did you know
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Fr. Noel William, OFM, was ordained a priest on June 12, 1942. This month he marks his 70th anniversary
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friar facts
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Our Lady of the Angels
The small chapel in the woods near Assisi beloved of St. Francis.
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Welcome
 In the next few months, a percentage of religious in the United States will be making a move. They will leave their current home and move to another assignment, determined in the dialogue of obedience with their Provincial. And that includes me!
I will be moving from St. Joseph Friary in Chicago and the Post-novitiate Formation program to St. Anthony Friary in Cincinnati and the Postulancy Program. (Those in post-novitiate training are men who are in temporary vows, moving towards Solemn Profession. The postulants are men who are at the very beginning of our training process. They leave their jobs for one year and “try on” Franciscan life. Should both they and the community determine that there is a “fit”, then they apply for the Novitiate and become novices.)
St. Francis and the first brothers were itinerant – brothers who were not fixed to any particular place. This made them different from monks, who even took vows of stability. For us Lesser Brothers, “the world is our cloister!” This itinerancy left us free to preach the Gospel, with words and without, in the places where few wanted to go. But even more, it leaves us dependent on God and one another to be our true home.
I must admit that one of my frequent temptations is for more permanency. There are times when I’m traveling through a neighborhood at night, seeing the warm light coming from homes, I wonder, oh, wouldn’t it be great to have such a family, a place where you actually know where your toothbrush is, where your loved ones eagerly await your return. Of course, anyone who is in such family situations knows that this ego centric view is actually hard won, developed by difficult communication, lots of surrender. As it is in our friaries!
Itinerancy helps me to remember that my true home is in God. Recently, my friar brother, Dan Havron, died suddenly while ministering to the Sisters of Charity at their Motherhouse. It was totally unexpected. Dan was a master of itinerancy as he went around the country preaching and living the Good News in parish missions, retreats, events. This transition was difficult for me personally in losing such a brother. It reminds me that this life is “not a dress rehearsal”. It makes this present time, this now, sweet and sad, the important opportunity, a grateful gift.
In the end, we are all on a pilgrimage to God. We start living that life now, not just in some far away heaven. Maybe the transition that I need to make is as close as my back yard. Transitions always feel like dying. But what an adventure! What an opportunity to know more concretely the loving arms of God who will never let us go.
Fr. Mark Soehner, OFM
Provincial Councilor
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The 170 friars of St. John the Baptist Province (SJB) are members of the Order of Friars Minor, a Franciscan brotherhood inspired by the 13th-century example of St. Francis of Assisi. We serve the Catholic Church as brothers and priests, devoting our lives to the search for God in a communal life of poverty, prayer, and service to others.
Globally, the Order is divided into geographic areas known as "provinces." Most of the Friars from SJB province, which has its headquarters in Cincinnati, live and work in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Indiana, Illinois, Louisiana, Michigan, Kentucky, Texas and Jamaica. Others serve in New Mexico, Arizona, Missouri and Washington, D.C. Individual friars presently minister around the world in Kenya, Japan and the Philippines.
We serve as parish and campus ministers; as hospital, military and prison chaplains; as counselors; as educators and administrators in high schools, colleges and our formation program; as preachers and retreat directors in evangelization efforts; as directors of anti-poverty programs; as skilled craftsmen and in support services; as writers and communicators; and as missionaries—all ways of spreading the Good News.  |
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