IN EXILE
By Father Ron Rolheiser, OMI
Something in us is dissatisfied with the ordinary. There’s something in the ordinary that can have us think that predictable routines, domestic rhythms and commitment to duty can weigh us down, swallow us up and anchor us outside the more rewarding waters of passion, romance, creativity, dance and celebration.

We often vilify the ordinary. I remember a young woman, a student of mine, who shared in class that her greatest fear in life was to succumb to the ordinary, “to end up content, a little housewife and mother, happily doing laundry commercials!”

If you’re an artist or have an artistic temperament, you’re prone to this kind of feeling. That’s one of the propensities of an artist. Doris Lessing, for example, once made the comment that George Eliot could have been a better writer “if she hadn’t been so moral.” What Lessing is suggesting is that Eliot kept herself too anchored in the ordinary, too safe, too secure, too far from the edges.

Kathleen Norris, in her biographical work “The Virgin of Bennington,” shares how as a young writer she fell victim to this kind of ideology: “Artists, I believed were much too serious to live sane and normal lives. Driven by inexorable forces in an uncaring world, they were destined for an inevitable, sometimes deadly, but always ennobling wrestle with gloom and doom.”

An ennobling wrestle with gloom and doom! That does have a seductive sound to it, particularly for those of us who fancy ourselves as artistic, intellectual or spiritual. That’s why on a given day any of us can feel a certain condescending pity for those who achieve simple happiness. Easy for them, we think, but they’re selling themselves short! That’s the artist inside of us speaking. You’ve never seen an artist doing a laundry commercial!

Don’t get me wrong. Not all of this is bad. Jesus, himself, said that we do not live by bread alone. No artist needs that explained. He or she knows that safe routine, dram duty, and a mortgage that’s been paid, alone do not necessarily make for heaven. We need bread, but we also need beauty, color and celebration.

Doris Lessing, who was a great artist, joined the communist party as a young woman but later left it after she’d matured. Why did she leave? One phrase says it all. She left the communist party, she says, “because they didn’t believe in color!”

Life, Jesus assures us, is not meant to be lived in black and white, that is, as simply an endless cycle of rising, showering, going off to work, responsibly doing a job, coming home, having supper, getting things set for the next day and then going back to bed.

And yet, there is much to be said for that seemingly dram routine. The rhythm of the ordinary is, in the end, the deepest wellspring from which to draw joy and meaning. Kathleen Norris, after telling us about her youthful temptation to side-step the ordinary to engage in the more ennobling battle with gloom and doom, shares how a wonderful mentor, Betty Kray, helped steer her clear of that pitfall. Kray encouraged her to write out of her joy as well as her gloom and to “dismiss the romance of insanity as a sham.” As Norris puts it: “She tried hard to convince me of what her friends who had been institutionalized for madness knew all too well: that the clean simple appreciation of ordinary, daily things is a treasure like none on earth.”

Sometimes a different mentor teaches us this. When we regain our health and energy after having been ill, off work, and out of our normal routines and rhythms, nothing is as sweet as returning to the ordinary – our work, our routine, the normal stuff of everyday life. Only after it has been taken away and then given back, do we realize that the clean, simple appreciation of daily things is the ultimate treasure.

Artists, though, are still partially right. The ordinary can weigh us down, and keep us outside the deeper waters of creativity, of romance, of color, and of the wildness that lets us dance. But, that being admitted, anchors and weight also have a positive function. They keep us from being swept away. They anchor our sanity. They keep us steady. The rhythm of the ordinary is perhaps the most powerful anchor of all to hold us in sanity.

Paul Simon, in a 1970s song entitled, “An American Tune,” sings about coping with confusion, mistakes, betrayal, and other events that shatter our innocence. And he ends that rather sad ballad quite peacefully with the words: “Still tomorrow’s gonna be another working day, and I’m trying to get some rest. That’s all I’m trying, is to get some rest.”

