This is the body of Jesus.
This is the blood of Jesus.

Since this is the body of Jesus,
there is no sickness in my body.

Since this is the blood of Jesus,
there is no weakness in me.

Since these are Christ’s eyes
there is no defect in my sight.

Since these are Christ’s lips and tongue,
there is no deceit in my speech.

Since these are Christ’s hands,
I delight in giving.

Since these are Christ’s feet,
I walk to do good.

Since this is Christ’s reflection,
there is clarity in my plans.

Since this is the conscious mind of Jesus,
my decisions are correct.

Since this is the subconscious mind of Jesus,
all my defects are healed.

Since this is the nature of Jesus,
I am led by the Spirit.

AMEN.

The 49th annual World Day of Prayer for Vocations will be celebrated on April 29, the Fourth Sunday of Easter. This year’s theme is “Vocations: the Gift of the Love of God.”

Instituted in 1964 by Pope Paul VI, this event calls on all of us to pray for vocations and to foster a “culture of vocations” in today’s Church. Regarding this year’s theme, Pope Benedict writes, “Every specific vocation is in fact born of the initiative of God; it is a gift of the Love of God! He is the one who takes the ‘first step,’ and not because he has found something good in us, but because of the presence of his own love ‘poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit. In every age, the course of the divine call is to be found in the initiative of the infinite love of God, who reveals himself fully in Jesus Christ.’” The Holy Father goes on to say, “Brothers and sisters, we need to open our lives to this love. It is to the perfection of the Father’s love that Jesus Christ calls us to every day.”

Addressing the need to build a culture of vocations, Pope Benedict notes, “The task of fostering vocations will be to provide helpful guidance and direction along the way. Central to this should be love of God’s word nourished by a growing familiarity with sacred Scripture, and attentive and unceasing prayer, both personal and in community; this will make it possible to hear God’s call amid all the voices of daily life.” He also talks about the important role of evangelizing to young people as means to foster vocations.

Addressing educators in particular, Pope Benedict says, “Dear brother bishops, dear priests, deacons, consecrated men and women, catechists, pastoral workers and all of you engaged in the field of educating young people: I fervently exhort you to pay close attention to those members of parish communities, associations and ecclesial movements who sense a call to the priesthood or to a special consecration. It is important for the Church to create the conditions that will permit many young people to say ‘yes’ in generous response to God’s loving call.”

St Francis never heard of Earth Day, celebrated on 22 April this year. However he would have loved the idea of a time to refocus on the gift of creation, a time to recommit to reverence and care for “our sister, Mother Earth”.

His Canticle of the Sun – written a few months before his death – celebrates the beauty and goodness of God revealed in all that surrounds us. Praying the Canticle should open our eyes afresh to joy.

Most High, all-powerful, good Lord,
all praise is yours, all glory, all honour,
and all blessing.

To you, alone, Most High, do they belong.
No mortal lips are worthy to pronounce your name.

All praise be yours, my Lord,
through all you have made,
and first my lord Brother Sun, who brings the day;
and through whom you give us light.
How beautiful is he, how radiant in all his splendour;
Of you, Most High, he bears the likeness.

All Praise be yours, my Lord, through Sister Moon
and the stars; in the heavens you have made them,
bright, and precious, and fair.
All praise be yours, my Lord,
through Brothers wind and air, and fair and stormy,
all the weather’s moods,
by which you cherish all that you have made.

All praise be yours, my Lord, through Sister Water,
so useful, humble, precious and pure.
All praise be yours, my Lord, through Brother Fire,
through whom you brighten up the night.
How beautiful is he, how cheerful!
Full of power and strength.

All praise be yours, my Lord, through our Sister
Mother Earth, who sustains us and governs us,
and produces various fruits with coloured flowers
and herbs.

Praise and bless my Lord, and give him thanks
And serve him with great humility.

How are we to evangelize within the secular context in which we live ?

