Prayer forD i s c e r n m e n t
The Capuchin Reform stressed a return to the poor, austere lifestyle embodied by St. Francis of Assisi. As the Capuchin Constitutions state: Let us cultivate radical poverty, both personal and communal, and out of love of the Lord’s Cross to lead a life of austerity and joyful penance.
Our First Plenary Council also states that: Hearing with our own ears “the cry of the poor, rising up more urgently than ever” and seeing
with our own eyes the subhuman condition of so many men and women “in their personal
distress and collective misery,” (Apostolic Exhortation of Paul VI, Evangelica testificatio, 17),
we felt the urgent call of the Spirit urging us to an ever more authentic faithfulness to our
vocation. In a new and more insistent way we understood why our Constitutions call us to seek
new forms of presence and activity, so that we may offer genuine assistance in the work of
evangelizing and elevating human society.
