RIP: Fr. Raphael Iannone, OFM Cap.

Homily for the funeral Mass of +Fr. Raphael Iannone, OFM Cap.

This is a humbling task. Certainly there are many of you, friars and otherwise, who knew Fr. Raphael better than I did. I mostly knew him as our postulant director at St. Michael’s, and as I reflected on what to say today, three memories of Fr. Raphael came to mind from that time.

First, let me tell you how I hit it off with Fr. Raphael at the beginning of the postulant year. Before this, when we were candidates, we had many of our discernment weekends at the old St. Francis friary in Garrison. Taking it all in on those stays, I noticed, among many other things, the images of the Capuchin saints in the hallways of the place. Often they had a crucifix. That’s easy, I said to myself, I have a crucifix. But they also often had, on a desk or somewhere around, a skull as a memento mori. That I didn’t have. So before entering the postulancy program, I looked in a science teacher supply catalog and ordered myself a realistic-looking plastic skull.

Then, when I was moving into St. Michael’s, Fr. Raphael saw the skull on my desk and asked me about it.

I replied, “I saw the skulls in the pictures of the Capuchin saints and I thought you needed one.” He looked at me, I looked at him, he looked at me, and then he just burst out laughing. I felt accepted right away. Fr. Raphael had the gift of making you feel that, accepted.

Here’s the second memory. Early on in the postulancy year my mother came to visit the friary. Now my family isn’t Catholic, so this whole friar thing that I’ve done with my life was a curious unknown to them. But this has never been a concern; the friars have always been friendly and hospitable, regular people. (This in itself taught me something about this group, about its generosity and openness.)

So my mother came down to St. Michael’s to see the place and have supper with us postulants and the friars. A few days later I called her to check in about it. How did she find the visit?

“Oh,” she said, “it was delightful. Everyone was so nice, they gave me a glass of wine, and both Fr. Bill (the other postulant director) and Fr. Raphael gave me a kiss. But I think Fr. Raphael meant it more.”

You can see it, right? Fr. Raphael just had that classic, Franciscan, earthy goodness.

My third memory is from closer to the end of the postulant year. I was walking by Raphael’s room, which was a sight in itself–the huge desk in the middle of the room, placed at a curious angle to the rest of the space, what he called his ‘rock collection’ over in a corner, and the World Wrestling Federation throw rug adorning the floor.

But that day there was an unusual sight: Fr. Raphael sitting behind the desk, looking uncharacteristically subdued and pensive. Was he ok? Should I ask? Maybe that’s not my place. He’s the director and I’m a postulant. He’s the guardian and I’m not even a friar yet. Maybe I should get one of the friars to see if he’s ok?

By God’s grace, the courage came, and I went in and asked Fr. Raphael if he was ok. For his part, he just opened up. He was upset because he had to tell one of the postulants to go home.

See, Fr. Raphael loved us, postulants in his charge, he really loved us. And it gave him great pain to have to tell one of us it was time to depart from the formation program.

As I’ve reflected from time to time over the years on this brief encounter between me and Fr. Raphael, I’ve come to realize that it was an important moment in my initial formation, in my learning about our Capuchin charism of evangelical fraternity, gospel brotherhood.

Because at that moment it was less a meeting between a guardian and a brother in the house, between a director and a postulant, and more just an encounter between two disciples of Jesus Christ, one who was bearing the cross of that day–that is to say the intersection of love and suffering in his own consecrated life–and this is also important, willing and vulnerable, like the Lord himself in the gospel we heard, to be seen in that intersection of agony and love–and another disciple given the grace to witness and give reverence to that embrace of the cross.

In this I learned that part of our charism, our mission as lesser brothers, is just that, to encounter, witness, and revere the intersections of love and suffering among ourselves and in the people and places we live in and serve, for this is to encounter and revere the Cross of Jesus Christ, the Cross which is the Sacrifice that saves the world.

Thank you, Fr. Raphael.

For the obituary, click here.

Greccio at 800

(This is a reflection I prepared for our quarterly magazine, The Capuchin Journey)

One of St. Francis of Assisi’s early biographers, Brother Thomas of Celano, relates how St. Francis, three years before his passing from this life, planned and celebrated Christmas in the little hill town of Greccio, located about halfway between Rome and Assisi. Three years before his death would make that the Christmas of 1223, of which we mark and celebrate the eighth centenary this year.