By being echoes of the Word of God. In the new evangelization we need to talk with God, talk about God, and give a voice to a God who seems silent and often not listening.

By eloquent silences. Word and silence are complementary in evangelization. The danger among us is to talk a lot about God and not listen to him enough; to talk much to people and not listen to them. We fear silence and yet, it is necessary. We run from listening, yet it is more important than ever. The mystery of God, as Augustine tells us, is suggested, indicated, tasted, and enjoyed. It is useless to try to cover it with the word. For this purpose, we need to silence our manipulations of God and cultivate silence more, thus opening ourselves to the mystery of God revealed in Christ.

By being apostles of joy. Leon Bloy said that “Joy is the infallible sign of the presence of God.” If the Gospel is Good News, then the new evangelization is carried out with a smile and not with a gloomy face of “Good Friday”. The Apostle reminds us that the Son of God is the “yes” of God (cf. 2 Cor 1, 18ff) and therefore the messengers of the Gospel cannot be a “no”.

By doing everything in fraternity. For every Religious, especially a Franciscan, no project of evangelization is an individual project. It is always the fraternity that evangelizes. The new evangelization must be carried out then through the witness of fraternal life. 

The New Evangelization is a call to know, love, and serve not one thing, nor even a doctrine, but a person, that is, the person of Jesus.

It’s Easter! Go, brothers and sisters, bear witness and proclaim the good news of the Gospel, to those near and far, with new ardor, new methods, and new expressions! Christ is risen! Yes, He is truly risen! Happy Easter! 

Br. José Rodríguez Carballo,  OFM

Minister General

For the complete message of Br. José, go to:

http://www.ofm.org/01docum/mingen/2012LetteraPasqua/ENG_pasqua2012.pdf

Good Friday – a day good beyond all telling because of the goodness of Christ revealed on the Cross.

But how can one man’s death 2000 years ago be an act that saves us today? I have found very helpful the way that C.H. Dodd reflects on Christ’s death.

The creative, loving purpose of God is everlastingly at work in his world. It meets continual resistance from hardened human hearts and wills. But if at any point human history should become entirely non-resistant to God, perfectly transparent to his loving design – then from that point God’s creative purpose would work with unprecedented power.

That is just what the perfect obedience of Jesus affected. Within human nature and human history Jesus established a point of complete non-resistance to the Father’s will, a ‘moment’ of total transparency to his saving purpose. The love and obedience of Christ expressed to the utmost on the Cross is a point of entry that releases God’s creative power for the perfecting of human life, indeed for the transformation of creation.

As we believers connect in faith and trust with the ‘Christ event’ – existing eternally in God – it becomes contemporary and we are laid open to the creative energy and love perpetually working to recreate us.

All our moral choices have an impact. Christ’s ultimate moral act is the equivalent to splitting the atom.

Jesus’ death split the moral atom, and its effect lasts forever. The power, grace, light, life and divine energy released by that action of absolute love and self-giving pour out unceasingly.

This is what we celebrate in Holy Week, what we encounter in the Eucharist, and what we live from each day of our Christian discipleship.

Taken from the Franciscan Ponderings Blogspot: http://franciscanponderings.blogspot.ca/

Lent is a time to take a deep look are our lives in the light of Christ’s love. People make a special effort to celebrate his compassion in Confession. 

But to be honest, many do not find this easy to do.

Elizabeth O’Connor suggests a way to approach the sacrament in a more positive way.

“When our repentance is real and not a whip, it has the possibility of giving us a whole new attitude. Actually, Confession is made for the revealing of our light – gifts of love, faith and creativity.

Understanding this, however, will not always make the resistance to Confession less. If we exercise love, we become vulnerable. If we confess our gifts, we are apt to be asked to use them.

In the end, the sin we must all come to look at is the sin of withholding ourselves. This is the sin that keeps us beggars in life.”