Obedience to that imperative helps anchor our sanity. There’s much to be said about being a contented, ordinary person, anchored in the rhythms of the ordinary, trying at the end of the workday to get some rest.

(Oblate Father Ron Rolheiser is a professor of spirituality at Oblate School of Theology and award-winning author.)

KNEADING FAITH
By Dr. Fran Lavelle, D. Min.
Simply put, change is inevitable. Whether we like it or not the Church is a microcosm of society, not the other way around. Tension comes when we are too focused on the past and unwilling to face the unknown future. There is a growing movement within the Church to return to the past. It is natural to long for the past, especially when it comes to things we find comfort in.

However, I am reminded of a good friend of mine from Starkville who would often say that the work of the Holy Spirit is constantly moving forward. When we long for the past by remembering simpler time, we must ask ourselves, “simpler for whom?”

Stepping into a new way of doing things always brings some cause for pause – or at least it should. Over the course of the past several years we have been re-evaluating how the offices of the Department of Faith Formation serve the people of God in the Diocese of Jackson.

If we are to be aware of the needs of God’s holy people, we need to listen first. Three synodal experiences in the last decade played a huge role in preparing for synodality and reimagining. They are – Christus Vivit (Francis, Pope, 2019), Fratelli Tutti (Francis, Pope, 2020), and Let Us Dream (Francis, Pope, 2022).
In October 2016 Pope Francis announced the Synod on Young People, Faith, and Vocational Discernment. The process culminated with writing an apostolic exhortation, Christus Vivit, (Christ Lives) to young people and all people of God. Christus Vivit was published in 2019.

I asked several of my co-workers in the chancery if they would be interested in reading the document together and meeting for coffee. I invited Bishop Kopacz to join us. Catholic schools, youth ministry, faith formation, and the bishop’s office were on board. The Literati was formed. Processing the outcomes but also the structure of Christus Vivit was my first encounter with an intentional synodal process. As it turned out it was not my last.

From our gatherings we decided to focus on the outcomes of Christus Vivit for our diocesan Fall Faith Formation Day in August that year. Sharing the document and the spirit of that synod was another foreshadowing of the work I would undertake in the Synod on Synodality a few years later.

The second experience with Pope Francis’ synodal way came with the publication of the encyclical letter, Fratelli Tutti on Fraternity and Social Friendship in October 2020. We gathered the Literati again and embarked on yet another journey into the heart and mind of Pope Francis. The timing of this encyclical given the backdrop of COVID-19 and the unimaginable social unrest was intended to call humanity to unity. The impact of the letter was short lived, but it was foundational in developing my understanding of Pope Francis’ pontificate and his vision for the Church.

“You become a person only when you are capable of standing open to all the gifts which are prepared for you.” – Henri Nouwen
The third gathering of the Literati was in February 2021 for the book, Let Us Dream: The Path to a Better Future, published in December 2020. By far the most difficult of the three documents we had read together, Let Us Dream focused on the reality of our brokenness.

Pope Francis, as was his style, did not shy away from difficult issues like the divisiveness of our politics, the disparities in healthcare seen around the globe with the raging pandemic, and the grip that the sin of racism still has on so many in the Church. While Pope Francis exposed our disturbing reality, he also offered hope. In Let Us Dream, he refers to the events that occur “at the crossroads of life, at moments of openness, fragility, and humility, when the ocean of [God’s] love bursts the dams of our self-sufficiency, and so allows for a new imagination of the possible.” It was that hope that fueled the processes the diocese has undertaken since the Synod on Synodality.

Because we have witnessed and embraced the crossroads of life, reimagining has been made possible. The Bishop William R. Houck Center for Lay Formation is one example of synodal listening and embracing a new direction. So too the reimagined Pastoral Ministries Workshop has taken us from a way of being that served the Church for over twenty years to a new format that is designed to address the current reality of parish formation leaders.

