Pictured is an altered image of a Chapter at the Portiuncula (“Little Portion” as St. Francis called the St. Mary of the Angels chapel) from “The Little Flowers of St. Francis,” published in 1919 by J.M. Dent & Sons Ltd. London. The book is an English translation by Thomas Okey of “I Fioretti di S. Francesco,” by Antonio Cesari (1822) of collected tales of St Francis of Assisi. Original stories were in Latin from about 150 years after the 1226 death of St Francis

Please keep the friars of our province in your prayers as their delegates gather this week for the Ordinary Provincial Chapter 2022. A modern Franciscan Chapter is reminiscent of the 1221 version when St. Francis of Assisi called more than 3,000 friars to come together as family, to the Portiuncula chapel, in Assisi, for a general meeting or “Chapter of Mats.” At that time, the friars lived in huts made from reeds and brought their sleeping mats with them, to the area surrounding the chapel to have a place to sit. Modern day friars, instead meet in a conference center, get to sit on actual chairs, and sleep in “real” beds. It is however still thought of as a coming together as a family, offering witness of brotherhood and celebrating Franciscan life. Days are filled with meetings, presentations as well as the much-needed work of organizing the general needs of the friars and ministries of the Province. Chapter is also a time to enjoy Franciscan Brotherhood. Our province is grateful to those to whom we minister, and all of those who prayerfully support our work, who are praying for our friar delegates, as well as the outgoing and incoming leadership. We will share some photos after the Ordinary Provincial Chapter 2022 (May 23-27, 2022).

Our Lady of the Angels Province friar, Fr. Nicholas Swiatek, OFM Conv. (above center) serves as a parish priest for the Catholic Seto Church (dedicated to St. Maximilian Mary Kolbe), in Seto-Shi, Aichi-Ken, Japan. After his 1968 Ordination, Friar Nicholas spent six years serving in ministry in the USA, before heading to Japan to learn the language and serve as a Missionary. After 33 years ministering there, he returned to the USA in 2001 for just a decade before requesting to return to serve his beloved people of Japan. He will turn 81 in August and still is a strong presence among “his” people.
Joyfully, on Saturday, May 21, 2022,  in Tokyo’s Akabane Church, (dedicated to Our Lady of Assumption), the Most Reverend Tarcisius Isao Kikuchi, S.V.D., the Archbishop of Tokyo ordained two friars to the Diaconate. Pictured above are Friar Timothy Maria Nakanori Kosuke, OFM Conv., Friar Nicholas and Friar Michael Toyama Akira, OFM Conv. after the historic moment shared by Friar Nicholas. It has been many years since the last Ordinations there. Friar Timothy and Friar Michael are both friars of the Japanese Province of the Immaculate Conception of the B.V.M.

A reflection by our Assistant General, Fr. Jude Winkler, OFM Conv., on his recent visit with the Minister General, to our Syracuse, NY pastoral ministry of Assumption Church.

From Newman as a Critic of Modernity
To Vatican II as Newman’s Council

 I have nothing of that high perfection, which belongs to the writings of saints,
…I trust that I may claim …[in] what I have written,  … an honest intention, absence of private ends, temper of obedience, willingness to be corrected, dread of error,
desire to serve Holy Church, and, through Divine Mercy, a fair measure of success.^[1]

