𓆩𓍊𓋼𓍊𓋼𓍊 Jesters of YHWH 𓍊𓋼𓍊𓋼𓍊𓆪
HOUSEHOLD COVENANT
“We are fools for the sake of Christ, but you are wise in Christ. We are weak, but you are strong. You are held in honor, but we in disrepute.” 1 Corinthians 4:10
We, the Jesters of YHWH, will strive to fill the world with our song. As the Lord breathed the Holy Spirit into the lungs of his disciples, so, we, his disciples of the new century, strive to live a life inebriated with the Holy Spirit. That same spirit that filled our patron St. Philip Neri as a ball of fire, enlarging his heart and cracking his ribs, we will daily invoke and praise because without this fire we do nothing.
In the spirit of our patron St. Philip we will beg the Holy Spirit for supernatural joy. This joy we will not keep to ourselves. We yearn to be joyful about all things except sin. To be joyful in our daily prayer and conversation with God, to be joyful in suffering trusting in God’s will, to be joyful in love of neighbor, to be joyful in love of You.
Like St. Francis’ “Jongleur di Dieu” or “Jesters of God” we desire to see the world upside down. Joy requires a childlike and seemingly foolish trust in God’s big picture. Heaven is to be preferred and prepared for. Even with such light heartedness we will not loose sight of the war with sin that we are fighting. With the gratitude of humble St. Francis who had nothing by earthy standards, and the humor and joy of St. Philip who lived a life of humility, prayer, simplicity, and selflessness; we will try to live out our days in spirit-filled prayer and joy. We will seem to be fools while we look at the world upside down but…
“God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom.” 1 Corinthians 1:25
HUMILITY St. Philip Neri thought that Humility was the essential virtue to be obtained in order to grow in other virtues. Humility requires an abandonment to the will of God, a death of self, the acknowledgment that all your good works are by God, and with that the ability to laugh at yourself. St. Philip used to walk around in clown shoes for humility or shave half of his beard!
“If then there is any encouragement in Christ, any consolation from love, any sharing in the Spirit, any compassion and sympathy, make my joy complete: be of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves.”
GRATITUDE Understanding that we are nothing but what God makes us and have nothing but what God gives us, we can learn to be grateful. Cold and naked in the woods, having just cast off his relationship to his earthly family, St. Francis burst out into song, singing the praises and the glories of God. At every meal we will share what we are grateful for. We will encourage one another to speak positively when it is so easy to be negative.
“The great painter boasted that he mixed his colours with brains, and the great saint may be said to mix all his thoughts with thanks. All goods look better when they look like gifts.”
– G.K. Chesterton
CREATIVITY Our gifts and talents are a huge reason to be grateful. The Holy Spirit is the living creativity that manifests itself in us. Everything insightful we say or beautiful we make is through our Divine Inspirator. There is something unique about everyone, and we will try to bring that out and honor that Presence in others. The famous verse from Matthew 25 “well done my good and faithful servant” is the voice of a master pleased by the growth of the talents given to his servant.
HOLY HUMOR “A divine sense of humor belongs to poets and saints because they have been richly endowed with a sense of the invisible, and can look out upon the same phenomena that other mortals take seriously and see in them something of the divine.” Bishop Fulton Sheen
EVANGELIZATION THROUGH JOY Once the silly geese of the Wild Goose have grasped the joy that is waiting for them, we can and must share it with others. We will take pains to be increasingly selfless and hospitable toward others on campus. We will encourage one another to sit with the lonely Freshman at the caf, and we will try to smile even when we are annoyed with our last class.
PERSONAL PRAYER In order to become saints and grow in holiness, our main goal for household is to develop our prayer life and relationship with all three members of the Holy Trinity in a way that we can carry with us for the rest of our lives.