Pope Leo said it best, “For where there is the Spirit, there is movement, a journey to be made. We are a people on the move” Vatican, Homily of the Holy Father Leo XIV, Vigil of Pentecost, 7 June 2025. Let’s continue to move forward – together.

(Dr. Fran Lavelle is the director of faith formation for the Diocese of Jackson.)

FROM THE HERMITAGE
By sister alies therese
There is a certain passion that comes when we express ourselves; our body language completes the story. ‘Bless your heart’ – a known southern expression – means several different things depending upon inflection and the glint in the eye.

Abigail Adams, wife of our second president, in a 1774 letter to her husband remarked: “We have too many high-sounding words, and too few actions that correspond to them.” In 1776 she wrote in another letter: “In the new code of laws which I suppose it will be necessary for you to make, I desire you would remember the ladies and be more generous and favorable to them than you ancestors.” A wise and educated woman such as herself was quite clear that action on the part of the founders required them to widen their scope and put into play the doing of the words they would write.

Author, Louisa May Alcott, wrote in Little Women: “I like good strong words that mean something.”
And this is the point: actions speak louder than words. Our world is full of words at the moment – words that spew hate and disagreement, which create unrest and confusion, which bring us to weep as they chill us to the bone. No matter what the channel or screen, news in some fashion causes us to need stomach medicine! The actions (or lack of) stare us in the face. What shall I do?

Words, on the other hand, also provide us with opportunities to encourage and communicate hope. They offer us an outlet for our deepest feelings of love and wonder. We see this in the Scriptures, and we learn to act as God acts.

God, it seems to me, is particularly fond of verbs. God loves words that invite and compel us to be about something, something that is good.

Take a quick look at the letter of St. James: “God wills to bring us to birth with a word spoken in truth…” (1:18); “Humbly welcome the word that has taken root in you with its power to save. Act on this word…” (1:22ff). And there is more. James is quite clear about the power of the tongue and the word and the actions that might flow from them.

I was amazed at how many kinds of verbs there are. You will remember from grammar studies I’m sure, but here is a tiny review from Merriam-Webster – verbs show actions (to sing), occurrences (to develop) and the state of being (to exist). Those are the basics but look here: there are action verbs, helping verbs, modal auxiliaries, linking verbs, phrasal, verb sap, and pro-verbs! No wonder English proves difficult for so many.

God works in verbs and if you take a look at Isaiah, you will find the following: “I have formed you, blotted out, redeemed; I am the Lord who stretches, spreads, frustrates, drives, turns, makes, confirms, performs, says, raises you, dries you, and builds you.” (44:24ff) That’s a lotta verbs. In fact, we are told in St. John: “in the beginning was the Word … the Word became flesh.” (Jn1:1ff) That is serious action!

All throughout the scriptures, God and the people converse. Words are used to form bonds and covenants. Equally and sadly, the people become used to lying and creating distrust. Over and over God invites the people … over and over they say they will do right – and they don’t.

Consider this in 2 Kings 22:3ff: “when the King heard the words of the Book of the Law he tore his clothes; our fathers have not obeyed the words of the Book; concerning the words you have heard. … I will gather you … they brought the word back to the king.” The Covenant was restored by the word.

Paula Fox in Western Wind, wrote the following, “You can’t take words back … they sit there like big damp frogs.” Alas, many times have I hoped I could take back something I said, willingly or unwillingly. But no, those words got stuck and did not move. Often it meant being misunderstood, other times the words were harsh and hurt. Even if apologies are accepted, sometimes the words are not forgotten.

God invites us into an ongoing conversation leading to actions that build up the common good, indeed the “Kin-dom.” When we speak, sing or write; words express our hopes and fears. Perhaps that is why God chose a whole library (the Bible) full of words as the way to send us love letters … to instruct in God’s ways, to introduce us to Jesus?

