Imagine a cross that protrudes from the world. A light comes out of it that illuminates the globe, yet this light only illuminates one-third of the earth. What does this mean? It means that the light of faith in Jesus Christ has only reached one-third of our planet! I am not talking about who will be saved and who will not, but it is a disturbing truth that two-thirds of humanity does not live in or is not aware of the light of Jesus Christ. If the vocation of a candle is to illuminate, the vocation of the Christian is to share the light of faith.

I remember a moment when I was about to leave my homeland, Poland, and head to Peru. A friar told me that Poland was also a mission territory. He was right, but with a significant difference: while in our friary, Mass was celebrated every day because we were blessed with several friar-priests, there are places where the Eucharist is celebrated only once a year due to a shortage of friar-priest missionaries.
The world today tries to sell us things that are low: low in sugar, low in saturated fat, low in sodium, etc. I call it living in the “world of lite.” We have gone to living “lite” in many aspects. What costs us no effort is valued by us, while commitment, self-sacrifice, and long-term responsibility are viewed with suspicion.

If, what I like to call, “sofa spirituality” prevails, it will become increasingly difficult to find candidates for proclaiming and sharing the light of Christ with those who have not heard the Good News. “Sofa spirituality” describes a passive attitude to life that only observes life; “sofa spirituality” does not engage anyone or anything. It reminds me of a quote from the late Dietrich Bonhoeffer concerning cheap grace as opposed to costly grace: “Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate. Costly grace is the treasure hidden in the field; for the sake of it, a man will go and sell all that he has. It is the pearl of great price to buy for which the merchant will sell all his goods.” (Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship.)

The walls of our friaries are increasingly lower, thinner, and more permeable to the world around us; this is an advantage if we think about openness to the world, but it can also be dangerous if we allow the “lite approach” to steer our Franciscan vision, stifling our missionary commitment. May we all “choose the better part.”