawaiians, who had no immunity. Leprosy also broke out among the Hawaiians. The Kingdom of Hawaii forcibly isolated the victims of leprosy (Hansen’s disease) on the Kalawao peninsula, on the north side of Molokai. The Hawaiian authorities forced the lepers ashore, sometimes at gunpoint, providing food and supplies, but no medical aid. Bishop Louis Maigret, SS.CC., the Vicar Apostolic of the Sandwich Islands, saw the need for a priest at the Kalawao leper settlement, but realized that such an assignment could be a death sentence.
In 1873, Father Damien volunteered to go to Kalawao. Bishop Maigret escorted Damien to Kalaupapa, the lepers’ settlement on the Kalawao peninsula. On May 10th, 1873, Bishop Maigret told the lepers, “Father Damien is one who will be a father to you, and who loves you so much that he does not hesitate to become one of you; to live and die with you.” Father Damien immediately set about building a church, St. Philomena’s. Damien tended the lepers’ wounds, built their homes, made their coffins, and dug their graves. After eleven years as a tireless advocate among the more than eight hundred lepers, Father Damien realized he had contracted leprosy. Damien died April 15th, 1889, Monday of Holy Week. Pope John Paul II beatified Damien on June 14th, 1995. Pope Benedict XVI canonized Father Damien on October 11th, 2009.
In 1883, Hawaiian King David Kalakaua wrote to every American congregation of religious women, asking for help for the lepers on Molokai. Mother Marianne Cope, and six Sisters of Saint Francis of Syracuse, N.Y., were the only American sisters to respond to the royal call for help.
Barbara Koob was born in Germany in 1838. In 1839, the family migrated to Utica, New York, where Barbara grew up. The entire Koob family became naturalized American citizens, and anglicized their surname to “Cope.” In 1862, at the age of twenty-four, Barbara entered the novitiate of the Sisters of the Third Order Regular of St. Francis of Syracuse. Upon profession, she received the name Sister Marianne. By 1883, Mother Marianne was the Superior General of the congregation. She responded to King David Kalakaua’s plea,
“I am hungry for the work, and I wish with all my heart to one of the chosen
Ones whose privilege it will be to sacrifice themselves for the salvation of the souls
of the poor Islanders… I am not afraid of any disease, hence it would be my greatest
delight even to minister to the abandoned ‘lepers.’”
On November 8th, 1883, Mother Marianne and her sisters arrived in Honolulu. In the tradition going back to St. Francis himself, the sisters first served leprosy patients at Kaka’ako Branch Hospital on Oahu. This hospital was the collection point for leprosy patients, who would then be transported to Kalawao, on Molokai. In 1884, the sisters established the first general hospital on Maui. In November, 1888, Mother Marianne and two sisters began their health care ministry at Kalaupapa. She promised her sisters that none of them would contract leprosy, and none ever has. She cared for the dying Father Damien. She served on Molokai until her death on August 9th, 1918. She is buried at Kalaupapa. Mother Marianne was beatified May14th, 2005, the first person beatified by Pope Benedict XVI. Her canonization is set for some time in 2012.
Sr. Mary Lawrence Hanley, O.S.F., had worked for Mother Marianne’s Cause since the 1970s. She died on December 2nd, 2011, after a short illness, \ just four days before the Vatican’s announcement. Shortly before Sr. Mary Lawrence’s death, she said, “My work is done, and Mother Marianne is going to be a saint.”
Sent to us by Deacon William Joyce, OFS
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The Prayer of Saint Francis?
This year, 2012, is the centenary of the Prayer of Saint Francis. There is no documentary proof that this prayer existed anywhere before 1912. The orison, “A Beautiful Prayer to Say during Mass.” written in French, appeared in a small spiritual magazine called La Clochette (The Little Bell), the publication of the French League of the Holy Mass.
In 1916, Pope Benedict XV published an Italian version of the prayer in L’Osservatore Romano. In 1920, a French Franciscan priest distributed a holy card, with St. Francis on the front, and a “Prayer for Peace” on the back. There was no attribution to St. Francis as author. In 1927, a French Protestant group, the Knights of the Prince of Peace, claimed the author was St. Francis. The prayer became well known in Europe, but was not translated into English until 1936, by an American, Disciples of Christ minister Kirby Page, who pointed to St. Francis’ authorship. The prayer is now known and prayed throughout the world. Mother Teresa of Calcutta included the Prayer of Saint Francis in the morning prayers of her Missionaries of Charity.
The “Peace Prayer” is about taking things that are wrong, and with God’s grace, making them right. The prayer reflects gospel values, and, regardless of authorship, mirrors our Franciscan way of life.
Lord, make me an instrument of your peace
Where there is hatred, let me sow love
Where there is injury, pardon
Where there is doubt, faith
Where there is despair, hope,
Where there is darkness, light
Where there is sadness, joy
O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled
as to be consoled
To be understood as to understand,
To be loved as to love
For, it is in giving that we receive
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned
It is in dying that we are born to Eternal Life
Sent to us by Deacon William Joyce, OFS |