Further in Isaiah (51:1ff) we hear: “Listen to Me, look to the Rock; Listen to Me, give ear; Listen to Me, do not fear; You are My people.” We hear the Word of God to be challenged, lifted up – loved.

So, take almost any part of Scripture and read the verbs – see what God is asking, teaching, promising. Be alert to the words that catch your heart and see how they invite you to a deeper relationship with God.

“My child, keep my words. And treasure My commands and live … O children, listen to Me, be attentive to My words … let not your heart turn … do not go astray.” (Prv 7:1-2; 24)

Our God is a doing God – who calls us with words of wisdom, power and truth and acts on them. Let us receive these living words and put them into action by turning them into fire for the good of the Kin-dom.

“That night Bobby and Jamie had flung words into the darkness, and, like fireworks, the words had burst and showered their future with light.” (Jerry Spinelli, The Library Card)

Blessings.

(sister alies therese is a canonical hermit who prays and writes.)

IN EXILE
By Father Ron Rolheiser, OMI
Darkness is only bad because there is light. Sin can only happen if first there is love.

Karl Rahner makes a very insightful comment about the text in the Gospels where Jesus is being crucified and says of his executioners: “Forgive them Father for they know not what they do!”

Rahner suggests that they knew exactly what they were doing. They knew they were putting an innocent man to death, that they were shedding innocent blood. So why does Jesus say what he said?

What was their innocence? What was their naivete?

Rahner’s answer: They didn’t know what they were doing because they didn’t know how much they were loved. And that can make for a naivete of the heart. How so?

There’s a place inside us, a place of which we are rarely consciously aware, where each of us is being held unconditionally in love by God. The people who crucified Jesus didn’t know what they were doing because they weren’t aware of that. That was their blindness, their ignorance. Despite what it looks like on the surface, they didn’t know what they were doing.

This is also true for us. Far too often we crucify others and ourselves because of this ignorance: we don’t know how much we are loved. Consequently, we’re sometimes cruel in our judgments and prone to do things which compromise our dignity. We struggle not to be one of the executioners at the crucifixion because, at the end of the day, we are acting out of ignorance. We don’t know any better, like the naivete of the child who hurts herself in ignorance.

But this isn’t a new insight.

Theology has classically drawn a distinction between culpable and inculpable ignorance. The latter, also called invincible ignorance, was seen to excuse one from sin and responsibility. Hence, there was the teaching that you could do things that were wrong but not sinful because you were acting in ignorance. This was predicated on the belief that you could act morally and responsibly only if you actually knew what you were doing. To sin, you had to act “knowingly.” Granted, that’s a tricky caveat.

However, looking at our world today, I would risk saying that in a number of important moral matters, we are acting in invincible ignorance. Simply put, we don’t know any better. Only the type of ignorance that allowed sincere people to crucify Jesus can explain why we, good and sincere people, can be so massively blind, communally and individually, to the poor, to the economic and social demands made by our faith. The real reason we can live so comfortably as the gap between the rich and the poor widens is not because we are bad and without conscience, but rather, as Rahner says, we don’t know how much we are loved.

The same holds true for our attitude towards sex. We have been able to trivialize sex, split it off from the sacredness of marriage, and turn it into an extension of dating (or simply recreational sex) only because of a certain invincible ignorance. We don’t know any better, not because we lack conscience, but because we lack any real sense of the deep love of God and the dignity it gives us.
Like Jesus’ executioners, we have an astounding capacity to rationalize, trivialize and compensate precisely because we don’t know what we’re doing. We don’t have a conscious sense of God’s love for us. Hence, it’s easy to lose perspective, feel excluded, and do things that we would never do if we were more aware of our full dignity.

Small wonder we settle for second-best or for most anything that promises comfort and security. Jesus, no doubt, is looking at us and saying: “Forgive them Father for they know not what they do!”

But is that true? Can we really plead ignorance and innocence and say that we don’t know any better?