St. Francis enlisted the help of local friend, a certain nobleman named John, to help gather everything that was necessary for his idea of putting together a living nativity scene. St. Francis exclaimed,

“I wish to enact the memory of the babe who was born in Bethlehem: to see as much as possible with my own bodily eyes the discomfort of his infant needs, how he lay in a manger, and how, with an ox and an ass standing by, he rested on hay.” (1)

This desire, to know and to feel the love and suffering of Jesus, to follow in his footprint, was Francis’s particular devotion to Christ and his vocation in him. This desire was most perfectly realized in Francis’s experience of the stigmata, which, as St. Bonaventure writes, transformed the lover, Francis, into the image of the Beloved, Christ. (2)

When that Christmas Eve arrived, everything was prepared according to St. Francis’s expressed wish. The ox and the ass were led to the spot, the local faithful approached with lamps and torches for light, and the holy Mass of the vigil of Christmas was celebrated over a manger filled with hay. St. Francis himself sang the gospel of that holy night, and preached with remarkable devotion and sweetness on the King born poor, the ‘babe of Bethlehem’ whom Francis loved and desired with all his heart. It is said that contact with the hay from the manger subsequently restored many animals to good health, and even some people as well.

A curious and yet beautiful vision came to pass during the celebration. One of those present and at prayer, perhaps John of Greccio himself, (3) the friend who had helped St. Francis prepare for that night, saw a baby, apparently lifeless in the manger. St. Francis approached the vision, touched the baby, and awakened him from a deep sleep. St. Bonaventure writes that St. Francis even picked up the baby to embrace him. (4)

The early Franciscan writers note that this vision of St. Francis awakening the child suited the Christmas moment because of Francis’s mission to awaken the presence of Christ in the hearts of many, to stir up in their souls the love of God and devotion to the newborn Christ of Bethlehem. This invitation remains for us today—an invitation, as we approach Christmas ourselves and the eighth centenary of the celebration at Greccio—to allow the example and devotion of Francis of Assisi to stir up to new life the presence of Christ in our hearts.

As we set up our own nativity scenes in our homes, or as we pray before them in our churches, let us ask the Holy Spirit for some small share of St. Francis’s own desire to see with his own bodily eyes the hiddenness and poverty of the Lord born in Bethlehem, and even the ‘discomfort of his infant needs’, born away from home and in a place where there was no room for him or his parents at the inn. And may we also find the answer to this prayer in a renewed vision of the suffering Christ in the poor of our neighborhoods and our country as well as in the fear and terror of those in places, much in our thoughts these days, that are suffering the horror of war.

We need not fear our hearts breaking as we contemplate these sufferings of Christ in the peoples of this world, for if we allow our hearts to break open, we also have hope, and indeed a saving hope. For open hearts are ready to receive the Holy Spirit. And just as at Christmas the Holy Spirit conceives the Word of God as the human life of Jesus of Nazareth, anointing him as Lord and Savior of the world, so the same Spirit, in the same way, can conceive the presence of God in us, making of us Christians, anointed members of Christ after Christ’s own Heart, awakening in us the presence of Jesus.

Opening ourselves to the Holy Spirit in this way as we approach another Christmas, we can let the Spirit make of our own hearts a living nativity scene, a little ‘Greccio’. And if we fear that our hearts might not be fit for God because they can sometimes harbor darkness or even be a little cold at times, let us rejoice, for the good news of Bethlehem is that it is precisely in such places that God wills—indeed desires—to born among us. In this awareness of the littleness and the poverty of our inner self, where Christ wishes to be born and abide—in order to make us a dwelling place for God in the Spirit (Ephesians 2:22)—we can marvel with St. Francis at the humility and poverty of the God who empties himself into the poverty of our little hearts, so that by his poverty, you might become rich (2 Corinthians 8:9) in blessing and grace.

Then, having celebrated Christmas within, having prepared a little ‘Greccio’ in our hearts where God hides and makes himself little in order to glorify our littleness and poverty from the inside, let us let that love of God out, into the outside, where the ‘infant needs’ of Christ are heard in the cry of the poor and the cry of the earth. In this way, the Love of God, made incarnate for us at Christmas, may continue to take flesh in the gentleness and charity we reflect out toward a suffering world.

_____

1. Francis of Assisi: Early Documents. Vol. I: The Saint. Eds. Regis J. Armstrong, O.F.M. Cap., J. A. Wayne Hellman, O.F.M. Conv., and William J. Short, O.F.M. (New York: New City Press, 1999), 255. (Hereafter FA:ED.)

