Implementation of the Spirituality of Saint Francis of Assisi in the Life of the Brotherhood in Franciscan Missionary Sisters of Assisi Simalingkar B Medan

Spirituality is a trasendental relationship and the creation of unity relations between nature and humans, the universe and unity between individuals and God. The formulation of the research problem is how to implementation of the Spirituality of Saint Francis of Assisi in the life of the brotherhood in Franciscan Missionary Sisters of Assisi Simalingkar B Medan. The purpose of the study was to explain the findings of the implementation of the spirituality of SFA in the life of the brotherhood in SFMA Simalingkar B Medan. The design of the research used is qualitative research using analytical procedures that produce descriptive-qualitative data. The sample technique used to determine the informant is a snowball sampling technique consisting of 10 SFMA sisters. Primary data sources come from interviews, observation and documentation. The results of the study were analyzed using milles and hubberman models were data reduction, data presentation, the drafting of conclusions. Stages of research, namely data transcription, data identification, data classification, data interpretation, data description. The technique used to ensure the level of data validation is triangulation, examination of colleagues, and auditing. The results are SFMA sisters have made Christ the center of living in brotherhood in the community. This brotherhood is turned on by the sabda and is supported by various prayer practices. Brotherhood among the sisters based on the love of the gospel while still prioritizing the attitude of accepting, aware of the similarities between one and the others, namely together with total. Open each other, understand each other and willing to sacrifice. This spirituality implementation is expected to remain maintained because of this spiritual implementation as the basic capital in fulfilling the call as a religus. Keywords: Spirituality, Saint Francis of Assisi, Brotherhood, Franciscan Missionary Sisters of Assisi.

Saint Agnes of Bohemia: A Thirteenth-Century Iconoclast and the Enduring Legacy of Her Convent as a Sacred Space for Religious Art

Refusing to accept her expected role of becoming an item of negotiation in an arranged marriage to strengthen a political alliance, Agnes of Bohemia (1211–1282), daughter of King Přemysl Otakar I of Bohemia and Queen Constance of Hungary, chose to use her royal dowry to finance construction of the first hospital, convent, monastery, and church in Prague committed to the teachings of Saint Francis. Her youth was influenced by nuns providing her education, by a strong familial precedent in the support of churches and convents, and by religious contemporaries. Joining the fledging Franciscan movement, this remarkably well-educated and deeply committed woman entered as abbess of the convent in 1234, dedicating her life to poverty without endowment, devotion, and service to the sick and poor. Agnes was beatified by Pope Pius IX in 1874 and canonized by Pope John Paul II in 1989. Her legacy remains in Prague today with the Gothic convent she constructed now serving as a premiere museum devoted to the Medieval and Renaissance religious art of Prague and Central Europe. Thus, the original goal of building a sacred space for sisters in order to foster spiritual mediation has now been redirected to provide the public the opportunity to become immersed in ecclesiastical reflection viewing the works of artists such as Master Theodoric, the Master of Vyšší Brod, the Master of the Třeboň Altarpiece, and others.

Making Fraternity an Essential Link in Christian-Muslim Relations

The article provides a survey of ideas and initiatives advanced by Christian and Muslim religious leaders and believers towards a mutual religious rapprochement in the past more than fifty years. On the Christian side, the process was started at the Second Vatican Council and developed with the great personal involvement of all popes of the following half-century. Muslim positive initiatives, from official centres as well as from committed intellectuals, have appeared somewhat later and still have to combat hostile moves of partisans of radical Islamism. Our article discusses the culminating point reached so far in the positive efforts of Pope Francis in his meetings with the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar Sheikh Ahmad al-Tayyib, including their agreement on the fraternity as a desirable bond for all believers in God. Our reflections try to mark out the main points of understanding achieved by the two religious leaders in the document signed by them in Abu Dhabi in February 2019 and, thereafter, further developed by the Pope in his comprehensive encyclical Fratelli tutti, issued in Vatican on the feast of Saint Francis in October 2020.

Bones, fire, and falcons: Loving things in medieval Europe

In three loving encounters between humans and nonhumans, this article explores different approaches to material love in medieval Europe. Beginning with an English bishop who attempted to eat the bone relic of Saint Mary Magdalene, it first considers how a series of medieval thinkers imagined God's love as mediated primarily through the consumption of matter. Further, it shows how the medieval commercialization of relics enabled a subversive, quasi-mystical counter tradition that located loving experiences within the unmediated physicality, or thingness, of Christian artifacts themselves. Moving next to Saint Francis of Assisi (d.1226), the article explores a curious case of self-negating devotion to fire. While contextualizing the saint's love against a background of scholastic materialism and ecstatic mysticism, it explores how fire gained a unique onto-theological status as the material essence of both love and the heavens in the 1200s. Finally, turning to love for animals, the analysis explores the astonishing care shown to falcons by the Holy Roman Emperor, Frederick II (d.1250). While surveying a series of trends in medieval ways of loving creatures, the article stresses how the emperor's radical empathy for beasts allowed him temporarily to surrender his sovereignty, melding the interest of king and bird. Just like the mystical theology that underpinned much of medieval devotion, it argues, these three loving encounters were all essentially structured as self-annihilating journeys into a “oneness” with the material landscape. Considering the ongoing threads of this forgotten type of self-erasing love, these medieval encounters can have intriguing implications for debates in the environmental humanities today.

