This morning’s Mass was celebrated in Polish. The presider was Friar Tadeusz BRZOZOWSKI from the Province of St. Francis of Assisi in Kenya. He is also serving as an interpreter for English and Polish during the General Chapter.
In his homily, delivered in both English and Polish, he touched on a theme taken from today’s first reading (Genesis 3:9-15, 20): God’s question to Adam after the original sin was committed: “Where are you?”. From the Gospel reading of the day (John 19:25-34), Friar Tadeusz talked about Jesus on the cross, giving Mary, his Mother, to us all as a gift. Today, in fact, we celebrated the memorial of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of the Church.
At 9:30 a.m., the Chapter proceedings resumed. The fourth session included the election of the General Definitors. The Minister General invited the Federations to meet to propose the most suitable candidates. Voting began at 11:00 a.m.
Friar Igor SALMIČ of the Province of St. Joseph in Slovenia, the former Assistant General of the Centralis Europae Foederatio (CEF), was elected Vicar General and a member the Order’s General Definitory. He succeeds Friar Jan MACIEJOWSKI of the Province of St. Maximilian M. Kolbe in Poland (Gdańsk). The Minister General, Friar Carlos, expressed gratitude to Friar Jan for his service and for the love he has shown to the Order.
Other votes followed, but due to lack of time, the completion of the General Definitory has been left until tomorrow morning.
At 7:30 p.m., the Capitulars celebrated Evening Prayer and Friar Igor took his oath of office.
As mentioned, the new Definitory will be completed tomorrow and the Capitulars will begin discussing the Motions that were provided for in the Instrumentum laboris.
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