(Taken from «Franciscan Ponderings» Blog: http://franciscanponderings.blogspot.ca/)

We can regret that the melody of this Canticle composed by Saint Francis of Assisi in the spring of 1225 did not survive to our day. Knowing the structure of the poem that goes, strictly speaking, from high to low, from the summit to the base, from the glory of the «Most High» to the «great humility» of the servants of the Lord, we can think that the melody of Francis must have begun on the highest note possible to descend the whole octave to the lowest note. The first stanza of the Canticle follows this movement:

Most High, all powerful, good Lord, Yours are the praises, the glory, and the honour and all blessing. To You alone, Most High do they belong, and no man is worthy to mention Your name. 

Meditating on these first words of the poem, one can see Francis prostrate before God The Most High and all-powerful to confess his own unworthiness, but one must not forget that at the base of all prayer there is a conception of man and of God: the radical poverty of man and the superabundant goodness of God. Thus the poverty of Francis does not prevent him from raising his praise to the good Lord.

The key to interpreting the Canticle comes to us from Francis himself: I want to compose a new Praise to the Lord regarding his creatures. «This canticle,» writes Thaddée Matura, «is not a praise of creation, but a doxology addressed to the Most High, All-powerful and good Lord; whose name no man is worthy of mention. To Him alone belong all praises by and for all his creatures who reveal something of his radiant glory.» The words of this doxology (expression of praise to God): You are worthy of praise, honour and power do not come directly from Francis; they were taken by him from the book of Revelation by Saint John (Rv 4,11). This doxology was familiar to Francis. We find it in several passages of his writings, especially in his Praises to be said at all the Hours: You are worthy to receive praise and glory and honour and blessing…

«This first stanza of The Canticle of Brother Sun» writes Eloi Leclerc, «translates the upward movement of the soul of Francis toward the supreme objet of his desire, the only One worthy of praise. The only one within his capabilities, we are inclined to add, if the thrust of his soul did not clash here with profound consciousness, that which is expressed in the last verse of the stanza: and no human is worthy to mention Your name. Let us not take these word lightly, seeing in them a pious way of expressing oneself, a sort of pious exaggeration. They spring from an experience… And because all of us wretches and sinners are not worthy to pronounce Your name, writes Francis in his Earlier Rule. God has his own mystery that is beyond our understanding. The Most High does not exist on the same level as we do. No one can speak his mystery.» Give glory and eternal praise to the Lord! (Dan 3, 57)

Fr. Georges Morin ofm

Fr. Joachim Yeo Won Yoon

The Canadian Franciscans are the founders of the OFM Franciscan presence in Korea. The first missionaries arrived in Korea in 1937, and were then joined by friars from other countries. Friars Georges Morin and André Comtois were very active in Korea for many years, and are still in close relation with the Korean community in Montreal.

We extend a very warm welcome to our brother Joachim!

‘The NordiKebec’ encompasses, therefore, the regions of the North Shore, the northern section of Saguenay-Lac Saint-Jean, and the Nord-du-Quebec that includes the regions of James Bay and Nunavik.

This ‘Plan Nord’, was made known May 9, 2011, with the motto ‘To develop the North is also to protect it.’ It was presented as one of ‘the greatest economic, social, and environmental projects of our time.’ The environmental part of this Plan announced, in particular, ‘the reservation of 50% of the area of its territory to other than industrial purposes, for the protection of the environment and the protection of the biodiversity, that is, about 600,000 square kilometres.’ What a great plan! But, will it be fully realized?

We know this famous phrase of Michael Gorbatchev concerning the environment: « If we still want to save the world for future generations, we must all be converted. But we are converted only if we have a spirituality. » For us, disciples of Francis of Assisi, our conversion consists precisely in living the Franciscan spirituality of creation.

Instead of seeing creation simply as inanimate objects, to be used and exploited by us, humans, Saint Francis of Assisi considered the entire creation as a universal fraternity with its source in God.

