April 6, 2018 at 1:53 p.m.
FRANCISCAN MISSIONARIES
Association provides focus for people with disabilities
Association provides focus for people with disabilities
"I was born with a hereditary muscle disease," she explained. "I've had trouble all my life."
But Ms. Principe believes her disability enhances her faith. So, in 1987, she and a few others from the Albany Diocese decided to create the Franciscan Missionaries of Jesus Crucified, an association of the faithful.
In so doing, Ms. Principe was finding a way to focus her faith, as well as creating a vocation for herself and others with disabilities.
Canon (Church) law calls a group like the FMJC "an institute of consecrated life in which the faithful, living in this world, strive for the perfection of charity and endeavor to work for the sanctification of the world from within."
Ms. Principe described it as a community of laypeople, dedicated to their faith in the spirit of St. Francis, who take similar vows as women religious but do not live in community. Members promise to do some kind of service work in their pursuit of holiness; even people who do not have disabilities may join.
The FMJC was approved by the Church in 1992 -- ironically, the year before spinal surgery left Ms. Principe paralyzed from the neck down. She is now retired from her former work as a pharmacological researcher with the New York State Health Department.
"You have to help people from where you are," she said in a recent interview. As a person of faith who also has a disability, she is often in the position of being a role model. She has helped advise other residents of her Albany apartment building about faith, bringing friends back to the Church.
Today, the FMJC has members all around the world, Ms. Principe told The Evangelist. Because the institute accepts people of all abilities and ages, the group strives to provide faith-related opportunities for those who otherwise might not have them.
"It's a life lived for others, with others," she said. "It's a life of service."
The association does not have a set ministry, allowing all of its members to work in whatever speaks to them. For instance, Ms. Principe is passionate about the issue of physician-assisted suicide. She says that that proposed legislation to legalize and even promote it is aimed at people like her.
"Their lives still have dignity," she argued.
Ms. Principe lives with her three-legged cat, Bella, and her ring-necked dove, Lovey Dove, in a small apartment. Everything she needs is reachable from her wheelchair, although she does have an aide to assist with her care, and physical therapists come to work with her during the week.
She is able to go to Mass at Blessed Sacrament parish in Albany by herself, zipping down Central Avenue in her power wheelchair.
Ms. Principe brings her vocation wherever she goes: If people park their cars so that they are blocking a sidewalk ramp for persons with disabilities, she will wait for them to come back so she can give them a piece of her mind. She also doesn't hesitate to speak with parishes if they don't have handicap-accessible ramps.
Ms. Principe believes that being a member of the FMJC allows her to live out her faith -- something that, she says, would not have been available to her otherwise.
(For more information, call Rev. Reginald Reddy, OFM, 518-783-4188.)
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