Ways To Live The Commissions

WAYS TO LIVE THE FAMILY COMMISSION:

• Be a good role model.

• Watch a movie with your family.

• Bless your house and car.

• Teach a child how to pray.

• Apologize to someone.

• Remember, God loves you as a mother loves a child.

• Start a tradition with your family.

• Dwell not on the past–only on the future.

• Visit those who are alone.

• Hold hands while saying grace.

• Call a grown child to say how much you love him/her.

• Laugh and smile often.

• Pray for your children’s teachers.

• Surprise your parents with a treat.

• Buy extra food for community soup kitchen.

• Write thank you notes to family members.

• Ask each family member to share a compliment with one another.

• Support Right to Life with newborn baby diapers and new/used garments.

• Support Birth Right programs.

• Create a gift shoebox for a homeless man/woman.

• Pray to the Guardian Angels for protection of your family.

• Adopt an elderly person in a nursing home.

• Mail your contribution to charity.

• Plan a weekend with your family.

• Live your marriage as a covenant and commitment before God.

*Excerpted from 2002, 2003 Family Commission calendars with permission.

WAYS TO LIVE THE PEACE AND
JUSTICE COMMISSION:

• Read the newspaper or listen to the news on the radio or TV and learn about problems in the world where peace and justice is needed.

• Volunteer to work in a soup kitchen.

• Pray daily for peace, “The Peace Prayer.”

• Use your skills in another language to work with people in your community who do not speak English.

• Participate in nonviolent demonstrations for peace or justice.

• Mediate between two people or two sides of a conflict.

• Help members of your family to get along with each other.

• Write to someone with whom you have lost touch.

• Write a letter or make a call to your congress-person about an issue you care about.

• Believe that peace is possible!

• Attend a talk or read a book to learn more about world hunger.

• Talk to your children or grandchildren about a peace-filled future.

• Travel to another country to learn about their culture.

• Visit or write to someone in prison.

• Assist someone who is having trouble receiving adequate health care.

• Volunteer to deliver food to a shut-in with HIV/AIDS, etc.

• Advocate for someone with mental illness.

• Participate in a run or walk “for a cure” (for breast cancer, AIDS, etc.).

• Donate time to a peace and justice group (like PAX Christi).

• Attend a meeting or workshop on peace and justice.

• Learn about where and under what conditions the clothes you are wearing are made.

• Study or read about church teachings on peace and justice.

• Get to know someone from a culture different from yours.

• Help someone find affordable housing.

• Choose not to buy war toys for the children you love.

WAYS TO LIVE THE WORK COMMISSION:

• Do literacy tutoring to help person(s) get a job or qualify for different ones.

• Format resumes on computer for more professional appearance for those without computer access or knowledge to do this.

• Help people complete job applications.

• Assist with resources to meet family needs of someone out of work - food, clothing, housing, utilities, getting unemployment compensation.

• Help meet spiritual needs of the employed, under employed, unemployed.

• Create/assist with support group for unemployed.

• Volunteer at place where people are trained for jobs or in offices where people come to find employment.

• Keep up on work related issues in the community. Write letters to editor reflecting Franciscan spirituality relative to the problems. Sign the letter with SFO after your name.

• Hire unemployed person(s) to do odd jobs around home/business and pay justly.

• Contact and assist local schools and/or parish(es) with “Career Days.”

• Print out information on careers from internet for people without computers.

• Mentor a new high school or college graduate or newly hired worker.

• Each diocese monitors legislation. Be informed about pending issues to address with local, state, and federal legislation.

• Focus fraternity at least 1 time each year on spirituality of work, perhaps near St. Joseph’s Feast, May 1st or Labor Day, the first Monday in September.

• Wear your TAU to work.

• Diffuse negative conversations, gossip, etc., at work.

• Bring hope to the workplace.

• See presence of Christ in others and let them see that in you.

• Have a fraternity meeting on work where members can speak about their charitable volunteer work.

• Use your fraternity bulletin to write quotes from Scripture or St. Francis on the dignity of work.

• Make a “Task Chart” for your children and reward them after so many stars.

• Build up the Kingdom of God in your own back yard by removing trash.