2. FA:ED, vol. II: The Founder, 710

3. FA:ED, vol. I: The Saint, 256, footnote c.

4. FA:ED, vol. II: The Founder, 610.

Almond Cookies

Among the various quotes and greetings on Twitter for the feast of St. Francis yesterday, there was also mention of the almond cookies that are traditional for the day. I thought folks might be interested to know the source for the association of this special treat with the passing--the Transitus as we Franciscans say--of Francis of Assisi. Here it is in Assisi Compilation chapters 7 to 8:

Although racked with sickness, blessed Francis praised God with great fervor of spirit and joy of body and soul, and told him: "If I am to die soon, call Brother Angelo and Brother Leo that they may sing to me about Sister Death." 

Those brothers came to him and, with many tears, sang the Canticle of Brother Sun and the other creatures of the Lord, which the Saint himself had composed in his illness for the praise of the Lord and the consolation of his own soul and that of others. Before the last stanza he added one about Sister Death: 

"Praised be You, my Lord, through our Sister Bodily Death,
from whom no one living can escape.
Woe to those who die in mortal sin.
Blessed are those whom death will find in Your most holy will, for the second death shall do them no harm." 

One day blessed Francis called his companions to himself: "You know how faithful and devoted Lady Jacoba dei Settesoli was and is to me and to our religion. Therefore I believe she would consider it a great favor and consolation if you notified her about my condition. Above all, tell her to send you some cloth for a tunic of religious cloth the color of ashes, like the cloth made by Cistercian monks in the region beyond the Alps. Have her also send some of that confection which she often made for me when I was in the City. This confection, made of almonds, sugar or honey, and other things, the Romans call mostacciolo.

Lady Jacoba was a dear friend of Francis. If you've been to the Basilica of St. Francis in Assisi, you have at the very least walked right by her remains, which are entombed at the level of the landing as you go down the steps into the crypt.

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The Dream of Innocent III

On the following day, therefore, the man of God was presented by that cardinal to the pope, to whom he revealed his entire holy proposal.

The Story of the Portiuncula

(From Assisi Compilation 56)

Seeing that the Lord willed to increase the number of brothers, blessed Francis told them: "My dearest brothers and sons, I see that the Lord wants us to increase. Therefore, it seems good and religious to me to obtain from the bishop, or the canons of San Rufino, or from the abbot of the monastery of Saint Benedict, some small and poor little church where the brothers can say their Hours and only have next to it a small and poor little house built of mud and branches where they can sleep and care for their needs.

Gaudete et exsultate: Community

I took some time to read Gaudete et exsultate. Anything I would say about it generally has already been posted here and there, so there's no need for me to repeat it. I do have some personal reflections to share, however, on this exhortation to holiness. This is the first.

In salvation history, the Lord saved one people. We are never completely ourselves unless we belong to a people. That is why no one is saved alone, as an isolated individual. Rather, God draws us to himself, taking into account the complex fabric of interpersonal relationships present in a human community. God wanted to enter into the life and history of a people. (6)

In religious life it's a commonplace to say that the reasons you entered are not the same reasons you have stayed. In the same way, what you anticipated as being the greatest challenges don't turn out to be the things you struggle with the most. Conversely, what seemed like an easy thing when you first professed can become a great struggle. I am sure that those who are married or in any other sort of particular vocation have analogous experiences.

When I made my religious profession, I had not thought much about the line, Therefore, I entrust myself with all my heart to this brotherhood. As time has gone on, however, I realize that this is one of the most challenging aspects of the whole business.

Always With Me

Today is a big Franciscan feast, that of Our Lady of the Angels of the Portiuncula, when, also for all the faithful, according to a certain tradition by the request of St. Francis himself, the Pardon of Assisi or Portiuncula indulgence is available at your local Franciscan church or oratory, or at your parish church, visited to honor Our Lady and the Angels, and according to the normal conditions for the gaining of indulgences, of course.

Today I'm thinking of the little holy card of Our Lady of the Angels, which I've had with me since, as best as I can reconstruct the timing, since the morning of Friday, April 23, 1993.

Saint Mary of the Angels/pray for us

Bring Me The Breviary

Over the last couple weeks a visiting friar has displaced me from my regular place in choir. Not a big deal, though I don't like my little choir-cubby ruffled.

One friar noticed my suffering and said,

'Well, brother, there are many displaced persons in Rome.'

Franciscan Identity Crisis Ramble

I've been thinking about trying to write this post for a long time.

