Today we celebrate the memorial of Berard and companions, St. Berard, Adiute, Peter,
Acursus, and Odo, the first five martyrs of the Franciscan order.
They died in 1220, six years before St. Francis passed away, and three years before St. Francis
wrote his definitive rule.
And there were a number of things about the life that St. Francis mandated for the
friars that was unique, but one of the things came at the very end of the rule, which as
I say, he wrote three years after the deaths of St. Berard and companions, which was his
chapter about going to the mission, specifically going among the infidels for the conversion
of the Muslims.
And he said in the rule that it was something,
that if a friar was so inspired to do, that he should request of his superiors to go to
the missions, and if the superior, and only if the superior deemed him able to undertake
that kind of work, was he to give permission. And the interpretation of the rule from the
beginning till now was that that 12th chapter of the rule made it a matter of supererogation,
namely above and beyond.
And the way that's been lived in the order for all these centuries is that when a friar would join
the order, he'd be assigned to a certain province, the territorial jurisdiction where he entered the
order, and there he would stay, and his superiors would never send him outside of the province,
unless he requested to go to the missions.
So it was always considered that the 12th chapter sort of limited the power of the superior
to send friars beyond the confines of the province.
So it really was a matter, missionary life, even though so many places, for example, in
America were evangelized by the Franciscans, it was voluntary.
It wasn't something that the friars were required to do.
It was something that they volunteered.
It was something that they volunteered to do.
It was something that they volunteered to do.
And in the rule of St. Francis, he considered this to be sort of a flowering of the spirit
of the rule and the spirit of Franciscan life.
He hoped that the friars would be so enlivened with the love of God that they would willingly,
voluntarily go to the missions.
And so Burrard and companions, along with the ones I mentioned, Adiuti, Peter,
Barcours, and Odo, along with another friar by the name of Vitalis, left Italy in 1220
to go and preach to the Muslims.
And their first destination was Seville.
Along the way, Brother Vitalis got sick and had the rest go along without him.
And when they got to Seville, they were neither successful in converting any of the Muslims
nor in obtaining their martyrdom.
And therefore,
they proceeded to Morocco, where very quickly they were arrested and threatened with death
and then tortured and ultimately beheaded and mutilated.
I should point out that also in the rule of St. Francis and in the spirit of the rule,
St. Francis was hoping that the friars would wish to undertake this mission for the conversion
of souls, and if not for the conversion of souls, in order to obtain martyrdom.
So,
when
St. Burrard and companions and those later on who would follow them along the same path
went to these mission countries, they knew more than likely, almost certainly, they would
never come back, that they would die martyrs in the land to which they were proceeding.
St. Francis himself tried to preach to the Muslims and made it part of his life's mission
to get to the Holy Land in order to do this with the hope of obtaining martyrdom.
The story goes that when he got to the Sultan in Tunis, Egypt, the Sultan was so impressed
with his preaching that he made sure that St. Francis had safe escort back to the Crusader
camp unharmed, but he didn't convert either.
The story goes that after the death of St. Francis and at the end of this man's life
that he had himself baptized before he died.
So, this was the spirit of St. Francis.
And this was what motivated these men to go to places where they knew they were about
to certainly die.
And when St. Francis heard of the heroic deeds of these first five friars during a general
chapter that year, the message got back to him that Burrard and companions had been martyred.
He said, now I can say truly that I have some fruit.
I can say that I am a friar's miner.
These for him were truly his brothers.
Their bodies were brought back from Morocco and on their way back to Italy, the bodies
back to Italy, they were brought to Lisbon where at the time St. Anthony of Lisbon, now
for the Italians at least, St. Anthony of Padua, was an Augustinian canon and the bodies
were brought to Lisbon.
He also sent some of his relatives in his monastery and there they were being venerated
by the faithful.
St. Anthony also venerated these relics and was inspired to follow their path.
It was then that he requested of his superiors that he be allowed to become a Franciscan
and that's what he did, with the intention, the specific intention, of getting to Morocco
and offering his life for Christ.
And that was the first time he did that.
He pursued that course of action and was unable to actually make it to Morocco.
And then it became apparent to him that it was God's will that he should preach the gospel in Italy and bring conversion to the people there.
And that's what he did, of course, and became a great preacher and a great worker of miracles.
But you can see how the two things were tied together in the original spirit of St. Francis and in these very heroic friars.
The conversion of sinners and those who are farthest away from the church and the willingness to be a victim for Christ and for souls.
And even if it didn't consummate the spirit, even if the spirit was not consummated in the actual martyrdom of these friars,
like it was in the case of Burard and companions, then it translated into an apostolic zeal that was fruitful,
as it did in the life of St. Anthony of Padua.
And that, of course, is the spirit that the friars of the Immaculate are trying, in our own feeble way, to inculcate.
And it should be an inspiration to the faithful that we should put...
God first, and recognize that the conversion of souls, that the conversion of the world to Christ,
is contingent more upon our willingness to live a life of sacrifice than it is upon the external efforts that we make.
However important those external efforts are, and they are important,
more important is our willingness to live the faith.
And suffer for it.
We have the privilege here in Griswold of having for the relics in our altar,
the relics of St. Burard and companions.
So, in a special way, we can have recourse to them today
and ask them for this radical spirit of the gospel,
the spirit which led Christ to the cross,
our Blessed Mother to the foot of the cross,
Burard and companions to Morocco,
and St. Anthony to preach the gospel with his whole heart.
That spirit of prayer, of sacrifice, and of zeal for souls.
That spirit of prayer is the primary vibrational gift
that we should have.
The 성 động都 stad loyal and honorable
The son of the Father and Son of the Son of God