This year, in lieu of greeting cards, I wrote this circular letter, which I sent to friends near and far, and which I now open to you, my reader friends. A very happy Christmas to you.
My friend,
Hello from
San Lorenzo Seminary and the Capuchin Franciscan novitiate. Hello from
California! Hello from the heart, where I keep everything I treasure. I send
you this greeting to tell you I have laid your image and likeness in my
treasury to honor your sacred worth to me. In your own special way you have
changed my life, increased it, directed it, given or shown it meaning. May God
always help me appreciate the value of what—no, who—has been my very good
fortune.
In a few
years, when I make my solemn profession of the vow of poverty, I will possess
nothing of my own and make sparing use of fewer things, all in the hope of
enjoying everything God has provided. I do not have to wait for that day to vow
to you now that I will never “possess” you or “use” you, but I will rejoice in
our friendship and fellowship. Although this year I am secluded from the world
and all the places I have known and have been known in, I feel connected
spiritually to you. We are only separated, not estranged. And the chances are
good we will come together again someday—perhaps even next year, when I return
to the Northeast and settle in Boston to continue my initial formation into
religious life.
I share with
you these hopes for reunion because it is Advent, and the only way I know how
to prepare for the coming of Christ is to prepare to meet his likeness in your
soul. These days, time flows so fast, there is little cause to wait, but when I
look east with my spiritual sense, time comes to a stop, and, looking for you
and all my friends, I have to learn patience again. It has been seven months
since I left home and traveled to a land far from everywhere to begin a year of
contemplation. I have seven more months in this beautiful desert valley. I must
wait for you and all my sisters and brothers in spirit. But God, for whom a
thousand years is like a day, is so good. I have been led graciously to a place
where a hundred days are like an hour. We will come together, and it will only
be a little while! Yet it is also time enough to prepare well for our coming.
Love divine is truly kind and merciful. Look east with me, my friend. Let us
look together, and let us look to each other. Love the Guest is on the way.
It is not in
my power to bless anyone or anything, so I pray God, whose power surpasses all,
will add the blessing to these words. And surely the God of Israel, the God of Jesus
and Saint Francis of Assisi, will be as generous, merciful, and loving to you
as to me, and many times over what we dare to hope.
Your brother,
Anthony
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