Franciscan Friars Third Order Regular |

Letter of the Minister General and TOR General Council

to all the Franciscan
Brothers and Sisters
of the Third Order Regular

Letter of the Minister General and General Council to all the Brothers and Sisters of the Third Order Regular of Saint Francis on the Occasion of the Solemnity of Easter 2007

PATRON OF OUR ORDER

We send greetings and best wishes to you as we prepare to celebrate the Holy Solemnity of Easter in this year of grace, 2007. We would also like to share with you some of the gifts we have received as a result of a special day of study of Saint Elizabeth, Patron of our Order, during this 8^th Centenary year of her birth. The study day, or convegno, was successfully carried out in Rome on February 23 and 24, 2007.

Among the numerous representations of St. Elizabeth in the iconographic exhibition that is currently on display in the courtyard of Sts. Cosmas and Damian in Rome there is one that shows her with three crowns in her hand or hovering above the ground next to her. These three crowns most likely refer to three important periods in her life: wife, widow, and consecrated woman. In each of these periods Elizabeth provides a wonderful witness that demonstrates the variety of expressions of the Franciscan charism.

With the contribution of a number of excellent studies on the international level, we have come to a more profound knowledge of our Holy Patron. For example, it is a historic fact that the Franciscans from Assisi who had settled in Eisenach, Germany, had a strong influence on the Landgraves of Turingia - Elizabeth and Ludwig - especially in regard to their penitential and charitable works. For example, the early sources point out that Elizabeth came to realize that a life of poverty sums up the Gospel message. This provided a profound answer to the deep desires of her soul. From then on her fascination with poverty became a continuous theme in her life. Above all, it aroused in her an intense feeling of justice towards her subjects and for the poor. For the rest of her life Elizabeth carried this desire in her heart and, in obedience to its impulses, she wished to go begging door to door. What a sign of total abandonment to Providence!

Even though they focus on Elizabeth, the historical documents place in clear relief that she shared the ideals of poverty even with her husband Ludwig. He also was profoundly Christian and participated in the mysteries of the cross even to the point of traveling to Jerusalem in order to recover the tomb of Christ. His trip to the earthly Jerusalem was unfortunately cut short by his death, but he continued on to the heavenly Jerusalem by way of the sanctity of his life.

For the Princess Elizabeth two of the crowns symbolize her condition of a wife and mother, and then as a widow.

In his magnificent work �The Legend of Saint Elizabeth� (Die Legende von der Heiligen Elisabeth) the composer Franz Lizt, using poetic license in regard to historic truth, musically expresses the drama of the existential change of the Princess Elizabeth, the mother of three children, as she is forced to leave the court following the death of her husband with no where to go.

The historians in the recent convegno in Rome stated that, in this decisive stage in her life of extreme poverty, Elizabeth found herself naturally close to the Franciscans. Together they joyfully sang the �Te Deum� and she gave herself to spinning wool for the habits of the friars. She had formally tied herself to obedience to her director, Conrad, because she knew him as a poor secular priest. Now, after her expulsion from the castle, she solemnly vowed herself to the evangelical counsels of poverty, chastity, and obedience in the Franciscan church in Eisenach as a �soror in saeculo� - a sister in the world.

The third symbolic crown refers to her state of life in which Elizabeth is totally consecrated to God and to her neighbor. With the dowry that was returned to her she built the hospital in Marburg and placed it under the protection of St. Francis of Assisi.

Her state of consecration as a �soror in saeculo� - a sister in the world - prefigures the Franciscans of the Third Order of Penance, both Secular and Regular.

St. Elizabeth is the Patron of both the Third Order Regular and the Secular Franciscan Order. These two components of the Franciscan family share a common birth and a common history and indicate a direction for us even today that is in accord with the expectations of the Church.

For instance, we often hear that today is the time of the laity. However, the faithful lay Christian struggles to emerge as a subject in the Church, able to deal with the temporal realities according to his or her secular state with competence and autonomy as a true �administrator of the gifts of God.� The Third Order of Penance, both in its Secular and Regular expressions, has a great history in this regard. Based on this common history, we have a lot we can share with the laity - and with the clergy - in the Church of the 21^st century.

As TORs, other than the works of mercy in which we are already involved, we called to promote the lay Franciscan faithful with assistance that is suitable and well prepared. In this way, we will be able to realize an important element of our own vocation and mission.

The General Council is concluding its mandate during the important celebration of the 8^th Centenary of the birth of one of the Patron Saints of the Order, St. Elizabeth.

As we send you our best wishes for a Blessed Easter of 2007, and as we ask your forgiveness for any omissions on our part in our service to you, we invoke the protection of our Holy Patron for each brother and sister, for all our Provinces, Vice Provinces, and Delegations - and for our presence in the world.

We give thanks and praise to the Lord for the immense good that He has accomplished throughout history in the name of St. Elizabeth of Hungary and of Turingia.

PATRON OF OUR ORDER

Miniser General Vicar General

Corpus Izquierdo Barrero, TOR Matthew Puthenparambil, TOR