Since 1969,^[2] I’ve been privileged to study John Henry Newman.^[3] Imagine my joy on Sunday morning, 19 October 2019, at St. Peter’s, Rome, when Pope Francis canonized Newman. I cannot emphasize enough why Newman was prophetic in his denunciation of modern rationalist forms of Christianity which, in his view, has capitulated to secular reason fully established in the 19th century as both the default intellectual position as well as the^[4] new social imaginary. Using Newman’s Idea of a University as a standard, I intend to hand on why Newman as prophet of lamentation and as prophet of jubilation helps to “Rebuild the Church.”
To plumb deeper into lamentation and jubilation as Newman’s critique of secular forms of Christianity he regarded as counterfeit, is to shout out Newman’s prophetic voice in defense of the picture of God as totally Other. To appropriate human response rests on religious fear and awe. It is an honest view of human beings as sinners that are capable through grace of becoming saints (jubilation) or scoundrels (lamentation). It means conviction that faith has prerogatives over instrumental or moral reason, that what matters is making judgments about behavior that pertain to one’s salvation. It means recognizing Newman’s prudent resistance to and refutation of highly processed forms of Christianity in modernity. It means recognizing how secular Christianity disguises itself as genuine and immunizes itself. A more recent and pernicious phenomenon is “weaponized incomprehensibility”^[5] that is besieging our values.
As a standard, was Newman’s Idea of a University a success or failure? A dismal failure for it never became a reality. The Idea of a University was based on the Oxford model with its roots in Aristotle’s system of broad cultural education, paideia, and linked to the origin of the modern university as founded by the Catholic Church in the 13th century at Paris, Padua, Bologna, and Oxford. A university is not a seminary, and that misunderstanding with the Irish Bishops was not bridged. Yet Newman wrote a classic, a coherent and powerful vision of the concept of university that has a signified, adequate, expressed, enormous influence as synthesis with all its details to this day. Shortly before he died, Fr. Hesburgh, C.S.C said to me: Newman’s Idea of a University was just that, a powerful synthesis whose principles helped him to lead the University of Notre Dame for thirty-five years as its president.
Newman’s quote upon acceptance of the cardinalate encapsulates his debt to the ancient classical system proximate to his Oxford classical studies. He embraces his limits as a creature and sinner with freedom and self-transcendence. His understanding and commitment to Church AND World reflect an inheritor of that line from the great saints as Francis of Assisi, and a precursor of Vatican II’s emphasis on reform, renewal, and updating. Understanding Aristotle’s paideia, the Medieval universities, the Oxford model as a youth, contributed to the university curriculum he created for Dublin. Negotiation between Church AND World is constitutive of the Roman Catholic Church.^[6] Fr. Hesburgh saw his work at Notre Dame as a progression of Newman, with philosophy as a synthetic state of mind providing integration.
Pope St. John XXIII’s call for Aggiornamento did not equate with thinking that updating for the whole Church meant only when the Church was fully egalitarian. Second, there was never a break with the past at Vatican II, for it would not be the Catholic way. The Church negotiates because it is “in” AND “for” the World, but the Church is not the World. The Church has a supernatural end. The Documents of Vatican II give expression to the balance of two lines of interpretation which are ongoing. Lumen Gentium, on the mystery of the Church, and Gaudium et Spes, on the Church AND World, are a balance between the two lines of interpretation. The dominant interpretation after Vatican II, which is the wrong interpretive strategy to Pope Benedict XVI, is the lens of social justice as the only interpretation of the purpose of the Catholic Church.^[7]
In The Idea of a University, Newman avoids being clever or appearing to win. To be clever gets old and, ironically, never grows. To be clever is to be permanently frozen. The beauty of argument is towards development of a bridge between views. Second level order of reflection on the data of Christian faith in history and interpreting the development of the Church’s institutions assists theology as a form of knowledge that is public, one that is able to draw conclusions that verify its intuitions, and enable a person to intervene in public space.
Newman’s gentleman^[8] in The Idea of a University describes a “gentleman” not of Christianity, but of civilization, a good citizen. St. Paul’s Christian character in its most graceful form and with its most beautiful hues depends on lifelong formation and cultivation of virtue that is more than ornamental. The Idea of a University lists the Church’s duties: to cure and keep its members from sin by teaching justice and chastity, the judgment to come, faith, hope, devotion and honesty, with elements of charity that puts souls on the way of salvation, aspiring to be heroic, attaining to various degrees of what is beautiful.^[9] In the 21st century information explosion we gasp for air trying to answer what constitutes a university education. I read Newman’s Idea of a University as a serene text that is more and more relevant today.

Fr. Edward J. Ondrako, OFM Conv., Univ. of Notre Dame, Easter Reflection 4 eondrako@alumni.nd.edu

________________________________________

^[1] J. H. Newman, Biglietto Speech, 12 May 1879. Given upon acceptance of the cardinalate.
^[2] P. D. Fehlner, OFM Conv. was the first to teach Newman a Franciscan systematic approach.
^[3] A. J. Boekraad, MHM in 1973-1974; John Ford, C.S.C at CUA in 2006; Oxford Conf. with I. Ker et. al, @ Nat Inst of Newman Studies; SJHNA Conferences; C. O’Regan at Notre Dame since 2010; Dissert. at Syracuse University on Newman and Gladstone,1994; Ed., Newman Scotus Reader, 2015, rpt canoniz. issue, 2019; Dissert. at Notre Dame, Rebuild My Church, 2021.
^[4]The  Documents of Vatican II with Notes and Index (Vatican Trans: 2009, rpt. 2020).
^[5] Weaponized incomprehensibility implies: “if I do not understand something, you are the fool.”
^[6] The difficulty was compounded by the refusal of the Catholic Church to negotiate with modernity.
^[7] Responsible complaints from the faithful most often are in this register, i.e., too social justice oriented.
^[8] Idea, 208-210.
^[9] Idea, 203.

