Previous Post – Introverts In The Church – Interview

Since I started my journey into the heart of Franciscan spirituality, I have been reading so many excellent books about St. Francis and the way of life he modeled.  In that process I came across two books put out by IVP’s imprint Formatio by Franciscan Brother Albert Haase, OFM.  The books are “Coming Home to Your True Self: Leaving the Emptiness of False Attractions” and “Living the Lord’s Prayer: The Way of the Disciple”.  His books are rooted in the rich tradition of the Church, deeply Biblical and beautiful in what they call us to (whether you are interested in Franciscan tradition or not.  More than his books, however, I want to recommend Brother Albert himself to you.  I hope the following interview will encourage you to get to know him better:

Jamie Arpin-Ricci: Can you tell us briefly how you first came to discover St. Francis and your calling to the OFM?

Albert Haase: Being a “cradle Catholic,” I learned about the “man in the birdbath” at an early age. As a child, my attraction to St. Francis was rooted in his love for creation, especially animals, and the way he was a brother to all people, even the most marginalized by society. As an adult, over the years, I have found even more layers of depth to Francis that continue to keep me fascinated and attracted to him: his renunciation of power and all the many ways it is abused in the world, his outreach to Islam, his abhorrence of war, especially the call to the Crusades in his own lifetime.

I remember the exact moment when I received my calling to become a Franciscan friar. I was in first grade in elementary school. It was the month of November and as the United Nations did back then, there were little cardboard boxes called “Trick or Treat for UNICEF.” Everyday my first grade teacher would select a student who would be responsible for taking the UNICEF box and passing it around to collect nickels and quarters from our classmates. One day, she selected me. So I walked around the classroom collecting the loose change of my classmates. After I finished, I went to the front of the classroom to return the box to the teacher. She took the little box from my hands, made an exaggerated gesture suggesting the box was extremely heavy, and said to me, “Albert, you are so good at collecting donations! One day you are going to make a wonderful Franciscan priest!” I have no idea why she said that. But I was and am enough of a “people pleaser” that I decided to follow through with her suggestion. Ha! Seriously, as I got older and older and began to feel the call to religious life and the priesthood, I never even considered any other religious order – not even the Jesuits who gave me so much of my education. Now, after 33 years as a Franciscan, it continues to fit me like a glove. It has become part of my DNA.

JAR: You spent several years serving as a missionary to mainland China.  What was that like?  How long had it been since there had been a Franciscan presence there previously?

AH: My missionary vocation to mainland China was another childhood dream come true. Before she died in 2005, my mother used to tell the story how, as a young boy growing up in New Orleans, Louisiana, I would sometimes go outside with a shovel and start digging a hole. My mother would come out and ask me what I was doing. I would reply, “I’m going to China!” But I would soon abandon the task for lack of a bigger shovel. For some reason, as long as I can remember, I have had a fascination with China, the Chinese culture and its fascinating language. I still shake my head in amazement how I can now actually understand that language, speak it and actually make sense of all those “funny looking lines” that make up its written language.

Living as a missionary in China was not as glamorous or exciting as it might seem. Coming to an understanding of the culture and learning the language were extraordinarily hard. It took me about 5 years to become comfortable and confident enough to “navigate” my way through a day and a week. I made some terrific friends among the Chinese.

Chairman Mao kicked out all the foreign missionaries from mainland China in the 1940’s. In the 1980’s with the liberal policies of Deng Xiao Ping, Catholics were allowed some limited practice of their faith. At that time, the Franciscan Order learned that, in fact, there were some native Chinese Franciscans still living in the country. I think it’s wise for me not to mention their location. But they are still there and native Chinese continue to be attracted to the “man in the birdbath,” just as I was as a child. There are currently about 5 foreign-born Franciscans living and working in mainland China. They are running a leprosarium which is a thoroughly Franciscan apostolate since Francis received his religious call as he lived and ministered among the lepers who used to live outside the walls of Assisi.

JAR: In your book “Coming Home To Your True Self” you draw upon the story of prodigal son to help us discover “the sacrament of the present moment”.  For those unfamiliar with sacramental view, what does that mean?  What might that look like in our lives?

AH: I chuckled when I read that question. The “sacrament of the present moment” is precisely that: it is a sacrament because it is the place of encounter with God. We encounter God in the here and now and nowhere else. There is no such thing as the past or the future – past and future are “mental constructs” that we learn in order to understand our experience. But they are not real. The only thing that is real is the present moment. And it is right here, right now, where we meet God.

The problem is that most of us don’t live in the present moment. We are either stuck in the past with guilt and sentimentality or we are stuck in the future with worry and anxiety. And I suspect that is why Jesus continually challenged us to live in the present. He reminds us that the only way to live in the present is to be sensitive to and actually experience what our 5 senses are experiencing. “Let those who have ears, let them hear!” “Look at the birds of the air!” And elsewhere in Scripture, we are reminded to “taste and see how good the Lord is!” So what might the sacrament of the present moment look like in a person’s life? It looks like exactly where the person is right now – and hopefully the person is “living in the present moment” by actually experiencing what’s going on right now. This is where God comes to us. Those who live in and experience the present moment are experiencing a divine sacrament for, as Paul reminds us, “In God we live and more and have our being.” God is like the air we breathe – and those who live in the here-and-now, take off their shoes like Moses before the burning bush.