I say yes, though it’s not that we’re stupid or lack intelligence. This is a naivete of the heart. We are inculpably unaware of how much God loves us.

Too few of us, at any existential level, have ever heard God say to us: “I love you!” Too few of us have ever heard felt what Jesus must have felt at his baptism when he heard his Father say: “You are my beloved child; in you I take delight!” Indeed, too few of us have ever heard another person, soul to soul, say to us, I love you unconditionally! In you I take delight! Is it a surprise then that, like Jesus’ executioners, we have an amazing capacity, in good conscience, to sometimes be blind and not true to ourselves?

Darkness is only bad because there is light. Sin can only happen if first there is love. Betrayal is only possible if first one has heard the words: “I love you.” Jesus’ executioners acted in a darkness that came from never having heard that. The same, I suspect, is true for many of us.

(Oblate Father Ron Rolheiser is a professor of spirituality at Oblate School of Theology and award-winning author.)

REFLECTIONS ON LIFE
By Melvin Arrington
Several weeks ago the U.S. government began releasing previously classified documents concerning unidentified flying objects, or UFOs, a move that has sparked renewed interest in the question of whether there is intelligent life beyond the planet we call home.

The fact that UFOs are once again in the news takes me back to the era of Sputnik, when rocket launches and speculation on aliens from other galaxies visiting Earth triggered the imagination of children of my generation and filled our heads with dreams of future space travel.

When I was a child, I enjoyed watching TV programs about rocket ships and alien worlds. One of my favorites was the old 1930s Flash Gordon movie serials that often ran on TV in those days. And my reading material of choice was science fiction comic books. Well into adulthood I still believed and hoped that someday, someplace, our space explorations would eventually discover other planets inhabited by scientifically advanced peoples.

However, as I got older and, I hope, wiser, my childhood notions gradually developed into more mature thinking. Now, I’m fairly confident that planet Earth is the only place in the known universe capable of sustaining higher life forms. But occasionally uncertainty creeps in, as on that afternoon a few years ago when, while driving to work, I actually saw a UFO in broad daylight.

To clarify, I saw some type of thin, oblong-shaped object moving along in the sky that I couldn’t identify, a description that seems to fit the definition of a UFO. Whatever it was, I doubt it was an alien spacecraft. It was probably just a fast-moving cloud illuminated by rays of sunlight, which would explain its unusually bright and shiny glow. Or maybe not. Who knows?

The major consideration that changed my mind about life beyond our planet was my discovery of the astonishing level of fine-tuning that went into the creation of the universe. The Great Designer has fashioned everything with such amazing precision that living things not only survive on Earth but flourish. He has arranged all the necessary elements to just the right degree and in the exact position that even the slightest variation in any one of these factors – for example, electromagnetism, the force of gravity, or the speed of light – would so disrupt this delicate balance that our planet would cease to exist.

According to Francis Collins, who headed the Human Genome Project and served as director of the National Institutes of Health, “The chance that all of these constants would take on the values necessary to result in a stable universe capable of sustaining complex life forms is almost infinitesimal. And yet those are exactly the parameters that we observe.” In other words, God made a perfect world for us to live in, the only such place throughout all the galaxies, and He created it only for us and for no one else. So, in that sense, we truly are alone in the vastness of the universe.

But just because I no longer believe in aliens traveling to Earth in UFOs doesn’t mean I think we should feel abandoned in the cosmos. God created us and placed us here to be in communion with Him and with one another. However, there are a lot of lonely elderly people who have no one to love them or even think about them. I know many nursing home residents who have been discarded by their families. In most cases, someone just dropped them off at the nursing facility the same way people leave dogs at animal shelters. To them, loneliness is the normal state of affairs, day after day, year after year.

But these precious souls are not really alone because God is never far from any of them. He is as near as a prayer or a Bible on a nightstand. And in the Eucharist He is as close to us as He can possibly be in this life.

