Profiles in Catholicism

May 1118 min read

The Franciscans

Updated: Oct 11

A Message from the Editor

I love the Franciscans. I attended two of their retreats and took my sheepdog Mashugana who I loved dearly to one of their animal blessings.

I nearly cried when I learned that South Dakota Republican Kristi Noem killed her 14 month old dog. Now she wants to kill President Joe Biden’s dog. I cannot understand how anyone could murder a dog.

I am asking our readers to pray for an end to animal abuse. A survey of psychiatric patients who had repeatedly tortured dogs and cats found that all of them had high levels of aggression toward people as well, including one patient who had murdered a boy. To researchers, a fascination with cruelty to animals is a red flag in the lives of serial rapists and killers.

The adage silence is golden is not applicable to child sexual abuse as Father Shay Cullen points out in his article Clerical child abuse, a shocked President and a silent Church, The Vatican to be more aggressive in preventing child sexual abuse through screenings. more effective tests. and routine screening of priests in parishes.

A Quotation to Remember

“Do few things but do them well, simple joys are holy.”

by Saint Francis of Assisi

Prayers

Prayer for vocations to the Franciscan Order

“Lady Poverty”

Dear Lord, St. Francis suffered the sufferings of Christ and simplified his life to the point of almost perpetual penance.

But yet, unlike us, he was happy without a car, the internet,

television, a phone, perhaps because he saw the twin poverty

of low wages to make many more products and the effect of

being distracted by a lot of possessions that possess our time.

Nevertheless, Lord, St. Francis inspires us in the garden with

reusing the many plastic boxes, whether for grapes, strawberries,

or slices of chicken, to protect the vegetable seeds growing in

the old ice-cream tubs, yoghurt pots, and even proper plant pots.

As a family of ten, Mary, we use and reuse clothes and toys,

play-time in the parks, on walks, in the woods, marvelling, even

now at the many and diverse shapes and sizes of leaves, and dots

of colour even in the familiar candle-blossoms of the conker tree.

Growing, as our children do, and outgrowing the garden, the

yard and edge of the grass begin to be places to grow our own

runner beans, lettuce, garlic, tomatoes, and courgettes, in boxes

used for recycling, old bins and buckets, now full of fruit skins.

Dear Mary, how you must have mended and darned, sewed and

cut, cloth and old clothes, woven or skin, that made and remade

what your family wore as they grew and worked and toiled in

the heat, drying out what was already dry, oiled and cracking.

In your trade, St. Joseph, were you able to keep the scraps of

wood to burn for warmth in the cold nights or for cooking? Or

did you even save the scraps and make a toy, a stool, a table,

for use at home or to earn a little extra at the maker’s market?

So now, when I mend a shelf or even the car, though cars were

not of your time, still I ask and even beg for help, to keep it on a

wall a bit longer or on the road another year, although the time

is coming when we will need to pray for more than we can earn.

Dear St. Joseph, keep those that abound across the global world, scarcely scrabbling for the minerals needed by the latest smart cars, costing more than a housing estate and earning and selling for

more than a million times more than the scrabblers in the dirt.

Oh Holy Family, you know what you needed to live and you lived for busy in others and hunted, like an animal, for all that can be sold more

than shared, robbed more than farmed, is still here to grow and feed.

by Francis Etheredge Profiles Catholicism

Prayer of Saint Francis of Assisi

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 console;

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;

And it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.

Amen.

by Franciscan Sisters of Perpetual Adoration

A Prayer for Lara Al-Sayegh

Dear loving and watchful God who never abandons us, we see these heartbreaking stories emerging from the war in Gaza. Among the stories is the death of a young Catholic woman named Lara Al-Sayegh. The 19-year-old Gazan perished while fleeing with her mother from the northern Gaza Strip to the south in a desperate attempt to reach Egypt and find safe haven. In many ways, Jesus, she was running after you, in your goodness, mercy and love. She was a Catholic girl who knew that Jesus would be with her in this horrible struggle. Midway through their arduous journey, Al-Sayegh succumbed to severe fatigue, lack of water, and fatal heatstroke. Just as you suffered on your way to the cross. Tragically, her father had already been lost during the war when he died at Gaza’s Latin Holy Family Church due to a lack of adequate medical care. May you welcome the family into your eternal rest, a loving place for this Holy Family. We ask you this through the unity of Our Father, His Son and the Holy Spirit.

by Eileen Quinn Knight, Ph.D. Profiles in Catholicism

A Prayer to Prevent Antisemitism

Lord God, through the covenant you established with the Jewish People, we Christians have been grafted into this covenantal tradition according to St. Paul. But very often throughout history, we have shown ourselves ungrateful for this gift given us through Jesus who imbued in his teachings this Jewish covenantal tradition through acts of antisemitism. We join with Popes St. John Paul II and Francis in confessing our sins of antisemitism past and present. Through this prayer, we commit ourselves to the elimination of any remaining anti-Semitic teachings in the Catholic community and pledge to add our public voice in denouncing any manifestations of antisemitism in contemporary society. We ask your blessing so that we may have the strength to fulfill this pledge we make in your presence.

by John T. Pawlikowski, OSM, Profiles in Catholicism

A Prayer for Murdered Police Officer Luis Huesca

Good and gracious God,

As a Professor of many men who looked similar to Luis Huesca, my heart cries out with disbelief and sadness. This man coming home from work was brutally gunned down. Lord, this is so difficult as we look at Luis and see the sweetness of God swelling within him. Lord, help his Mother and his uncle to open their hearts to the forgiveness required of each of us. Help us all to forgive and find a way to live in peace with one another. We are taking the seriousness of life with respect to every living creature. Help us to see Luis Huesca as a man of valor in the police department. Help us to send our love to his family and friends as they try to understand your will for us to live in peace.

by Eileen Quinn Knight, Ph.D. Profiles in Catholicism

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Franciscan Interviews