The Catholic Standard & Times - Franciscan Missionaries of Jesus Crucified

Suffering for life
Franciscan Missionaries of Jesus Crucified

by Susan Brinkmann
CS&T Correspondent

When Jesus Christ hung dying on the cross, He could move nothing but His head.

He was essentially paralyzed from the neck down, and yet, He saved the world.

Thanks to a little-known community that is open to persons with disabilities — as well as those without — men and women across the country are discovering a new purpose in life by imitating Christ Crucified, and uniting their disabilities with His suffering for the sake of the world.

“Handicapped people are not worthless,” said Maria Burke, 53, a parishioner at St. Catherine of Siena in Horsham who has multiple sclerosis (MS). “We have something to give to the world. We can still contribute.”

Burke is one of 24 women and six men who have become Franciscan Missionaries of Jesus Crucified (FMJC), a secular institute for lay persons, many of whom have disabilities.

Members live a life of total consecration to God by professing perpetual vows of poverty, chastity and obedience, according to the spirit of St. Francis. Called to live exemplary Christian lives in the ordinary circumstances of their family, parish, work, civic and social environments, they help Jesus carry His cross and effect a Gospel leaven in the world.

For Burke, it was an answer to lifelong prayer. “Long before I was diagnosed with MS, I just felt this need inside of me for religious life,” said Burke, who attended St. Athanasius Parish School and Cardinal Dougherty High School.

“This isn’t exactly what I had in mind,” she said. “I thought something more like being a Sister of the Immaculate Heart, or of St. Joseph — or the Good Shepherd sisters, with whom I was very close, too. I spent time with all of them but it never seemed to fit the bill.”

And then, in 1987, Burke was diagnosed with MS, an autoimmune disease that affects the central nervous system.

“It wasn’t so bad at first,” Burke said. “I went from a cane to a walker to a wheelchair, and I fought it every step of the way.”

A naturally independent person, who managed a store and loved to drive, she had never wanted to depend on others. “But I had no choice,” she said. “If I didn’t have my aide to wash and dress me, and get me up and into the wheelchair, I’d lay in this bed all day. This is a very humbling experience.”

Burke admits to being “mad as hell” when she was first diagnosed. “Whenever I could no longer do something I could always do before, I’d get frustrated. And the more frustrated I got, the angrier I got.”

At this point, she had given up on a vocation to the religious life. “I said, ‘Okay, God. Now no order will want me. So will you please leave me alone about this? There’s nothing else I can do.’”

But He did not leave her alone. One day, Father Lawrence Gleason, who was serving as parochial vicar at St. Catherine at the time, brought her information about the Franciscan Missionaries of Jesus Crucified.

The moment she read the literature, she knew it was the place she had been searching for.

“I never felt so comfortable with any people or any organization as I feel with them,” Burke said. “It’s like looking for the glove that fits perfectly. You try on a million, and none ever fit. But this one finally fit.”

Joining the order has made all the difference in her life, she said: “With FMJC, it’s a whole new way of looking at things. I’m not angry like I used to be. I’m at peace with everything. It’s a wonderful feeling. It really and truly has brought me peace.”

There are many more like her, says Louise D. Principe, the former general minister of the Albany-based FMJC, and one of its founding members.

“We’re all in various stages of disrepair,” says Principe, 63, who was born with a hereditary muscle disease. In 1993, surgery on her spine left her partially paralyzed from the neck down.

“Jesus saved the world by uniting His will to the will of the Father in perfect obedience,” Principe said. “It has nothing to do with ‘doing’ a lot of stuff. We can do this too, no matter what our condition — because it doesn’t depend on ‘doing.’ It’s a matter of ‘being.’ And ‘being’ does not depend on whether I use my power wheelchair or whether someone uses a voice synthesizer to speak. That’s irrelevant.”

The institute has canonical status as a public association of the faithful, Principe said, which is its first step toward becoming a secular institute of pontifical right. It accepts persons with and without disabilities who have a desire to live a life of total consecration to Christ in the secular world; who have an interest in serving others and promoting Christian values in society; who are of moral, emotional and psychological balance, and who are over the age of 21 and have a means of support.

Initial formation takes place within a person’s everyday environment over a three to five year period. Missionaries recite morning and evening prayer, and attend monthly days of recollection and an annual week-long retreat.

Aside from prayer and suffering, the missionaries are called on to address the needs of their suffering neighbor, as a witness to the dignity and value of human life, regardless of its condition.

Persons called to the order must be able to minister to all people as equals. Among the many gifts they strive to offer the world, is hope for those discouraged by their suffering, peace to those who see no value or purpose in their illness or disability, and joy to those who are alienated from a society that glorifies youth and health.

William Watts, 38, formerly of Nativity of Our Lord Parish in Warminster, is a perpetually professed member of FMJC who is lives at Good Shepherd Home in Allentown, and devotes his life to living out this call.

“People always thought that persons with disabilities were not able to have vocations —but God does call people,” Watts said. “And it helps us to know that the Lord does have a purpose for us.”

Watts, who has muscular dystrophy, uses an electric wheelchair, a ventilator and a trachial tube to help him breath. But that doesn’t stop him from ministering to the home’s 99 other residents, most of whom have cerebral palsy.

“It’s just a matter of being open to God’s Spirit living within me,” he said. “It’s unique every day. There are a lot of prayer needs — that’s number one. Then the witness of my life, and how I live, and by the needs of the people who come into contact with me. Maybe they just need someone to listen to them and their problems.”

He has helped one woman enter the Catholic Church, and provides powerful prayer support for a local prison ministry. Watts never runs out of opportunities to live out God’s call.

“People with disabilities have a unique capability to offer their suffering, united to Christ. By that deep relationship with the crucified Lord, experiencing His love and His friendship, we can go out and bring the Gospel to the world,” Watt said. “That’s basically what this lay apostolate does.”

Burke agrees wholeheartedly: “I might be in a wheelchair, but I’m not dead. I’m still here for a reason.

“God created me for a purpose,” she said. “He knew how my life was going to unfold, being the all-knowing God that He is, and in that I find purpose.”

For more information about the Franciscan Missionaries of Jesus Crucified, please contact Bonnie Fagan at BJFFMJC@aol.com or at (518) 452-1696.

Contact Susan Brinkmann at fiat723@aol.com or (215) 965-4615.