PRAISE / PRAYER
PERFECT
Joyful
PENITENCE also clears the heart from all that can keep it from the pure
PRAISE
of God, which is at the very heart of the Franciscan's life of
PRAYER.
If any further evidence is needed to prove the fruitfulness of the happy
PENANCE which is always offering us daily opportunities to make reparation
for our sins, - be it a kind word to a ruffled neighbor, a hidden act of
self-sacrifice, a well-make sacramental Confession, the serene acceptance
of suffering (large and small) in union with Jesus Crucified, - we need
only look to the Gospel.
Our
Seraphic Father Francis was not merely a
something, a dreary duty
imposed or an impossible burden tolerated. No,
PENANCE for
Francis was a PRIVILEGE, espoused, embraced, desired as an act of love for
Someone, that Someone being our Lord Jesus Christ who showed the
depths of His redeeming love for us even unto PASSION and death on the
Cross. PENANCE embraced in this spirit is not only a fitting way of
expressing sorrow for the sins that have so offended God; it also serves
as a wonderful testimony of our gratitude to Him who suffered so much to
save us from our sins.
PENITENCE
Just past the midpoint of our
SERAPHIC considerations, we arrive at another peak of Franciscanism:
PENITENCE.
Once Assisi's astonishment had abated into admiration for Francis, the
boisterous king-of-the-youth turned man-of-God, the townspeople, with a
fine sensus fidei, christened the ragged bands of his first
followers "the joyous penitents." Now, it might seem at
first glance that joy and penance are mutually exclusive, but our Seraphic
Father has long proved just the opposite, and so has his army of happy
penitents which has swelled the ranks of the Church triumphant with a
battalion of saints whose earthly lives proclaimed that the secret of
sanctity does indeed lie in doing penance happily!
Having opened our
hearts to the witness of our Seraphic Father Francis' simplicity,
swiftness, and "songfulness," we turn to the fifth letter of the Seraphic
Alphabet to reflect on the "P" spirit of our Franciscan family,
a spirit that is at once
Penitence, Penance,
Praise/Prayer, Perfect
The
S*E*R*A*P*H*I*C Order.
How to describe the spirit of our
Franciscan charism?
We can discover a whole range of life-imitable
traits contained in the letters of the title which Holy Church herself has
attributed to the spiritual family of St. Francis of Assisi.
PART 5
Be
PERFECT as your Heavenly Father is
PERFECT! For the times when we have failed to
live up to this large life-order, we do happy
PENANCE.For the strength to do better, we
turn to God in honest, faith-filled
PRAYER.For the times when we, with the help
of His grace, have been able to join in His Son's saving work, we offer to
the Lord our grateful PRAISE.
And thus we take one more step on
our Gospel path to PERFECT love.
