Tweeting the Good News?
With dioceses around the nation suspending masses, sacraments, and other in-person worship services—as well as all public gatherings—for the foreseeable future as a result of the extraordinary measures government and health officials are implementing to reduce the spread of COVID-19, our brothers have resorted to an expanded and comprehensive digital outreach effort to stay connected in prayer and worship with families and friends.
Utilizing social media platforms – along with some creativity – the friars are now bringing prayer and worship, meditations and reflections, and faith-sharing directly into the homes of thousands of Catholics.
St Anthony’s Bread (Mar 2020)
Anthony – Theologian After the Heart of Francis
St Anthony’s humility accompanied his popularity through the ages. Many of us pray to him when we lose things and we may even call him “Doctor of the Church” and not know why. What many do not know is that Anthony had a licence to teach licentia docendi. St Francis, realising that there was a need for his friars to study theology to be effective preachers of the Word and to maintain orthodoxy of faith against numerous heresies, personally wrote him a letter stating that “it pleases” him that Anthony should teach theology, but that he should never “extinguish the spirit of prayer and devotion” (EpAnt). Thus St Anthony became the first teacher of theology in the Franciscan Order.
And teach and preach he did. In a way that led people not to himself, but to Christ. That is humility in action. What grounds his theology is the “poverty and humility of our Lord Jesus Christ”, which mirrors very closely the thoughts of St Francis. St Francis loved to speak of “poverty” together with “humility” in reference to our Lord Jesus Christ, especially in his incarnation and passion. If Jesus emptied himself to assume the form of man, and gave himself up to death on a cross (Phil 2:6), then we, as followers of Christ, are called to walk this journey of self-emptying and kenosis, so as to be filled with the grace of God in order to love and serve our brothers and sisters in creation.
In fact, St Anthony considered humility so important that he called it the source, root and font of all other virtues. “What a person is before God, that he is and no more” is his most succinct definition of humility.
We acknowledge ourselves as we are before God and God sees us as we are and loves us. That is the beauty of Franciscan spirituality, the beauty of simply be-ing. That we appreciate and love the beauty and dignity of our own selves and also of other beings, and thus live this love in fraternity – sharing, serving, sacrificing.
St Anthony also invites us to “the sweetness of contemplation”, to die to the world and live solely for God. It is this desire for God that urges us to a conversion of life in penance, living out our holiness of life in service of all, especially the poor. St Anthony was a man truly after the heart of St Francis, both in words and works, our Doctor of the Church, the one who helps us to find … our way back to God.
Four Friars For Solemn Profession
The Solemn Profession of Four Franciscan Friars.
Over a thousand people from Singapore and beyond, attended the solemn profession of Friars Robin Toha, Crispus Mosinoh, Sixtus Pitah and Gerald Tan, at the Church of St Mary of the Angels, Bukit Batok, on the 8th February 2020.
The solemn profession mass, presided by the Minister Provincial of Holy Spirit Province, Friar Phillip Miscamble, began with a procession: firstly, of the four friars accompanied by their parents, then followed by the other Franciscan friars and celebrants. Gracing the event with their presence were families from Malaysia, Indonesia and Singapore, diocesan seminarians, religious congregations including the Franciscan Sisters of the Immaculate Conception (FSIC), the Franciscan Missionaries of the Divine Motherhood (FMDM), the Franciscan Missionaries of Mary (FMM), the Redemptorists, Canossian Sisters, Infant Jesus Sisters, Gabrielite brothers, Good Shepherd sisters, Missionaries of Charity (MC) sisters, Carmelite friars, secular Franciscans and many others.
What was unique about this solemn profession was the blessing of the four friars by their parents, a ceremony similarly found in an Indonesian traditional wedding. The Custos of the Custody of St. Anthony, Friar Derrick Yap thanked the congregation who came from near and far, in spite of the on-going threat of the CoVid-19 virus in Singapore.
The four friars who just had taken their solemn profession will continue to stay at Greccio Friary, Chestnut Drive as they continue their studies at St Francis Xavier Major Seminary, Singapore. They are expected to conclude their seminary formation by 2021.
Finally, and most importantly, we thank the Lord for calling each one of us on the path of holiness and conversion. Whether as consecrated religious or not, may all of us be channels of peace and grace after the example of our beloved saint, St Francis of Assisi.
