May 10, 2007
Dear Friends of Francesco,
Greetings peace and Blessings to you and all your families and friends. As ya’ll know the community is celebrating 20 years of its existence which also includes Francesco productions thanks be to God…alleluia!!! And yes, the 20th anniversary concerts are here this weekend for all of you tri-state dwellers and daring out-a-towners who can make it… hope ya’ll show up with family and friends …(click here for details:)
http://www.francescoproductions.com/concert/concert.html
… either way please pray pray pray…thanks!
While there are many immediate and demanding needs to be tended to with the concerts there is a burning question in my heart that is simmering simultaneously with a deep sense of gratitude to God for the past 20 years of the CFR community and Francesco Productions. More specifically, the gratitude is for Love during the past 20 years; the love that God had kindly and faithfully provided, the Love that God is, as well as for the many and varied ways God has allowed the community and all who are and have been involved in whatever way with Francesco Productions – including myself - to share and participate in some way in His Love. And to be honest, the burning question in my heart is much less about how I have failed Love and failed to love during these past 20 years. It is the work of ongoing and more dramatic conversion which renders our failures fruitful because God is faithful and His Love endures forever. As the Great JP says, “Conversion is aimed at fulfilling the commandment of love…The human person is called to love God with total commitment and to relate to his brothers and sisters with a loving attitude inspired by God’s own love. Conversion means being converted to love (Oct. 6, 1999).”
Back to this burning in my heart…it’s much more about having my heart be enlarged, expanded, extended and converted to Love. It’s about feeding and fostering the fire of Love while extinguishing the futile fires of disordered passions that flow from and encourage impoverished love. This burning is about desiring and focusing on how I can open myself and allow myself to be drawn ever more deeply and embrace ever more faithfully fruitfully and intensely - really and truly – the Reality and demands of Love for more love with greater love. St. Bonaventure says that the exceptional devotion of Francesco’s charity “so bore him aloft into the Divine that his loving kindness was enlarged and extended to those who shared with him nature and grace.”
Enlarged and extended, that’s what I’m talking about, and that comes with a price. One of my mentors von Balthasar helps feed the fire of this burning question in my heart with another question: “The secrete path of the saints is never denied to one who is really willing it. But who in the crowd troubles himself over the question?” Ya’ll hear that? WHO IN THE CROWD TROUBLES HIMSELF OVER THE QUESTION? Please pray for an impassioned pursuit of this question, so that I waste not a moment more fretting nor fussing over anyone or anything that would have me hold myself back from so Great a Love that has loved us so greatly; from anyone or anything that would hold me back or cause me to fear panic and run from all the difficulties and demands of the Love that is an all consuming Fire…
I am being pressed, as are we all, and I will continually be pressed more and more every day if I really want to enlarge and expand my capacity for such love. I am being pressed by Love for more love. On one hand, this is very troubling (check out John 16:33 “In me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart I have overcome the world.”) On the other hand, this being pressed is an essential element of Love which will have us stretched especially when we, if we and to the degree that we dare to be willing to give Love permission to bring us into a vital communion with the mission of Love Himself (John 13:34 “Love one another as I have loved you.”)
It seems as if the past 20 years of Francesco Productions has been but just the beginning of an event that has no end, the prelude to a symphony and dance which mysteriously and providentially carries us along, the “antipasto” to the fullness of a meal that reveals the fullness of Love itself that we have access to in the Sacrament of Love. As B16 recently said, “The sacrament of charity, the Holy Eucharist, is the gift that Jesus Christ makes of Himself, thus revealing God’s infinite love for every man and woman…This wonderous Sacrament makes manifest that ‘greater love’ which led Him to ‘lay down his life for his friends’ (Jn 13:13). Jesus did indeed love them ‘to the end’ (Jn 13:1)….Jesus continues in the Sacrament of the Eucharist to love us ‘to the end’. What wonder must the Eucharistic Mystery awaken in our hearts (Sacramentum Caritatis #1)!”
I hope and pray that this 20th anniversary celebration will help to awaken in our hearts the Love of Him Who loved us so greatly and which is greatly to be loved. So be it! Amen…Alleluia….Thank You Jesus…Happy Anniversary Francesco productions…Alleluia!!! Francesco pray for us….Thérèse pray for us…Bernadette pray for us…. Anthony pray for us….Issac and Epherm pray for us…JP pray for us….Joseph and Mother Mary pray for us….
Peace and Blessings to you and your family and friends now and 4 ever in Jesus and Mary….Lord willing talk to ya’ll next week and hope to see some of ya’ll at the concert….