There's a lot of begging in Rome. There are scammers too, but with the scams that I usually get, I guess because I look like a good 'ugly American' mark, I've grown wise and I turn the tables and frustrate the person and try to playfully shame him."What would your mama say? Going around tricking foreigners!"

But it's the begging that troubles me more.

Resting Like A Bundle of Myrrh

Back on the feast of All Franciscan Saints, long-time internet friend and sometime fellow American in Rome Fr. Daren J. Zehnle tweeted this lovely image of some of said saints from St. Francis of Assisi church in Teutopolis, Illinois:

(It looks like a nice parish by the way. See their website here.)

That's St. Bonaventure, of course, to Our Lady's left. You can tell because of his red cardinal's hat, which he has rightly doffed in such heavenly company and deposited on his little cloud. So right away I wanted to know what his book says. You couldn't quite make it out in the photo, though you can tell that it says something. So I asked Fr. Daren to find out, and now he has come back with a closer photo, in which you can see that it says crucifixus.

Now I was intrigued. Certainly St. Bonaventure speaks often enough of the crucified, but usually--at least in my memory--in a declined form. I couldn't remember any instance of it in the nominative, as in the book in the picture.

But sure enough a little searching surfaced what must be the page of the book Bonaventure is holding open. It's from chapter nine of the Major Legend of St. Francis, on Francis's "ardor of charity and desire for martyrdom."

Christus Iesus crucifixus intra suae mentis ubera ut myrrhae fasciculus iugiter morabatur in quem optabat per excessivi amoris incendium totaliter transformari.

"Jesus Christ crucified always rested like a bundle of myrrh in the bosom of [St. Francis's] soul, into Whom he longed to be totally transformed through an enkindling of ecstatic love."

(FA:ED II: 597, cf. Song of Songs 1:13)

All Franciscan Souls Ramble

On Saturday, in the Mass I celebrated with the Capuchin Sisters of Mother Rubatto and in the Liturgy of the Hours here at home, we had the Commemoration of all the Franciscan Faithful Departed, or All Franciscan or All Seraphic Souls.

Sister Death presides over the friars' cemetery, Yonkers, New York

I like how we Franciscans have our own All Souls Day. It's like a family thing; just as in a family folks might take care to have Masses celebrated for their dear departed, so we Franciscans have a liturgical day for ours. I forget how we do it at home in the USA, but here in Italy this day always gets scheduled for the first totally free liturgical day after November 2. So this year, having duly celebrated the days for Martin de Porres and Charles Borromeo, it was this past Saturday.

The gospel for the Mass was from St. John.

(Franciscan) Liturgical Abuse Rant

Recently I've had some occasions to think about liturgical abuse.

Some of it, I think, is just pride and vainglory on the part of clergy. I need to do things my way. I need to get my theological or, horribile dictu, political tagline or slogan into the Mass, etc. But like most expressions of clerical vainglory and pride, these are often more laughable than dangerous.

But there's another form of liturgical abuse I've encountered in my Catholic life, in certain religious houses, schools, and parishes. It's the liturgical abuse that derives from the intuition that the liturgy as the Church presents it does not properly express who we are as a community, and therefore has to be adjusted or changed to fit our needs and identity.

Perhaps my experience of life as a Franciscan friar provides an example.

All Seraphic Saints Friary

Religious houses are usually named for some heavenly patronage, either a saint or some mystery of the faith. For example, the first friary I ever lived in was the former Holy Cross Friary on Soundview Ave. in the Bronx. Right now I'm taking some vacation while staying at St. Francis of Assisi Friary, the second house to bear that title during my time in my Province of the Capuchins.

Somewhat strangely, the house where I am assigned now, in which resides the fraternity of the Capuchin General Curia, did not seem to have such a patron. It was just 'the General Curia' or, in the habit of religious to call places by their earthly location rather than by their heavenly patron, 'Via Piemonte.'

Well today we have received a letter from the General Minister in which he decrees a remedy for this situation. The house is to be dedicated to All Seraphic Saints, with the corresponding titular feast day of November 29.

The Forms of Charity

This week I've been staying at our place in Yonkers, New York. For reading I took from the library their copy of John of Meerle's Seraphic Spirit and Life, which is a beautiful old book of Capuchin-Franciscan wisdom and spirituality.

