On June 1-18, 2022, Friars Emanuele RIMOLI and Michael LASKY led a solemn vow pilgrimage to Assisi, Greccio, Fontecolombo, Parma, Padua, Camposampiero, Monseliche, Venice, Arezzo, Cortona, Rome and Vatican City. The pilgrims were from the Conventual Franciscan Federation (CFF). They included Friars Richard ROME, Timothy BLANCHARD and Franck STOCKPOLIE from the Province of Our Lady of the Angels in the USA (OLA); Friars Alberto BRAVO, Jaime ZARAGOZA, and Pedro GARCIA from the Province of Our Lady of Consolation in the USA (OLC); and Friar Jason WARRER from the Province of St. Bonaventure in the USA (SB).
Developed as part of the GPIC (JPIC) ministry of the CFF Federation, the pilgrimage began with the understanding that a mystic is someone who never stops walking. The pilgrimage experience further invited the friars to have a profound experience with God in the mundane and ordinary. Engaging our physical and spiritual senses, we were drawn out of ourselves into relationship by discovering how God is working in the lives of the friars, who are living the Gospel in solidarity with the poor and those on the margins. This led us all to encounter more deeply Christ Crucified in the little places of Franciscan minority and fraternity.
The texts we journeyed with included: “Constitutions of the Order of Friars Minor Conventual” (2019), and “The Mysticism of the Present Moment, Embodied Spirituality” (2021), by His Eminence José Tolentino Cardinal Mendonça.
Friar Michael LASKY