The scriptures consistently demonstrate that God desires to be in an intimate relationship with us. Both the Old Testament and the New bear this out in verse after verse. Among the many examples are these lines from the first chapter of the Book of Joshua, where the Lord says: “I will always be with you; I will never abandon you” (v. 5), and “the Lord, your God, is with you wherever you go” (v. 9). And in Psalm 23, one of the best-loved chapters in the entire Bible, we read that in our darkest moments, when all seems hopeless, God is there accompanying us in our time of trials: “Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff comfort me” (v. 4). Likewise, in Psalm 73 we find this simple phrase of reassurance: “I am always with you” (v. 23).

In a similar vein, Jesus, at the conclusion of Matthew’s Gospel, says: “I am with you always, until the end of the age” (Matt. 28:20). Also, in the fourteenth chapter of John’s Gospel, Our Lord promises to send the Holy Spirit: “I will not leave you orphans; I will come to you” (v. 18). Later, in His High Priestly Prayer, Jesus prays to the Father that all who believe in Him “may all be one, as you, Father, are in me and I in you, that they also may be in us” (John 17:21).

As we look up into the night sky and speculate on whether we are the only rational beings in the universe, whether there are any other creatures like us in this galaxy or anywhere else out there, we can be confident that we are not alone. We can take great comfort in God’s promises that He loves us, that He is always near, and that He will never abandon us. He who knows the number of hairs on our heads, He who knows when a single sparrow falls to the ground, is surely watching over us. May we always watch over and care for each other, especially for the lonely and the cast-offs and all those who have no one to call on.

(Melvin Arrington is a Professor Emeritus of Modern Languages for the University of Mississippi and a member of St. John Oxford.)

IN EXILE
By Father Ron Rolheiser, OMI
I grew up in a rural area where most everyone was either a first or second-generation immigrant. Most of us were just above the poverty line, struggling economically and struggling to speak English properly. We were also struggling to access higher education, both because a lot of my peers had to end their schooling after the eighth grade to help support the family and because the idea of university education was not yet part of most families’ ethos.

In our community there was one family for which this wasn’t true. They were comfortable economically and a number of them had gone on to higher education and were now professionals in different fields. They were a privileged family.

But they wore it well. There was no snobbishness, flaunting or superiority complex. The opposite. They used their gifts to try to help the community. One of their sons became a teacher and taught in one of the local schools, and for a number of years the family set up a curling rink every winter for the community. They were both admired and respected.

One day one of their sons was sitting with a group of young men who were sharing a beer, sharing stories and enjoying some healthy banter, when the son of this much respected family made a blatantly racist remark. There was an awkward silence. Then one of men, in a gentle voice, said this to him: “You know, it surprises me that you would say something like that. Your family is so classy. We all look up to you. This doesn’t sound like you.”

The man’s reaction was immediate and contrite: “You’re right. I’m sorry. I don’t know why I say things like that. That was stupid.”

I can imagine a very different reaction had he been challenged with hard words like: “You’re a racist! How can you say something like that!”

When we challenge each other in harsh words, the effect often serves to make us more defensive and freeze us in our view. We are being scolded, rebuked, shamed, and that can work just as easily to re-entrench as to persuade. It also serves to harden the space between us rather than invite us to what’s best and highest in ourselves.

We need to invite and challenge each other to what’s best and higher inside us.
And what is best and higher inside us?

Some of our early Christian writers (the Church Fathers) suggested that each of us has a double personality and heart. In each of us, they submit, there is a big, generous, noble, altruistic heart. But, inside each of us too, there is a wounded, petty and selfish heart; and at any given time, we can be operating out of one heart or the other. We can be big-hearted and we can be petty, and this can change from one hour to the next depending on what’s meeting us in life.

