Colourful Dreamer

It is good to see my fellow Franciscans at work in UK bringing their Religious Vocation centred on prayer, and simple living to the UK. Well done Br. Clark Berge for playing a role in making this happen. I look forward to hearing more about this when I am in the Solomons next month. The Melanesian Brothers and Sisters visit Archbishop Justin Members of four Melanesian religious orders visited Archbishop Justin at Lambeth Palace on Thursday last week. Amid prayer, worship and song, the Brothers and Sisters pledged their desire to work for "peace and reconciliation in the Anglican Communion". Scroll down to watch a video of them singing to Archbishop Justin  Archbishop Justin welcomed a group of Brothers and Sisters from Melanesia to Lambeth Palace on Thursday night for an evening of prayer, conversation and Melanesian song. The visit was part of the Melanesian Religious Orders' mission to the UK, in which they visited five different dioce...

Mark 10: 1-12 is one of those readings preachers hate to get. It is all about Jesus being asked about divorce, and Jesus seemingly taking a really conservative line. It was the reading for the final service at Convocation last year, and I offered to preach. Why? Because I think we need read it in a different way. The world Jesus lived in was deeply divided. There were the various religious and ethnic groups: Jews, Samaritans, Gentiles. And they hated each other. Within each of those groups were further divisions. It was very important to know who was in and who was out of your group, to know the markers, and to work hard to preserve the boundaries. Being a male really helped in this process. For a woman to have a place in this world she needed a man, either a father or a husband. To not have a man: to be an orphan, a widow or a divorcee placed a woman at risk. She was on the edge of being out: out of her community, out of God’s community, seen as out of God’s love, care and conc...

I have been reading this book on and off for the last year or so. I really enjoyed this mix of stories from both Francis and Clare, and his personal reflection on these, and being in Assisi and other places. I learnt alot, but also reflected alot on what it means to seek to walk in the footsteps of Francis, who walked in the footsteps of Christ. I also really appreciated that Clare is named as important in the story, and is presented as more than an "also ran". I also enjoyed learning about Giotto, and just how revolutionary both his style and how he presented Francis was. A grand read. See here for more details

This is another posting on Clare by Ted Whitham, Minsiter for Australia.

The 11th (whatever day that was) was the feast of St. Clare. She is the other half of the Franciscan story, who with Francis laid the groundwork for the radical new way of living the gospel. She ws the first woman to have a rule approved by the Pople for a religious order, a rule that included the priveledge of poverty. (all rules for were Benedictine up to that point). She was extraordinarliry egalitarian, all were equal in God's sight and so in the life of the Order. Teh wealthiest gave all their welath away, and could bring nothing with them,unlike other Orders. All shared the menial tasks that needed to be done, including Clare herself. She taught that one should look not in the mirro to see oneself each day, but into the mirror of the crucified Christ, to measure our life of love compared to that seen there. We follow in here footsteps as much as Francis'.