Fr. Edward J. Ondrako, OFM Conventual
Research Fellow Pontifical Faculty of St. Bonaventure, Rome
Visiting Scholar, McGrath Institute for Church Life
University of Notre Dame
May 20, 2022

Currently, Our Lady of the Angels Province has two men in the first formal year of formation, in the St. Bonaventure Friary – Interprovince Postulancy (Chicago, IL). Together with their Postulancy Assistant Director – Fr. Joseph Bayne, OFM Conv. (a friar of our province – pictured at center), the Postulants – Marvin Fernandez and Connor Ouly took some time to visit a bit of our province roots with a stop at picturesque Corpus Christi Church (Buffalo, NY).  Corpus Christi Church was established in 1898 by +Friar Hyacinth Fudzinski, OFM Conv. (1855-1925) to accommodate a rapidly growing Polish immigrant community in the densely populated Buffalo neighborhood. +Friar Hyacinth was a friar of the St. Anthony of Padua Province USA, which is now known as Our Lady of the Angels Province after the 2014 union with Immaculate Conception Province. (Read more about our Province History and the History of the Franciscan Friars Conventual in the USA).  This site was also the original home of our Father Justin Rosary Hour ministry (Hamburg, NY). Our friars served the faithful of Corpus Christi Church, until 2003.
Friar Joe, Marvin and Connor were in the area to help a friar of the St. Bonaventure Province move into our Father Justin Senior Friars Residence (Hamburg, NY).  Our province’s two soon-to-be Novices were thrilled to take in the rich Franciscan history present in Buffalo, NY. They even got to enjoy lunch at Anchor Bar, often considered the home of the original Buffalo Wings, as a part of the pilgrimage.

On May 14, 2022, after the fulfillment of the Philosophy requirement for Theological Studies, Our Lady of the Angels Province Solemnly Professed Student Friar Franck Lino Sokpolie, OFM Conv. received a degree in French and Francophone Studies, with a Certificate in European Studies, from the Catholic University of America. He was joined by family and friends, including several of his confreres, in continued studies. Friar Franck officially completed all the class course required for the degree in 2020. In the Fall of 2021, he returned from is Apostolic Year of Formation, serving in ministry with our friars in Columbus, GA, and finished his thesis for the French Degree, before heading to San Antonio, TX to continue his education, this past January. He came back last week to walk at CUA Commencement.

A sampling of the Student Friars of Our Lady of the Angels Province – left to right: friar Cristofer Fernández, OFM Conv., friar Raad Eshoo, OFM Conv., Friar Franck, friar Antonio Moualeu, OFM Conv. (recent Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering), Fr. Everest Valentine Nyaki Mkenda, OFM Conv. (actually a friar from the Tanzania Custody who is in continued studies at CUA, residing with our friars in our Post-Novitiate Friary), and friar Joseph Krondon, OFM Conv.

Friar Franck’s Family

On their last day, the St. Francis High School (Athol Springs, NY) Class of 2022 gathered in the quad with the rest of the student body and were given a final blessing by Fr. Michael Sajda, OFM Conv. Friar Michael has served as SFHS President for the past 16 years. After serving in province education ministries, from 1979-2001 (MD, NY & FL), he began serving at our Athol Springs, NY high school province ministry 21 years ago. Friar Michael was first assigned to St. Francis in 2001 to serve as Principal, and became President in 2006. As of June 25, 2022, the new President of SFHS will be Fr. Matthew Foley, OFM Conv., who currently serves there as an Instructor and as Campus Minister.

Note: The first class was enrolled at St. Francis High School in 1927. SFHS was founded under the leadership of the Very Rev. Justin Figas, OFM Conv., who had long desired to establish a secondary school for young men in the Niagara Frontier area.