JAR: St. Francis is the most widely followed saint across all Christian traditions.  What do you think the Franciscan tradition most has to offer non-Catholic Christians?

AH: Francis reminds all of us – Catholics, Protestants, seekers, etc. – that the life and teachings of Jesus are not some quaint “museum piece” that is enshrined in the Gospels and that we occasionally dust off and read. As baptized believers, we are challenged to put “flesh and bones” on them by the way we live our lives. In his very person and life, Francis is an explicit reminder that Jesus is, in point of fact, “the way, the truth and the life.” I once heard a Jewish rabbi say, “To encounter Francis of Assisi IS to encounter Jesus of Nazareth.” Wouldn’t it be wonderful if that could be said of all Christians?

JAR: What inspired you to write “Living The Lord’s Prayer”?  What most excites you about what this book has to offer?

AH: The Gospel of Luke often portrays Jesus retreating up a mountain alone to pray. And yet, we rarely get a glimpse into what exactly his personal prayer sounded like. When he was directly asked by a disciple about how to pray, rather than reply with a technique or method, Jesus used words that came from the very heart of his life and teachings. As a matter of fact, in the early 3rd century, one Christian bishop called the Lord’s Prayer “the summary of the whole Gospel.” And so to pray the Lord’s Prayer is really to remind ourselves not only how to pray but also how to live our lives.

That realization made me aware of the fact that there is more to the Lord’s Prayer than meets the eye – or the ear, for that matter. Besides being the one prayer that unites Christians of all denominations, it also has the potential for being a blueprint for holiness and spiritual formation. It was this “angle” or insight that led me to write LIVING THE LORD’S PRAYER: THE WAY OF THE DISCIPLE.

And so, in each chapter of the book, I begin by turning to Jesus and the rich Jewish tradition that he lived and breathed, to help grasp the significance of the particular phrase that chapter is focused upon. I then search the tradition of Christian spirituality to see how the great believers who have trod the disciple’s way before us, understood, lived or interpreted that particular phrase. And finally, I state how we as 21st century Christians can live the words of this “summary of the whole Gospel.”

The compelling motivation for writing the book was the simple realization that the Lord’s Prayer is not simply to be prayed, but more importantly, it is to be lived.  Though the Lord’s Prayer goes all the way back to Jesus and has been hallowed by Christians down through the ages, I find its enduring relevance astounding…

In a world where some priests and pastors preach a God who is more like a state trooper who has set speed trap after speed trap on the interstate highway called life and is just waiting for us to violate the speed limit, Jesus reminds us that God is an Abba, a merciful, compassionate father, of unconditional love.  In a world where people still believe in a “me and Jesus spirituality” where one’s neighbor is considered a threat or distraction to one’s relationship with the Divine, Jesus reminds us that God is “our” father, that relationships with others are of critical importance in spiritual formation, and that we ultimately go to God as one family, not as one individual.  In a world where some people have facilely figured out God’s ways and desires for the world, Jesus reminds us that God “lives in heaven” which, according to the Scriptural understanding of the phrase, means that God can never be “figured out” or totally comprehended. As the prophet Isaiah reminds us, “My ways are not your ways and my thoughts are not your thoughts, says the Lord.” When all is said and done, God is an unfathomable and incomprehensible mystery.

In a world where there are so many hungry, poor and marginalized people, Jesus reminds us that praying for the Kingdom and doing the Will of God, are about committed Christians accepting their responsibility to live lives of peace, love and justice. We bring about the Kingdom as we act upon the Gospel message. By virtue of our baptism, we are “Christians” – which literally means “little Christs.” To pray for the Kingdom and that God’s Will be done and then not acting according to the teachings of Jesus, is like coughing in a handkerchief. Our faith is then reduced to “polite pious thoughts.”

How tempting it is for us in America, to think that we are self-made successes and that all our accomplishments are done by our own sweat and blood. Yet, in the Lord’s Prayer as we pray for daily bread, we call to mind that everything is a gift from God – my looks, my personality, my house, my spouse, my job, my talents and abilities. To pray for daily bread is to recognize my absolute dependence upon God – and to call to mind that our loving Father can, in fact, be trusted to care for everyday needs.

In a world that continues to promote “an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth” and that justice is done by getting even, Jesus’ countercultural message of forgiveness gives us cause to pause – and challenges us to share with others the very gift we ourselves are immersed in. And that gift is the forgiveness and mercy of our Father. Jesus minces no words and is pretty tough on people who chose to be more demanding on their neighbor than God has been on them.

The world continues to invent newer and newer temptations against which we all struggle against. And yet, when all is said and done, they can be reduced to 8 basic thoughts which I write about in my book, Living the Lord’s Prayer. These 8 thoughts were enumerated way back in the 4th century – and yet they have such a contemporary ring to them! Jesus challenges us to confront and convict them.

For a prayer that has had a history of over 2000 years, I think the Lord’s Prayer is extraordinarily relevant. And maybe that’s where its wisdom lies: it reminds us that our Christian brothers and sisters have been struggling with the same issues since day one.

JAR: Tell us something odd and unusual about yourself.

AH: I’m not sure if this is odd and unusual but: when I was 16 years old, I won first place in a speech contest reciting “Horton Hatches an Egg” by Dr. Seuss. Some 38 years later, I can still recite every line from memory – and sometimes am asked to do so, especially when beer is flowing at a party!