I hear these most beautiful conversations of Brother Albert just sharing his experiences of God.. “Did you read the Office of Readings? Let’s talk about what was in the Office of Readings today!” And, “I got this out of it. What did you get out of it?” I like how he’s so good, even down to the pronunciation of words. There are a lot of words that are newest seminarian feels like he’s an idiot about because he doesn’t know how to pronounce them. But like all the rest of us, because we are in community, when we pronounce a word wrong the first time, someone corrects us. Then we feel like a schlep so we never forget it again. That’s how it works! However, Brother Albert knows how to pronounce them. He teaches them and draws out the spiritual life for them so that both seminarians came up to me and said, “Boy, I love talking to Brother because he takes things to such a deep spiritual level”. That friendship in Christ teaches them how to talk about deep and beautiful spiritual things-- theology and prayer and so on. It’s the Franciscan call of a deep, personal nature. Here is contemplation and sharing the fruits of contemplation. Brother Albert brought that into our home, and I think that’s something that’s very important for us as priests and those who are aspiring to be priests.

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So, we ask ourselves, if we are trying to live close to Francis, are we bringing our life of prayer to others? Are we sharing it? Are we sharing those fruits of contemplation? In a more active life, we do that by talking to people. In the cloister, all those fruits of contemplation inspire nuns to pray for this or that aspect of the Church. I think of my own prayer. So often when I’m praying, I feel inspired to pray for someone, and I imagine that must happen frequently in the lives of cloistered nuns. We need to foster that in this very personal nature of Franciscan-ism.

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One of my favorite books is Pierced by a Sword. There are few people I’m trying to get into the Church, and they are spouses of people in my parish, so we are going to have a book club with that book. One theme of that book is, “Oh, God wants me to pray for someone I do not even know.” That theme is pervasive throughout the book. While we are called to be personal in our prayers, we are encouraged to take those graces that we receive in prayer and make them personal for people we don’t even know, to imagine those people, to put faces to them, to use our imagination for the good, to say I want to offer this up for this poor soul, whoever it is, who I know is suffering. We all know there’s a poor soul suffering with us somewhere, and we know that the Blessed Mother is calling us to unite our prayers to hers for that person! Brother Albert does that so beautifully. We pray together and share our prayer intentions for this or that person. Brother Albert will say, “I just know there’s someone suffering with this somewhere, so I’m going to pray for that.” Someone will ask, “You sure you don’t have a friend somewhere with this problem? Somebody you know?” And he’ll say, “No. No. I’m just going to pray for a person somewhere with this problem.” Or he will offer a Holy Hour for that person. I don’t think I’ve ever done that, not just for someone in general! I’ve given a lot of my offerings up to the Blessed Mother saying, “Blessed Mother, you know what my sufferings and offerings are. You do this. You take them and apply them to someone. Blessed Mother, you decide.” It’s easy for me to do that because it seems like a logical step after being consecrated to the Blessed Mother. But to pray for someone, just because you know that someone is suffering and needs prayers-- well, it just amazed me.

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I’m beginning to realize that Franciscan poverty is about relationship. Things get in the way of relationship. I never realized the depth of that until Brother Albert showed me how that works. It’s a tale as old as time-- what is poverty and what is not. But it was a beautiful thing to see someone who just didn’t care about the stuff so much so that his poverty was truly a poverty of spirit so that he really tries to be the least. Brother Albert does the most least tasks which makes me feel terrible and I love him all the more. He reminded of my pastor who just turned 70. He’s a bundle of energy. He is pastor over one of the largest parishes in the diocese and the man never sits still. He lives for his people. He is up at 4 AM. He’s having meetings with people. He’s not done with the parish until 10 PM. The man just spends himself. But when you’re a seminarian in his parish, you learn that the one thing you have to do to keep him happy is to empty the dishwasher. As long as the dishwasher is empty, he’s happy. So, when I was a seminarian there, I emptied the dishwasher. All the time. There was never a dish in the sink, and the dishwasher was always empty. Why? Because he’s my spiritual father and I just wanted to make him happy. We tell every seminarian who goes there. “Empty the dishwasher.”

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Everybody has one weird thing. Franciscan life is finding what that one thing is for everyone and then doing it, because it’s worth it for every single person on earth. I did that for my priest, because I loved him like my father. He’s my spiritual father!. Do I do that for everyone? No! Should I? Yes! I thought about that once during my holy hour. I thought, “Why don’t I do that? Brother Albert does it. Why don’t I do that?” I give the same advice to couples about to be married. I give it to them all the time. I tell them they have to have a business meeting once a month. At this meeting, each spouse has to answer this question for the other spouse, “If my spouse would change this one thing about their life, my life would be so much easier.” Every spouse wants to know that one thing, correct? They want to make their spouse happy. So, what’s the one thing? And whatever it is, that’s exactly what I should be doing!

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Brother Albert teaches me because that’s what he does. He goes around, and he’s only been there a month, but he knows what makes every single one of our people in our office happy. And he does it. I didn’t realize it until, all of a sudden, I’m talking to everyone, and these are separate conversations, and each one is saying that he does this for me or he does that for me, and it’s the particular one weird thing that person wants that will make them happy. For example, our choir director hates dust on the rail of the choir loft. So where do I see him on Saturday, before she gets there? He’s up there with a rag, dusting. I asked him, “What are you doing?” “Dusting.” “Well, okay. Carry on.” Then I went over to the office and I find out that the choir director happened to mention the dusty choir rail in a conversation with Brother Albert, but she didn’t notice that he had been dusting for two weeks. Then she noticed, and she came to me and said, “Do you know what Brother Albert has been doing?”

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In the short amount of time that he’s been here, Brother Albert has done what other Franciscans have not been able to do over the years, and that is to give this woman a Franciscan who, to her, walks on water. For the first three weeks I heard complaints about how poor Brother Albert was living, but now I hear no complaints. Why is that? Because Brother Albert found the one thing for that person and he does it. It’s Franciscan genius!

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Thus, Brother Albert has single-handedly transformed a few people in the parish who come in contact with him personally. He’s made them very much fall in love with the Franciscan charism. And here’s the most ironic thing. He always tells me, “I didn’t know anything about Francis before I became a Franciscan.” He had no particular attachment to Francis before he came to the community, but of course, who doesn’t love St. Francis? I think it’s very interesting that this man, who wasn’t overly Franciscan before he became a Franciscan, taught me more than anyone else what living like Francis is about. So, I am thanking God for him in many different ways, but I also hope that, in the many different ways you are living out the Franciscan charism, that you never think it’s not noticed or appreciated. It will be noticed and appreciated and will make a great and profound difference in people’s lives, even when they don’t know it. Especially when they don’t know it. People like me. So, thank you, Brother Albert.

--Father Jacob Meyer, Spiritual Advisor