Dear Brothers and Sisters,
May the Lord give you peace!
These days we are celebrating the eighth centenary of Saint Francis’s encounter with sister death. We have prepared over three years, retracing the final stages of his journey: the Rule and the Christmas experience at Greccio, the Stigmata at La Verna, the Canticle of the Creatures, and now finally his death.
I feel it is important to offer a word that might help us grasp the unity of this journey, so that the Centenary does not end as just another celebration, leaving no sense of completion. I see the risk of monumentalizing the figure of Francis, freezing certain aspects of his life as in a snapshot and losing sight of the inner movement that unifies them. It is precisely here that we rediscover the gift that the Lord, in the Spirit, gave to the Church and the world through Francis of Assisi: his charism.
That is why I am reaching out to you with this letter at the beginning of the Novena of Pentecost. Let us invoke the life-giving Holy Spirit, the true Minister General of the Order, that he may open us to his light and his fire for a renewed evangelical vitality. How much we all need this—all of us in the Franciscan Family, and the world with us!
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