Mystical Kinship of Creation: A Foundation of Ecospirituality for Interreligious Ecological Movements

This article explores the intersection between Bhumi Devi in Hindu Mythology and the Canticle of Creation of Saint Francis of Assisi. This intersection discovers the concept of the mystical kinship of creation as a foundation of ecospirituality. The exploration which is rooted in two different traditions, Hinduism and Christianity, enlightens interreligious ecological movements that they need not only action but also a spiritual foundation.

The Missionary in the World: The Invention of the Soul of Saint Francis Xavier in an Anonymous Sermon: The East, Quito and Rome, 18th Century

The discovery of an anonymous Quito Sermon dating back to 1741 in the Fondo Curia 2223 in the Archives of the Pontifical Gregorian University of Rome dealing with the historical and metaphorical transit between Rome and the “Orient” of the Jesuit missionary Francis Xavier (1506–52), suggests links between the universalist vocation of the Catholic mission, and the local American missionary experiences which the text omits. This article argues that the sermon has a universal resonance that invokes the East in America (as it is written to be read in public); it is a sensory experience that can be adapted to different realities (the trips, relics, and missions of Francis Xavier), but also noted is the omission of local missionary practices (i.e., the sermon is presented as produced in a place unmentioned in the text). It is above all, a reformulation of the “missionary in the world” of Western philosophical commentaries and texts that look toward the East but are enunciated in America.

Theatre as Church Service: Brat Magarac (“Brother Donkey”)—A Drama about Saint Francis of Assisi by the Croatian Author and Director René Medvešek and its Staging at ZKM Zagreb

Teatr jako nabożeństwo: Brat Magarac (“Brat Osioł”) — dramat o św. Franciszku z Asyżu chorwackego dramaturga i reżysera René Medveška i jego scena w ZKM w Zagrzebiu Artykuł dotyczy dramatu Brat Magarac („Brat Osioł”) chorwackiego dramaturga i reżysera René Medveška oraz inscenizacji autorskiej w Teatrze Młodych (ZKM) w Zagrzebiu w 2001 r. Dramat przedstawia życie Franciszka z Asyżu. Liczne produkcje filmowe na ten temat świadczą o teatralności nieodłącznej od życia św. Franciszka. Inscenizacja Medveška odpowiada nauczaniu św. Franciszka, ponieważ dekoracje i kostiumy są bardzo skromne. Dodatkowo, integrując elementy muzyczne, całość nabiera walorów liturgicznych. Odpowiada to w ogólności wyobrażeniom autora o teatrze, który jego zdaniem nie ogranicza się tylko do przedstawienia dla widowni, ale – podobnie jak nabożeństwo – łączy ludzi i umożliwia im przeżycie katharsis.

Mapping Lioz limestone in monuments at Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

<p>Lioz limestone is a well-known Portuguese natural stone, recognised as Global Heritage Stone Resource (GHSR) by the International Union of Geological Sciences (IUGS). This microcrystalline Cretaceous limestone was broadly used in churches and monuments, especially in Lisbon, where it is exploited. It exhibits four varieties of colours: ivory (Lioz), beige (Chainnette), dark pink (Encarnadão), yellow (Amarelo de Negrais), and also many fossils of Rudists, Gastropods and <em>Thalassinoides</em>. This rock was brought to Brazil as ballast in vessels, to stabilise them, and to bring a Portuguese symbol to the "new land". It was mostly used in historical buildings in coastal cities (Belém, Recife, Salvador, São Luis, and Rio de Janeiro) from the 16th to the 20th century, though it can be found in many other of Brazil. The stone that shines in Lisbon, the Royal Stone from Portugal, keeps in Brazilian monuments the memory of the strong relationship between Portugal and Brazil, along this country's history, first as an overseas colony and later as the seat of the United Reign of Brazil, Portugal and the Algarves. The history engraved in these monuments guards that memory, being essential to study the processes of degradation that these rocks suffer. In the central region of Rio de Janeiro, known as “Old Rio”, many heritage buildings present Lioz limestone, usually together with local gneisses, in their construction and ornamentation: in floors, altars in churches, walls, columns and others. Some examples are the Royal Portuguese Cabinet of Reading, the Church of Our Lady of the Candelaria, the Bank of Brazil Cultural Center, the Imperial Palace, the Saint Francis of Paola Church, the Saint Luzia Church, the Master Valentim Fountain, the Holy Cross of the Military Church, the Saint Joseph Church, the Riachuelo Teather, and the Gustavo Capanema Palace. The last one is a symbol of the modernism in Brazil. Some of these buildings are in routes of urban geotourism as a form to disseminate science. These places are relevant in many aspects, such as cultural, historical, architectural, geological and educational. Rio de Janeiro is a coastal city with an average temperature of 23,2ºC, rainfall of 1,278mm per year and relative humidity of 78%. Lioz limestone's alteration gets more accentuated in these conditions, and the deterioration can be even more intense. Another point to observe is that many of these buildings are in high traffic areas, and the pollution emitted by the vehicles is highly prejudicial because of the cycles of dry and wet deposition. The Lioz limestone presents low porosity; however, problems as black crusts and biological colonisation are common and can lead to severe forms of degradation, and the monuments' mischaracterisation. This work aims to elaborate an inventory of the monuments constructed and ornamented with Lioz limestone and the observed decay patterns of this stone in Rio de Janeiro. The inventory and the study of the mechanisms and extension of their degradation over time are crucial for their effective conservation for future generations.</p>