• Teach a child how to sew or knit a useful item such as a potholder or a place mat.

• Praise and thank those who do work for you.

• Offer to work on fraternity committees.

WAYS TO LIVE THE ECOLOGY COMMISSION:

• Ecologically....with respect for all creation:

• When shopping, substitute one organically produced item every week for a conventionally produced product you usually buy, to support environmental stewardship and family farms. Look for “community supported agriculture” (CSA) in your area.

• Park further away from your destination: you’ll

• use less gasoline, free spots for those who really need them, and get some additional exercise.

• When replacing your lawnmower, buy one designed to mulch the clippings and act as fertilizer.

• Spray your rose bushes with whole milk weekly to prevent black spot and mildew--research shows that it is very effective as well as cheap and non-toxic. Learn to select plants more suitable to your area that require few to no petro-chemical inputs.

• Give surplus or expired drugs to your local pharmacy to destroy instead of flushing them; many drugs affect our lakes and streams and fish.

• Don’t thin your vegetable garden too much; surplus of crops can be donated to food pantries, etc.

• Before you buy an item, discern whether you need it or is it just wanted.

• Get to know a part of God’s creation unknown to you. Spend time outside in nature - giving God praise for its variety, the way it all works together.

• Reflect on the areas where you exploit nature. Repent of your sins.

• Eat smaller portions or fast from eating a meal or two a week.

• Reflect on the ways you and your family use water and how you can conserve it.

• Compost the vegetation wastes from yard and kitchen.

• Harvest rain that runs-off the roof.

• Carpool errands with friends, family, Franciscans.

• Walk, ride the bus or ride your bike to church, etc.

• Purchase vehicles with good gas efficiency (e.g. hybrid fuel vehicles).

• When possible, wherever you see trash, pick it up (mountain trail or city street)....it’s cluttering up God’s creation.

• Read Catechism of the Catholic Church on being good stewards of creation.

• Talk with friends and family about stewardship.

• Do certain tasks manually to save fuel energy.

• Turn up/off your A/C, turn down/off your furnace while observing healthful limits.

• Join a group such as “ADOPT-A-HIGHWAY.”

• Support land conservation; promote the concept of permanent natural preservation.

• Bring your own cups to Fraternity gatherings, etc.

• Use paper more wisely at the office/home. (Double-sided copies; make note-pads out of used single-sided sheets).

WAYS TO LIVE THE FRANCISCAN
YOUTH/YOUNG ADULT COMMISSION:

• Encourage studying; help a young person in studying by having a day at the local library, science museum; share your knowledge.

• Listen to what young people are saying when they talk to you.

• Show mutual respect when meeting young people in restaurants, and your work area.

• Reward them for a job well done, especially good grades.

• Extend forgiveness, be compassionate, have empathy.

• Be patient, cheerful, and optimistic with young people.

• Have fun with them: bake a cake or cookies with them, walk barefoot in the park or beach, collect pretty shells or stones.

• Create a photo album of family or friends. Give each page of the album a theme and have them decorate it with pictures and souvenirs.

• Make a few “fun dates” on your calendar. Mark the choices of what they would like to do, and follow through.

• Give a simple hug, and saying “I love you” will give a great deal back.

• Be a friend to a young person. It is one of the greatest luxuries of life.

• Have a “Youth Visit Day” to sick youth in hospitals, or rehab center, or recuperating at home.

• Finger paint with children and hang up their work.

• Help children make a “Fairy Garden:” Get half-barrels or very large pots; take children to a garden shop-have them pick out 4 or 5 plants of their choice; research about them; help them plant these and decorate the pots with inexpensive ceramic items, i.e., little bugs, lady bugs, butterflies, etc.

• Send them a letter or postcard. Contribute to their collection.

• Praise more; criticize less.

• Admit when you make a mistake.

• Ask them to help you.

• Be understanding when they have a difficult day.

• Tackle new tasks together.

• Teach them about charity and giving.

• Tell them fun stories about your childhood.

• Compliment children and youth often.

• Make a present with them for grandparents; decorate a pot and place an herb plant in it for their kitchen.

• Love them no matter what.

From the National Secular Franciscan
All Commissions Conference
2004