Tuesday, December 16, 2014

Friars to be Available for each other


Today the deepest need of ours is to be with someone. The children want their parents around who are not available due to work. as a result we see the negative impact and results in the lives of young children. To be available for someone is to say that Love is stronger and it makes one to give oneself. To be available with one's person, time and energy. To be available to communicate to the other that one is loved and accepted as he is. St. Francis tells the friars:

Let each one confidently make known his need to another that the other might discover what is needed and minister to him. But each one love and care for his brother as a mother loves and cares for her son in those matters in which God has given him the grace. (ER IX: 10-11)

When one is available one can take care and show concern to the other. The saddest thing today is that under the pretext of work, ministry and apostolate the friars are not available for the others. There are so many of them who would like to share and speak but there is no one available. Even if one is available one hardly listens or gives time. As a result so many feel lonely in a fraternity of big number of friars. 

To be available is to share all that one has with the members. It could be our talents and gifts, time and energy. The other one is less fortunate than me, the other one does not have friends and benefactors like me, Can i be available to that friar. As Saint Francis exhorted all to charity, he encouraged them to show a friendly manner and a family’s closeness. “I want my brothers,” he said, “to show they are sons of the same mother, and that if one should ask another for a tunic or cord or anything else, the other should give it generously. They should share books and any pleasant thing; even more, one should urge the other to take them.” And so that, even in this, he might not speak of anything that Christ has done through him, he was the first to do all these things. (2 C 180)

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