From Our November 2019 Newsletter

Our Next Gathering

We will hold our monthly gathering on Sunday, November 10th. Please try to meet us in our regular meeting room at 11:15 so we can all attend 11:30 Mass together.

After an abbreviated formation session, Frank  will lead us in a remembrance of our fraternity’s beloved decease. We hope to return to having our traditional Mass of Remembrance in 2020.

We will then have some social time with our fraternal family, and then recite the Franciscan Crown Rosary and the Liturgy of the Hours.

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

Prayer Petitions

Please contact Fran Urso at francesurs@aol.com or 215-389-5854 if  you would like to include a petition in the newsletter. A new list will be generated each month.

• KL – Family conversion and healing
• TL – Spiritual healing. Dealing with illness
• Bill – Eye problems and surgery
• Terry. – full recovery from fall
• Bob. -Recovery from cancer
• Connie – Repose of soul
• Susie. – Repose of soul
• Vincent – For a good job
• Deborah – For better health and job
• Diane – Healing from cancer
• Carol – mental health
• Tom – Osteoarthritis
• Sandy -health
• Carol Jo and Terry – return to full health
• Mary – healing
• Young man with stomach cancer
• Grandchildren to be baptized
• Piccone family- health, strength and healing
• Antoinette – repose of her soul
• Michelle – healing of heart issues and anxiety
• Andrew – employment
• MM – family healing
• CC – Depression and spiritual awakening
• S. and J. O. – serious health issues
• S. and D. P. – serious health issues
• Irene Hockberg – recently deceased

St. Francis Inn Needs

• Men’s & Women’s Underwear (especially men’s boxer shorts) — All Sizes
• Men’s Shoes — All Sizes
• Baby Formula
• Powdered Milk
• Oatmeal (not instant or “one minute” please)
• Spray Air Freshener or Deodorizer
• Cleaning Supplies
• Spray cleaners (Lysol, Formula 409, disinfectants, cleanser, or similar items)
• Paper Towels
• Dish Towels
• Prayers

Formation Information

Br. Kip will be facilitating our November ongoing formation session. This month’s theme will be “The Franciscan Perspective of Purgatory.” To prepare, please read and think about the passage below taken from the Encyclical “Spe Salvi” by Benedict XVI.

If possible, Br. Kip also encourages us to read the entire Encyclical which can be found online  here: http://w2.vatican.va/content/benedict-xvi/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_ben-xvi_enc_20071130_spe-salvi.html or by searching in Google.

ENCYCLICAL LETTER SPE SALVI
OF THE SUPREME PONTIFF BENEDICT XVI

47. Some recent theologians are of the opinion that the fire which both burns and saves is Christ himself, the Judge and Saviour. The encounter with him is the decisive act of judgement. Before his gaze all falsehood melts away. This encounter with him, as it burns us, transforms and frees us, allowing us to become truly ourselves. All that we build during our lives can prove to be mere straw, pure bluster, and it collapses. Yet in the pain of this encounter, when the impurity and sickness of our lives become evident to us, there lies salvation. His gaze, the touch of his heart heals us through an undeniably painful transformation “as through fire”. But it is a blessed pain, in which the holy power of his love sears through us like a flame, enabling us to become totally ourselves and thus totally of God. In this way the inter-relation between justice and grace also becomes clear: the way we live our lives is not immaterial, but our defilement does not stain us for ever if we have at least continued to reach out towards Christ, towards truth and towards love. Indeed, it has already been burned away through Christ’s Passion. At the moment of judgement we experience and we absorb the overwhelming power of his love over all the evil in the world and in ourselves. The pain of love becomes our salvation and our joy. It is clear that we cannot calculate the “duration” of this transforming burning in terms of the chronological measurements of this world. The transforming “moment” of this encounter eludes earthly time-reckoning—it is the heart’s time, it is the time of “passage” to communion with God in the Body of Christ.