Here’s an example: Imagine you wake up some morning feeling altruistic and noble of heart. At that moment, you have the mind and heart of Jesus. In that holy frame of mind, you go to work and there someone is cold and sarcastic with you. In one minute, everything can switch; you no longer have the mind and heart of Jesus, nor the mind and heart of what’s best in you. The wounded petty heart in you trumps the big heart, warmth and understanding leave you, and you now feel cold and bitter.

Now imagine this in reverse: You wake up some morning feeling paranoid, misunderstood, and nursing old wounds. At that moment you don’t have the mind and heart of Jesus, nor are you attuned to what’s better and higher in your own mind and heart. You go to work in that unholy state and there, unexpectedly, some co-worker greets you warmly and shares how much she appreciates your work and your friendship. In one minute, the noble mind in you trumps the petty mind and all that’s best and generous in you rises to the surface and you want to be a better person. You flip from bitterness to graciousness in one minute.

We live in a polarized world today where so many issues bitterly divide us and invite us not to what’s noble and best in us, but rather to what’s wounded, paranoid, and defensive. We need a new tone in our discourse, one of invitation and respect, one that recognizes what’s noble and big-hearted in the other and then challenges the other to own what’s best in him or her.

Instead of name-calling and assaulting each other with slogans, we need to say to each other: “You know, it surprises me that you would say something like that. You’re so classy! We all look up to you. This doesn’t sound like you.”

That kind of invitation can help thaw some of the coldness that for all kinds of reasons perennially besets the human heart.

(Oblate Father Ron Rolheiser is a professor of spirituality at Oblate School of Theology and award-winning author.)

Things Old And New
By Ruth Powers
Most Catholics are familiar with St. Francis of Assisi and brown-habited friars who belong to the order founded by him 800 years ago. In honor of the anniversary of the Transitus (death) of St. Francis in 1226, this year has been designated as the Franciscan Jubilee Year by our Holy Father, Pope Leo XIV. To recognize the Jubilee Year, I want to write about some aspects of the Franciscan family that may not be well known.

The Franciscan family consists of three orders. The First Order, founded by Francis, is for men – the Friars Minor and their offshoots: the Conventual Franciscans, the Observants, and the Capuchins. The Second Order is for women and was founded by Francis together with St. Clare. They were known originally as the Poor Ladies but came to be known as the Poor Clares. This is a cloistered order that is still in existence today. The final branch of the Franciscan family tree is the Third Orders, Secular and Regular.

It is the Secular Franciscans that I will discuss today. The Secular Franciscan Order (OFS) is formed by Catholic men and women who seek to observe the Gospel by following the example of St. Francis of Assisi. It is not like other Third Orders in that it is not under the direct control of any of the other branches of the Franciscan Family. The OFS is governed by the universal law of the Church and by its own Rule, Constitutions, Ritual, and Statutes. The interpretation of the Rule and of the Constitutions is done by the Holy See directly.

The specifics of the early foundation of the order are somewhat vague, but OFS lore speaks of a married couple from the town of Poggibonzi named Luchesi and Buonadonna Modestini who had heard Francis preach and had their lives transformed around 1213. Rather than separating so that each one could enter religious life, they felt called to live out their new way of life together. Francis was moved by the Holy Spirit to write a Rule for them that would allow them to do this, and so began the Brothers and Sisters of Penance, the original name of the OFS.

This way of life was quickly embraced by married couples and single people who did not feel called to monastic life, and the order grew rapidly, receiving papal approval in 1221. The order was, and still is, open to male and female Catholic laity and clergy who are not already members of another religious order. Secular Franciscans do not take public vows as do religious who live in community. They make a public profession of promises and are consecrated to a way of life.

The motto of the Secular Franciscans is “From Gospel to Life and Life to Gospel.” This is a calling to live the Gospel of Jesus according to the model of St. Francis of Assisi to the degree possible in one’s circumstances and state of life. It is a call to live in the love of God and in communion with Christ, poor and crucified. It recognizes our brotherhood and sisterhood with all people and all creation. It calls for a life of prayer (liturgical, personal, communal) and continued conversion. It also stresses participating in the life and ministry of the Church and living as instruments of peace. In addition, the charism of the OFS is to be lived in fraternity with other members. This does not mean communal living, but rather meeting together for prayer, study and support on a regular basis.