I thought I would share this passage on the different expressions of charity:

When therefore charity is directed to God, it called love of God, when towards our neighbor, it is love of one's neighbor; if it shares in the afflictions of others, it is called compassion, when it shares the good fortune of others, it is congratulatory love; if charity is patient in adversity, it is called patience, if it renders good for evil, it is benevolence, if it is not proud and does not exalt itself above others, it is humility, if it yields to authority as is becoming, is is obedience, if it moderates and restricts the requirements of the body it is temperance, if it abhors whatever is licentious, it is chastity; by renouncing the things of this world it becomes the spirit of poverty, by distributing riches to the poor it becomes generosity, by making us wait courageously and without annoyance for a promised good it is longanimity; when making us discern carefully between what is good and what is better, or between bad and worse, it is called prudence, when keeping us from excess in delectation or pleasure it is moderation, when preventing us from being cast down by difficulties it is strength, when we believe what is to be believed it is faith, if we confidently expect what faith promises it is hope. (p. 117-118)

The Franciscan Theology of Fundraising

The Franciscan traditions provides Franciscan friars with a simple and robust theology of fundraising.

Thomas of Celano, the first biographer of St. Francis, records his words:

"There is a contract between the world and the brothers: the brothers must give the world a good example, the world must provide for their needs. When they break faith and withdraw good example, the world will withdraw its hand in just censure."

(Remembrance of the Desire of a Soul / 2nd Life of St. Francis, XL/86:4, trans. Placid Hermann, OFM)

Feast of St. Bonaventure

By gift or blessed coincidence, my turn to preside at the community Mass fell on today, the feast of our Seraphic Doctor St. Bonaventure.

I had some time to spend with him, so I returned to some texts and thought about what I might give for a homily. In the end I landed on Bonaventure's account of St. Francis descending the mountain after the experience of the stigmata:

After true love for Christ transformed the lover into his image, when the forty days were over that he spent in solitude as he had desired, and the feast of St. Michael the Archangel had also arrived, the angelic man Francis came down from the mountain, bearing with him the likeness of the crucified, depicted not on tablets of stone or on panels of wood carved by hand, but engraved on parts of his flesh by the finger of the living God. (Major Legend XIII:5)

Basilica of St. Francis

Happy feast day to a beautiful church. I love this picture I took from the back stairwell of our Capuchin friary on the Via San Francesco in Assisi.

Amoris laetitia: Celibacy

Amoris laetitia is a document on the family, but it also has something to say about the celibate vocation in the Church. For example:

Whereas virginity is an “eschatological” sign of the risen Christ, marriage is a “historical” sign for us living in this world, a sign of the earthly Christ who chose to become one with us and gave himself up for us even to shedding his blood. (161)

This is true, so long as we don't push it too far. Christian married people, of course, like all Christians, participate in the eschatological character of the Church, and those consecrated to celibacy still have a foot in history.

Protomartyrs of the Order

I noticed this painting of the Protomartyrs of the Order on Italian Wikipedia. It made me think that perhaps we can seek the intercession of these friars in our time when we have been made so aware of beheadings and other barbaric executions.

Francisco Henriques, The Martyrs of Morocco (1508)

St. Francis himself sent Brothers Berard, Otho, Peter, Accursius, and Adjutus to preach in Spain. After preaching in a mosque they were arrested and deported to Morocco. There they began to preach again and were again arrested. After torture and efforts to tempt them to convert to Islam, they were beheaded on this day in 1220.

For a longer treatment of their martyrdom, you'll want to read the Chronicle of the Twenty-Four Generals of the Order of Friars Minor. Search for Appendix I, which contains their story.

Pray for us!

There's a Space for You

In the hallway outside our chapel, there's a 'family tree' of Franciscan saints and blesseds (click to enlarge):

There's St. Francis and his early companions at the root. St. Clare is on the first branch on the right. After all, she did call herself St. Francis's "little plant."

One of my favorite things about the tree is that there is an empty space:

There it is. Nestled among St. Joan of Valois, St. Joseph Cafasso, and a Gandulphus and a Hugh that I haven't been able to identify for myself, there's an open space.

When I pass by the picture with another brother I sometimes point to the space and say, "There's a space for you."

It's true. There's a particular space for everyone on the family tree of sanctity. Each human life is a unique and unrepeatable creation. And since, as St. Thomas teaches us, grace perfects nature, the graces God desires for each of us are also unique and unrepeatable, as will be the sanctity and the saint that they produce.

So let's embrace our grace and sink into our space, becoming the unique and particular saint that God has created us to be.