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Peace and Justice - Winter 2008

Dear Friars,

I recently drove one of our Sri Lankan friars to visit his spiritual director at a Conventual retreat center far from the grit of north Minneapolis.� As we rode through the quiet neighborhood, I sited a birdbath statue of St. Francis on top of a rolling yard amid melting snow.� It caused me to consider what relevance birdbath St. Francis has for today�s world.

I�m not proud that my initial reaction was one of judgment: How can somebody reduce this man to a symbol of triteness and kitsch?� Yet there he was in the midst of this grey March day for this household.� Maybe the family would say this innocuous statue gives them hope after months of cold, dark days.� Maybe they would say this man is one for all seasons, connected to all creatures, in relation to all of creation, as he proclaimed in the lofty Canticle of the Creatures.

Maybe he is asking me how my relationships with other people, other creatures and the Earth are.� Although I know there is a long way to go with the relationships with other people, I think I am on the journey.� When it comes to the Earth, I may still be grasping for enlightenment.� When I read articles and books, such as the recent Care for Creation, a Franciscan spirituality of the earth, I know that I don�t walk the talk of my Franciscan charism.� How far I have to go in my conversion to live simply, sacrifice and do justice for our suffering planet.� How much do I consider the life of an earthworm when Francis saw it as sacred to the earth and God?� I wonder if Francis knew how integral to the soil that earthworm�s work was.

The food we buy and where we buy it are some examples of my disconnectedness.� I have grown accustomed, as has my culture, the authors say, of expecting and buying different foods throughout the year.� I rarely think about the thousands of miles and gallons of fuel my apple has to travel so I can enjoy it in January.� I just learned that the meat I and others around the world eat contributes more greenhouse gases than emissions from all the world�s cars and trucks.� Moreover, that meat takes 30 times more resources to produce than grain, upon which most of my brothers and sisters in the world subsist.

Francis didn�t contend with these ecological challenges but he showed in his poverty how to prepare for them.� His constant conversion to the Lord brought him deeper in dependence of and relationship to others and to the Earth itself.� �Once we begin to adopt Francis' worldview of our deep interrelatedness to all creation, and God incarnate in all living things, it is impossible to continue �business as usual,�� according to Care for Creation.

Conversion to poverty is conversion to justice, according to St. Bonaventure.� �Justice is right relationship,� says Care�s authors, �the sister of poverty because it acknowledges that nothing in this finite, earthly life truly belongs to any particular individual.�� I think in our present time we are called by our TOR charism of conversion to do justice and thereby build up those who suffer because of the destruction of the Earth.� Maybe the birdbath saint has moved my heart in a deeper way than I thought.� Yours, too?

Your brother in Christ and Francis,

John�������������������������������������������������������������������������������


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