Full disclosure: I am a Secular Franciscan. I will celebrate the 10th anniversary of my profession in September. There is only one fraternity in the Diocese of Jackson. It is in Greenwood. There are others of us scattered around the state who travel to Fraternities in other dioceses to participate (Biloxi, Baton Rouge, Mobile). Anyone who would like more information on the Secular Franciscan Order can go to secularfranciscanusa.org.

(Ruth Powers is the program coordinator for the Basilica of St. Mary in Natchez.)

Guest Column
By Sister Constance Veit, lsp
St. Jeanne Jugan is often portrayed looking quite solemn, but she was actually very joyful. She was known to exclaim, “What happiness to be a Little Sister of the Poor!” and to counsel the young Little Sisters that “making the elderly happy is what counts.”

The idea of happiness features prominently in our national conversation as we celebrate the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. Hopefully, we have not forgotten these key words of our founding document: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.”

As Little Sisters at the service of the elderly, we have daily experience of the right to life. In the past decade, we’ve also had extensive experience with the right to religious liberty. But what of the pursuit of happiness?

Today, many people define happiness as a good feeling, an experience of worldly pleasure or enjoyment. But Thomas Jefferson, the author of the Declaration of Independence, meant more than this. Numerous authors assert that as someone educated in ancient philosophy, Jefferson was referring to the Greek idea of eudaimonia, a state of flourishing through good character, the practice of virtue and active participation in civic life.

I recently saw an illustration of the Pursuit of Happiness that portrayed a rather comical figure chasing smiley faces with a butterfly net. This didn’t really do it for me. I see it more as an upward climb, made in the company of others, where the strong extend a hand to lift up the weak or as a circle of individuals creating a work of art together.

In 1787 Thomas Jefferson wrote to his daughter, giving her advice on how to find meaning in life. He encouraged her to develop “those principles of virtue and goodness which will make you valuable to others and happy in yourselves, acquiring those talents and that degree of science which will guard you at all times against ennui, the most dangerous poison of life. A mind always employed is always happy. This is the true secret, the grand recipe for felicity.”

We have recently received Pope Leo XIV’s first encyclical, Magnifica Humanitas (Magnificent Humanity). It will take months to plumb the depths of the Holy Father’s thought but even a superficial reading of the encyclical highlights the grandeur of humanity and the truth that human flourishing is impossible without fraternity. “History can … change when individuals truly take the dignity of everyone seriously,” Leo wrote, citing the American civil rights movement and the figure of Martin Luther King, Jr.

The pope described “‘martyrs of everyday life’ who care for, educate, accompany and comfort without fanfare, such as parents, nurses, doctors, volunteers and those who remain alongside an elderly person or an outcast.”

“For centuries, the Christian tradition has maintained that human beings are not confined by the boundaries of their own nature; rather, they are called to self-transcendence, not through an escape from reality or a contempt for their limitations, but through their fulfillment in love,” the pope wrote.

“We become fully human when we become more than human,” he wrote. “What saves humanity is not enhanced self-sufficiency but a relationship that liberates, a communion that transforms … A person’s future is not calculable but depends on one’s freedom – elevated by the inexhaustible grace of God – and on the relationships cultivated.”

Our Founding Fathers would have recognized their ideas concerning the “Pursuit of Happiness” in these passages of Pope Leo calling us to improve society by supporting the lives of others.

As we celebrate our Nation’s 250th anniversary, may we honor the unalienable Rights to Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness by accompanying and remaining alongside the very young, the elderly, the stranger and the most vulnerable among us.

(Sister Constance Veit is the communications director for the Little Sisters of the Poor in the United States and an occupational therapist.)