Thus Francis called our planet ‘Sister Mother Earth.’ The earth provides for all our needs and is able to sustain with abundance all humans and other creatures of the earth. As a ‘Sister’ we have the responsibility to take care of the earth as we must take care of our natural sister. « Praised be You, my Lord, through our sister Mother Earth, who sustains and governs us, and who produces varied fruits with coloured flowers and herbs. »

To this stanza of praise of ‘The Canticle of Brother Sun’ we can, it seems to me, add a new word: Praised be You, my Lord, through our Sister Mother Earth ‘NordiKebec’.

Praised be you, my Lord, through our Sister Mother Earth ‘NordiKebec’ of the Côte Nord, a region characterized by the immensity of its territory and of the Saint Lawrence estuary, by the beauty of its flora and its gigantic marine mammals which can be observed from more than 400 kilometres of shoreline, by the monoliths of the Archipel-de-Mingan, with its strange, almost supernatural forms, and by the Island of Anticosti, ‘an island of beauty,’ the largest in Quebec, with a territory of 8,000 square kilometres of hunting and fishing.

« May the earth bless the Lord… And you, whales and beings of the sea, bless the Lord! »

Praised be You, my Lord, through our Sister Mother Earth ‘NordiKebec’ of Saguenay-Lac Saint-Jean, a country of blueberries, in other words, of these little very tasty blue fruits and which grow in abundance; a country of imaginative and colourful people who express their admiration for their land with expressions such as: « a lake as large as a sea, forest as far as one can see, mountains that touch the sky »; a country with an immense expanse of green divided by two unique water ways: the Saguenay River which flows in the bed of the only navigable fjord in North America, remarkable for its wild beauty and cliffs, and Lac Saint-Jean, a veritable interior sea of more than 35 kilometres in diameter, the largest inhabited lake in the whole of the Province.

« May the earth bless the Lord… And you, lakes and rivers, bless the Lord. »

Praised be You, my Lord, through our Sister Mother Earth ‘NordiKebec’ of James Bay, this territory situated between the 49th and 55th parallels where there is the boreal forest with its conifers and its broad-leafed trees becoming more rare and which gradually begins to blend with the taiga, the Siberian forest; wild territory where caribous abound by hundreds of thousands, while we lose count of all the migratory birds that adorn the sky and earth in season; a territory that witnessed an important gold rush and where we still find minerals such as silver, copper and zinc; a territory where numerous water ways can produce electricity in abundance by immense dams such as La Grande-2, the largest underground power station in the world.

« May the earth bless the Lord… And you, depths of the earth, bless the Lord. »

Praised be You, my Lord, through our Sister Mother Earth ‘NordiKebec’ of Nunavik, arctic region known for its magnificent landscapes where the wild tundra, the taiga and some boreal forests mostly made up of pines, spruce, poplars and larch; arctic region where roam hundred of thousands of caribous, polar bears and wolves; arctic region where even in summer the temperature is between 9 and 11 degrees centigrade, and still, the sun hardly sets, and where in winter, there are but a few hours of daylight that brings their share of cold and darkness; arctic region whose beauty we could sing to the tune of the song: ‘Mon pays ce n’est pas un pays, c’est l’hiver’ (My country is not a country, it is winter) of Gilles Vigneault, the singer of vast spaces and snow.

« May the earth bless the Lord… And you, ice and snow, bless the Lord! »

Fr. Georges Morin ofm

What a disappointment it would be for God, you, and all the people who would have been blessed if you’d stayed focused on your original purpose!

Today, make a list of things not-to-do in 2012. Fill your list with things you do that don’t match God’s purpose for your life or things you think you have to do but haven’t been told to do by God.

Ask God to clarify the things he wants you to do this year, and then ruthlessly move everything else onto your list of things not-to-do.

Then, ‘press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called you’ (Philippians 3:14).”
(Inspired by a reflection from John Walker)