Transforming Tension, Choosing Love

This Living Franciscan post is written by Michelle L'Allier, OSF


Holy Week is filled with the unexpected: from the jubilation of Palm Sunday to the suffering and death of Jesus on Good Friday; from the darkness of waiting and uncertainty of Holy Saturday to the joy of Easter Resurrection. In Mathew’s Passion narrative, we hear Jesus praying in the Garden of Gethsemane “My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me; yet, not as I will, but as you will.” Jesus, fully human as well as fully divine, transformed his anguish into acceptance. Ronald Rolheiser speaks of Jesus purifying sin and tension by absorbing and transforming it…taking in hatred, holding it, transforming it, and giving back love…taking in fear, holding it, transforming it, and giving back freedom.

The Sacred Path

We as Franciscan Sisters of Little Falls are on our own journey of transformation. This blog post began long before Holy Week when I was walking on the Sacred Path at Clare’s Well (shown above), remembering the Legislative Session of our Delegate Assembly. This is once-every-five years gathering is a time when we come together as Franciscan Sisters to consider in a spirit of prayer God’s call and our response to the needs of the times. At our February Legislative Session we wrestled with the opportunities and challenges we face as we consider our limited resources, wide-ranging experiences and rich spiritual heritage. Blessed with faith and gifted companions for the journey, we vision and plan together for the future with hope. At our February meeting we also affirmed our call to continued conversation of community life in the 21st Century and to explore forms of governance that more fully reflect values of collegiality and shared responsibility.

Earlier this month we had the Election Session of our Delegate Assembly during which we elected a new Leadership Team. We listened to the movements of God’s Spirit in our midst and in our own hearts and chose a team of four Sisters who will be entrusted with leading us as a community for the next five years. Of this time, Jan described a metaphor of the kitchen  for our community, the hearth of the home is where we prepare food to nourish one another and others; it is where we sip from comforting and at times contentious cups of coffee, all the while staying at the table. It is a pertinent image for these times. Whether considering choices regarding the future of a community such as ours or perhaps significant personal and family decisions, or whether it means moving forward in the midst of a polarized political climate, the model of listening deeply and staying at the table until tension is transformed is an example of fidelity to love.

May we in this Holy Week follow Jesus as he shows us the way to absorb, purify and transform tension and sin rather than simply transmit them.

 Spring’s new life transforms remnants of fall and winter.

How is it in your kitchen?

We Franciscan Sisters of Little Falls gathered April 8 - 10 to elect new leadership. Our choice of leaders for the next five years was grounded in understanding we have a lot of work to do at this time in the history of our world, church, and religious life.

See the FSLF website for election results.

As we met around tables discerning who God might be calling to lead us from 2011 - 2016, our facilitator, Sister Marie Chiodo, said we reminded her of a kitchen. A kitchen connotes warmth, nourishment, sharing everyday basics, looking out for each other, tending the farm, arguing over cups of coffee which keep us at the table through contention and through comfort. "Is that roast done yet?"

"Stay in the kitchen," Marie said. We must stay at the table together. We are at the time of "not done yet." Doing the master planning that we must do is only setting the table. For the main course, we need to continue to grapple with the deeper meaning of religious life -- the deeper meaning of obedience in mission and community together. The kitchen table holds our prayer, memories, struggles, doubts and hopes for the future. How is it in your kitchen?

Where is it that we gather with equal voice sharing in decisions? It is right here. Staying at the table, we will arrive one day over cups of coffee at a table now set, the elusive master plan having grown organically from who we are. Will that roast be ready to serve?

I Thought of St. Francis Today

There is hardly a day goes by that I don't think of Francis -- living with Franciscan Sisters brings many reasons to remember him. Our shared prayer includes readings either from his writings or from someone writing about him. Living in the beauty of rural Minnesota is another way of connecting with this saint's unique appreciation of the natural and wild. Another attribute of Francis is his faithfulness. Once he turned his face toward God, he never turned back. Speaking of faithfulness, the return of spring speaks to me of fidelity - God's and Earth's. No matter how long winter is and how deep the snow, I know spring will come again. And, sure enough, it has. It's here! This gift of seasons cycling around with such predictability and refreshment brings a certain recovery of that spiritual ability to see and hear what Francis (and Clare) saw in their ecstacy when they considered the wonder of God incarnate on Earth. God is faithful. My heart feels more joy than it has since January. The trees are full of noisy off-key red-winged black birds and Francis is right there playing his two-stick violin with them.

Hungry for Light?

I don't know if anyone has noticed, but this blog hasn't been updated for a long time. My excuse is low energy and some negative feelings about winter: this winter has been exceptionally dark. The lack of light, the many days in a row of overcast skies would put me in the poor house if my living depended on writing.

Have any of you also been hungry for light? You know how we sometimes say things are as different as night from day? Night's not so bad. Night is supposed to be dark. The lack of light in daytime is something else.

St. Francis sang a Canticle to the Creatures, beginning with gratitude for Brother Sun. He must have longed to see light even more than I do: he was blind when he wrote:

Be praised, my Lord, by all your creature world,

and first of all by Brother Sun,

who brings the day and light you give to us through him.

And beautiful he is, agleam with mighty splendor;

of you, Most High, he gives us indication!

Amen.

Deep Bonds Help Navigate

Change is both exciting and terrifying. I experienced both feelings during our delegate assembly meetings in Little Falls last week. Our Franciscan Community forsees a future marked by fewer members and fewer material resources. We've been preparing for these changes; this meeting helps us continue to prepare for them. We understand being small and poor is not a bad outlook for Franciscans following Christ. The trust in the assembly room was tangible even though we don't have all the answers.

One resource I became more deeply aware of as I looked over the gathered congregation in our chapel is just how powerful is the gift of our relationship with each other: these women are as truly sister to me as are my own blood family members. We are siblings in the best sense of the word. Our history is filled with shared experiences of life, death and finding the way through previous large changes. I know we can count on our relationship with each other to help us faithfully navigate the changes yet to come.

The Journey Into God

I was privileged to spend a week of solitude in retreat the end of January. An annual (at least) spiritual retreat is one of the perks of being a Franciscan Sister. For my guide and nourishment for prayer this year, I took notes and a book from a previous retreat I had made with Josepf Raischl and Andre Cirino, both of whom are Franciscan. Their book, The Journey into God, is based on St. Bonaventure's work, The Journey of the Human Person into God. Joseph and Andre provide reflections and exercises which are very helpful in unpacking the depth of wisdom Bonaventure shares.

The Journey takes the one desiring God from the signs of Goodness and Beauty in creation, through those mirrors of God found in our own memory, intellect and desires, and beyond through what we might know of Grace, Truth, Being in contemplation. I am grateful for the time to be with God in this way.