Colourful Dreamer

The second of the first full two days exploring our roots as Anglican Franciscans we again had Paula Pearce OFS and Charlie McCarron TSSF. They continued laying the groundwork for the rest of the IPTOC/JFOC and for my ongoing reflection. One of the things that is different for OFS and for us in the Society of Saint Francis is that they follow the rule of St Francis, and we follow something that was in part inspired by Francis. Paula spent the second day talking about the process by which the Third Order Regular Rule (the TOR Rule) was revised.  This Rule is the basis of the Rules of the Franciscan orders that live in community and are not OFM or Poor Clares. The TOR Rule uses mostly words from St Francis’ writings. She describes it as a spiritual document, not a set of rules and regulations - seen in her title for the presentation "TOR RULE - The Spirit of Prayer" . It is available online at https://franciscanstor.org/our-community/third-order-regular-rule .  After outlining

I had a strange conversation a few months ago. I was lying back in a chair, naked from the waste down, holding a nappy over my bits while I waited for the skin under my bits to go numb enough from liquid nitrogen or some such thing, so that they could inject the local anesthetic and then punch a couple of holes through to the prostate. All in all a fun experience. And while I waited the nurse made small talk and asked what I did. "I'm retired", I replied. "Oh, what are you planning to do now you are retired? any travel?" "Turns out not" I said, "It seems I'm just keeping my dairy open for dealing with health things." And I am still keeping my dairy open and still dealing with them. This journey began last year. I was already dealing with two other things, including a lump in my parotid gland which has been slowly growing there for about 3 years. When I got back from being overseas on sabbatical my doctor called me in to talk about that an

Charlie McCarron TSSF from the USA is now an Episcopalian Third Order member. He was Catholic and is deeply rooted in the Franciscan tradition from both the Catholic and Episcopalian viewpoint. He is a bit of an intellectual – he has done studying and lecturing on this stuff and is really good value. He was elected Minister Provincial for the Americas shortly after IPTOC. Good choice Americas. You can find other videos of his here . He continued looking at some important aspects of the church environment at the time of St Francis, exploring some of the context out of which Franciscanism grew, and which still informs our charism today. Francis was much less the maverick we sometimes make him out to be but was shaped by and shaped the tradition that was going on around him. Charlie focussed this session on: Action and contemplation in the early Franciscan source. He began by suggesting that the key concepts for early Franciscans were: solitude, fraternity (he said it was hard to find