What is a Secular Franciscan response to the human situation in the midst of COVID-19?

by Richard Shields, PhD

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“No one showed me what I should do, but the Most High Himself revealed to me that I should live according to the form of the Holy Gospel (Testament).” ​

Francis of Assisi’s vocation was, first of all, a response to the concrete, tangible misery that was swallowing up the lives of so many men and women, families and social relations, caught between the servile paternalism of the feudal system and the rugged individualism of an emerging merchant economy. “This could not possibly be the way God wants things to be,” he must have thought. By paying attention to what was happening Francis came to recognize that injustice was not an abstract word or a moral judgment. Injustice was the hurt and despair in the lives of the many whose reasons to live, whose chances in life, was extinguished by their place of birth or personal misfortune.  Leprosy, poverty, homelessness placed people on the fringes of society, when it did not exclude them altogether.

Francis’ feelings of guilt and responsibility only underscored his profound sense of “this is not the way it should be.” His resolve to become what he abhorred—poor, homeless, and ignored—was not so much self-sacrifice on his part as it was a movement of his soul to forge truly human bonds with people and with a fate that his middle-class status had given him the freedom to overlook.

​His vocation from God was not a call to practice more devotions or to be religious in any traditional sense of the word. In fact, Francis’ call became audible when he realized that when he “heard the cry of the poor” he was listening to the same voices that God always hears: “And the Lord said: ‘I have certainly seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt, and I have heard their cry caused by their slave masters. I really do understand their pain (gen. 3).’”
What Francis did next is instructive for secular Franciscans today. He did not wait for instructions from the hierarchy. Yes, he went to Rome for approval of his way of life. And it is true that he never denounced the hierarchical Church as some reformers did in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. But his calling was a response to the truth that no social, political, or economic system is entitled to judge any human persons as “less than” or to treat anyone as unworthy of basic human rights. It may be ironic that he called his small group of followers the “lesser brothers,” because his commitment was a proclamation that the marginalized, the invisible, the neglected are infinitely more than how they are viewed and how they are treated.

Reflection
St. Paul wrote to the Romans that “God made the one who did not know sin to be sin for us so that God's righteousness would be produced in us (Rom. 1)” In a similar way, Francis, who did not know poverty, became poor for the poor, so that God’s mercy would be manifest in him.

Discerning how, in the current crisis of health and health care, you and I can become experiences of God’s mercy for others, begins in our hearts. What are our strongest feelings, our deepest fears, and our highest hopes? How do you make sense out of those feelings? Do we really understand their pain?” We are called, like Francis, to forge truly human bonds with people, whose lives are troubled or are feeling  overwhelmed by the uncertainty of an invisible virus whose progress can only be traced in its effects.
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The distance between “Isn’t it awful” and “I can make a difference” is not always short. But it is a distance that Francis travelled and it is one that you and I can also cross. “The Lord gave me brothers.” These words from St. Francis’ Testament are a reminder that we don’t have to travel alone.

Although we may not be able to have face to face fraternity meetings, we can still reach out to our brothers and sisters in the Secular Franciscan Order. We can talk and listen. Often in shared concerns, we discover ways of responding that we would never have thought of by ourselves. For example, there may be people to call or errands to run for those who can’t get out. In some cases retired health care workers have discovered that their experience and skill can bring relief to overworked and stressed medical personnel. A simple thing like getting reliable information about the Coronavirus and not speculating in either naïve optimism or unwarranted pessimism could allow you to bring perspective and calm to an anxious friend or family member. Doing what you can to flatten the curve—the spread of the virus-- will protect not only yourself and your family. It will also help save the lives of people you don’t even know.

St. Francis had no road map for where he should be going. But he was not indifferent to what was happening in his world. He followed his heart and in doing so discovered anew the heart of God. 
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Discernment comes when we sense that what we want and what God wants are aligned. When we decide to act, decide what we can do and make the intention to do it, we realize, perhaps to our own surprise, that we are part of God’s loving presence in a world turned upside down by a disease that has changed our daily lives in ways we could not have imagined. ​