Message to the Friars – from Fr. James McCurry

Dear Confreres,
Peace and Good!  In my first trip outside the USA as the newly installed Minister Provincial of St. Anthony Province, during the past fortnight Fr. Vincent Gluc and I spent five days in our Province’s Jamaican mission.  As we embarked on the trip, the old adage applied: He that would thrive must rise by five; he that has thriven may lie til seven.  We rose at 4:00 AM!  It would prove to be an eventful journey.  Poor Fr. Vincent was singled out for aggressive security scrutiny, with a boarding card marked SSSS.  The guards isolated him in a holding pen for all to see, and that’s not the half of it.  At another point in our trek, after alighting for our connection at Miami airport, Fr. Vincent and I were nearly run over by a speeding, out-of-control, runaway transport jeep , normally used for the disabled, but now “hijacked” by a 3-year old toddler, who crashed it thunderously into the glass partition wall alongside a moving walkway.  Shattering glass flew helter-skelter.  Miraculously the cheeky lad was unhurt, but his deed left things in a shambles and thousands of dollars of damage.  Never a dull moment!
Words fail in trying to sum the profound spiritual experience that God gave me in Jamaica.  I feel that He grounded my new Provincial term, at its earliest stage, in a moment of Franciscan solidarity with the poorest of the poor.  The visit was both sobering and heartening – a sober view of life’s grimmer realities; a heartening taste of our friars’ unbridled dedication.   I went to Jamaica worn out, with my brain a bit addled from the frenetic pace of the past few months.  Indeed, as I have attempted to juggle responsibilities on both sides of the Atlantic during the transition since the provincial election results in February, my motto could well have been: An idle brain is the devil’s smithy.   However, something grace-filled happens when one goes to the missions.
What happens even on a friar’s casual visit to the missions?  The missions give us a new perspective on our lives as friars.  They teach us not to get our knickers in a twist about trivials.  We had no hot water during our days at the rural highland village of “Above Rocks,” and in fact Fr. Vincent did not even have running water some of the time.  The electric power played tricks on us as well.   Moreover, there was no air conditioning.  Yet we were “too blessed to be stressed” (as was emblazoned on the wall of a poor neighbour’s house).  Our whole Order can be deeply satisfied – and proud in a holy sense – over the way in which our Jamaican missionary friars during the past five years have made porzadek (order) out of the higgledy-piggledy.  Yes, there has been the occasional kerfuffle – as always happens in friaries and ministries – but God has looked after us, and the Blessed Mother too.  Things have never gone totally kerflooey.  I found a beautiful spirit of fraternal bonhomie among the friars, and in their collaboration with the Franciscan Sisters of the Eucharist.  The Sisters were effusive in their expressions of esteem for and gratitude to the friars and the whole Province.
In Jamaica our missionaries serve the People of God in four locations:  Above Rocks, Rock Hall, Cassava River, and Pinto.  I was able to have listening sessions with the congregations at each church.  Their comments, observations, expressions of appreciation, and concerns were instructive.  We have as much to learn from the poor (if not more) than we can teach them.   They evangelise us as we catechise them.   Our friars are surely inserted into that yawning gap between the rich and the poor, which characterises Jamaican society.  We have clearly and visibly as Franciscans cast our lot with the poor.  When I met with the Archbishop of Kingston, the Most Rev. Donald Reece, His Grace impressed upon me his anguish over the great chasm between rich Catholic parishes in the city and poor Catholic parishes (like ours) in the rural highlands or “bush. “  Our watchword could well be summarized by the London Underground slogan “Mind the Gap.”
Two artistic images conceived and painted by our American Fr. Joe Dorniak during his missionary years in Jamaica further reinforce the friars’ understanding of the call to solidarity with the poor.  In the sanctuary of Sacred Hearts Church, Pinto, Fr. Joe’s enormous painting of Jesus in dreadlocks, with glowing heart welcoming the impoverished children, and surrounded by the luxuriance of God’s creation (including a score of animals, birds, and insects cleverly hidden and hard to count), brilliantly portrays the Franciscan ethos.  In Our Lady of Lourdes Church, Rock Hall, Fr. Joe’s sanctuary painting of the Blessed Virgin with the impoverished St. Bernadette renders keen insight into the role given Mary by God as Mother of the Poor – a role contemplated by Friars throughout our long Franciscan tradition.  I cannot refrain from thinking that, through our Friars’ direct hands-on ministry with the poor in our Jamaican mission, every one of the rest of us Friars (who do not work in the missions)  finds a stronger authentication of our Franciscan spirit.  I have often believed that every Province needs to have at least one ministry that directly touches the poorest of the poor.  This direct contact with the poor authenticates the Franciscan spirit of the whole Province and Order.  I like to think that we are each and all of us linked fraternally to our missionaries in Jamaica and all of the other  mission lands where our brothers labour.  Indeed collectively we seek ways of further liaising with and linking our various ministries to these special missionary paradigms of service to and with the poor.
On the personal level, God stirs each one of our souls to search particular ways in which each friar can strengthen that link.  One concrete way would be to promote the missions in our preaching and catechising.   God unveils to each of us friars particular means of deeper engagement with the poor and fuller solidarity with our missionaries.  Minimally we ought to keep talking about the subject, and never grow weary of our prayerful concern for those brothers of ours in dark and distant places.
Let me conclude.  Each night during Fr. Vincent’s and my stay at St. Mary’s Above Rocks, the sky was clear.  In the black darkness the stars shone brightly – reminding us that even the most difficult circumstances in the world have benefits.  This is Franciscan optismism.   God gave our Father Francis the grace to find light in darkness and to sow hope in despair.   Our charism testifies that light and hope will ever prevail.
Fraternally,
Fr. James
11th May 2010