Fr. Massimo Fusarelli, the minister general of the OFM friars, began his General Chapter homily Nov. 16 by thanking the Lord “for the gift of your vocation as Secular Franciscans.”
The OFS is “in ordinary contact with people and situations in the world” – a calling to be “with and among people.”
Friar Massimo referred to a parable in the Gospel of Luke “about the need to pray always, without ever tiring.” He said it was not a matter of “saying prayers”, “but of nourishing faith through dialogue with the living God.”
Francis, he noted, was “a man made prayer”; that is, his whole life was a prayer.
“As Secular Franciscans, your prayer cannot but begin with the events of the world, of people, of their situations. It thus becomes intercession, because it puts you between heaven and earth, between men and God.”
He concluded by wishing the OFS to “be in the world a sign of the transforming power of the Gospel, of the tenderness that heals wounds and of the presence of God in creatures.”