From Our March 2018 Newsletter

Our March Gathering

We will hold our monthly gathering on Sunday, March 11th at 12:30 pm in Conway Hall. We will participate in ongoing formation, have some social time with our fraternal family, and then recite the Franciscan Crown Rosary and the Liturgy of the Hours.

Please do your best to arrive on time (or even a little early) so we can begin our gathering promptly at 12:30.

If you are unable to fulfill your obligation to attend the monthly meeting, please call Pat Simon at 610-352-5390

“And we will be involved in the monthly meeting as an act of worship and a building of community.”

~ The Lay Franciscan Monthly Pledge

Annual Fair Share

Please remember that this year’s Fairshare contribution of $30 is due by our March meeting.

The Fair Share is not meant to be a hardship on anyone. If your financial circumstances makes it difficult to contribute please let a council member know.

Clothing Drive

Consistent with our mission to spread love to all, we have committed our Fraternity to a clothing drive for the homeless. Please bring any old, discarded or unused clothing which you have or may secure. The clothing sorted, bagged, and taken to the Kensington homeless area for distribution.

St. Francis Inn Needs

• Deodorant
• Toothpaste
• Paper Towels
• Men’s (particularly boxers) & Women’s Underwear
• Men’s Shoes
• Diapers (especially 3T-4T & 4T-5T)
• Prayers

Prayer Petitions

Please contact Fran Urso at francesurs@aol.com or 610-202-8965 if you would like to include a petition in the newsletter. A new list will be generated  each month.

• Terri – conversion of family, healing and diagnostics for Marybeth
• Sue – Teresa’s recovery from surgery and Carols’s return to sacraments
• Marie – special intention to do God’s will for your family
• Ray J. – breathing problems
• Maryann S. – healing for liver cancer, healing of breast cancer
• Sean – healing
• Mary P.– healing
• J & R Norton – healing from brain tumor surgery
• Jeffrey – healing from Stage 4 cancer spread to liver, colon and lungs.
• M – prayers for strength and healing in the family

Formation Information

We have a special treat for our March ongoing formation session. Four of Br. Kip’s postulants will be joining us and they will share with us a reflection looking at the famous story of St. Francis and his meeting with the leper; a central event in his life and spiritual development.

Food for thought

The encounter with the leper made
St. Francis.

~  Mother Teresa

– – – – –

The poverty and deprivation Francis chooses to suffer for the rest of his life is really a kissing of the leper’s hand, a further putting on of the mind of Christ that enables Francis to become poor, to see the world as God sees it.

~ Murray Bodo, O.F.M.

– – – – –

Francis, in embracing the leper, demonstrates yet another example of breaking ties with his social class and previous worldview. It demanded something of him, more than he might have realized early on in his conversion experience. What would ultimately culminate with the public rejection of his father began with the smaller breaks with a way of life, with a culture, with a worldview that separated people from one another and supported a system of willful ignorance in the face of the plight of others.

What Francis reminds us today is that, in order to follow more perfectly the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ (as the Franciscan Rule begins), we might have to stand against our culture by standing with others, the lepers of today: the forgotten and the voiceless and the poor.

~  Daniel P. Horan, OFM, Embracing the Leper: Standing Against the Culture By Standing With Others