Improperly branded for 20 centuries, she deserves better. Remember, as Jesus’ followers were in hiding after his death, it was Mary who alerted them to his resurrection. But she also had a hand in building up the early Church, as Mark Etling, PhD, explains in his article “Mary Magdalene: Leader and Visionary.” She was, he asserts, imbued with an understanding of how to continue Jesus’ mission perhaps more so than the others. “Mary Magdalene is portrayed as a leader of the apostles,” he writes. “Only she receives a personal vision from Jesus. She possesses greater spiritual maturity than the others.” It’s a terrific read. 

The staff of St. Anthony Messenger hope you like what you see in this publication. From my letter to Carlo Acutis, who will be canonized this month, to a luminous reflection on St. Francis’ “Canticle of the Creatures” by Darleen Pryds, PhD, we hope this issue finds you well.

Francis’ experience with loss illustrates a path to deeper relationships, including with God. 

Be honest with yourself: How do you act when you’re sick or in pain? How would you feel if you lost everything? It is commonplace to grouse and complain. Equally common is to feel anxiety and fear. Some people become demanding of those around them, while others retreat into themselves, refusing help from anyone with an “I’m OK” attitude. 

So, what would you do if, after experiencing years of chronic pain and diminishing eyesight, you found yourself depleted of all strength in a dank room surrounded by mice scurrying around? Francis of Assisi responded in a most particular way: He sang and wrote, “Praise to you, my Lord, with all your creatures.” 

St. Francis reached out to all that surrounded him and felt comfort in the beauty of nature. He took special notice of each element of the world and reached out to praise God. Was this some form of spiritual bypassing? Overlooking and ignoring a difficult part of life and jumping to something pleasant? Or was this something more profound? 

“The Canticle of Creatures,” composed by Francis of Assisi, is having a moment, as the saying goes—or really a year—as we celebrate the 800th anniversary of its composition this year. Composed in increments between 1225 and 1226, in the last year of Francis’ life, the canticle begins most famously by turning to the natural world as reason to praise God, before then turning to peacemakers and finally to death, all as reminders to us to give praise to our God. And he does so in a most intimate way, calling each element brother or sister: “Praise to you, my Lord, with all your creatures, especially Brother Sun.” Sister Moon and the Stars, Brothers Wind and Air, Sister Water, Brother Fire, and, finally, Sister Death are all named. 

For many years, I had overlooked the complexity of these words and images. I admit that I have read them to be like all the nice families on TV—perhaps like The Brady Bunch of classic American TV—families who experience foibles and mishaps, but always make up by the end of the day. The wish for a happy ending is strong, but the reality of lived experience is usually more complex. 

So is that sibling relationship. 

When Fire Is Your Brother 

I began to reconsider Francis’ understanding of sibling relationship with creation in January 2025 when the catastrophic fires in Pacific Palisades and Altadena, on opposite sides of Los Angeles, broke out and decimated lives. Of course, I have read about natural disasters many times: a devastating earthquake in Haiti, a hurricane named Helene that brought flooding in North Carolina, and more. I have watched video feeds from war-ravaged areas in Ukraine and Gaza. I have donated to causes and prayed for victims and recovery efforts. 

But these fires in Los Angeles tore through two areas where I have lived. “Brother Fire” destroyed the houses I had once called home as he destroyed many people’s homes, businesses and livelihoods, churches and temples, schools, and libraries, along with so many people’s plans and expectations. 

The relationship I have with those places has remained far more than mere thoughts or memories. Instead, I carry a visceral connection to people, and yes, also to trees, rocks, ocean, mountains, coyotes, and more. When I think of Altadena, I think of the families I lived with and can smell the pine trees that grew around the house where I lived—the house now reduced to rubble. 

When I remember my year of housesitting in Pacific Palisades, I think of the crazy clan of roommates and can smell the eggrolls we made. And I can see the view of the ocean and feel the warmth of the sun that I experienced doing homework on the back porch of the house that recently burned to the ground. The fires have been a cause to reconnect with people I lived with: to share stories, catch up on our lives, and, most of all, to be there to offer support. 

But seeing photos of both houses after the fires, I have cried often and felt deep, visceral sadness. How could a brother be so harsh as to bring such destruction to places and people I have loved? 

I had been reflecting on the canticle when the fires forced me to realize that I am more practiced in studying the canticle as a piece of poetry and keeping its words at a tender distance than I am in living into its invitation of a deeper relationship: of sensing the world around me as close as my siblings. 

What does this look like? Or more precisely, what does this feel like? 

Francis’ Experience of Loss 

The canticle was not composed in Francis’ youth, when he cheerfully embraced and cherished flowers and water, fire, and the moon. The canticle was stirring in his soul for many years—quite possibly after hearing the effusive praise of creation in the words of Daniel 3:56–57; 62–68; 75–81—but it is the labor of a spiritually mature Francis. He did not compose the song, or at least it was not written down, until he was able to let go completely of all that was separating him from true intimacy with God. This closeness with the Divine came through years of letting go, not just of material things, but of deeper personal attachments: his expectations and assumptions of how things should be, his privilege of social standing even within his order, and his control over his own body. 

Francis’ conversion of faith had grown deeper as he aged and experienced both voluntary and involuntary loss. In 1220, when he relinquished leadership of his order, he did so sensing that he did not have the capacity to lead the growing fraternity of brothers. He had cultivated enough self-knowledge and self-awareness that he “retired” from leadership, thus allowing the movement to develop with different leadership. 

If you have retired from work or let go of a project or way of life that is dear to you, you know that this letting go is not easy. We know from Francis’ episodes of anger and frustration with his brothers that he struggled with really letting go. We can often overlook how Francis could be so angry and petulant with his brothers when he disagreed with their behavior and when the order developed in ways he had not foreseen or wanted. 

It can be more pleasant to consider the young, carefree “flower child” Francis in Franco Zeffirelli’s film Brother Sun, Sister Moon than the more complex Francis of his final years. But these tensions and conflicts he bore—both with his fellow friars and within himself—are also part of his life. After eruptions of anger, Francis would stop and regroup and let it all go, sensing the importance of the relationship over his expectations. This, too, is part of a sibling relationship. 

Francis was sad and even disillusioned, leaving Rome after the approval of the Rule of 1223, a move that transformed his original, simple extraction of Gospel passages into a canonical legal document. So he found solace with the people of Greccio as he ventured back to Assisi. There, with the help of the townspeople, he recreated the Nativity scene to experience God in their midst. 

Then came the final years of physical decline and painful treatments, when again he turned outward to relationships. He called to his fellow friars and his longtime friend and fellow caregiver, Lady Jacoba, to be with him as he died. For some of us these periods of our lives when we experience loss of any kind can be a time of reluctance and even depression, but for Francis, the final year of his life opened him up to deeper consolation and more profound faith as he was able to become more present with the beauty of the world around him and thereby his faith in Christ. 

Here’s the simple (but not necessarily easy) truth of the Franciscan way: Letting go of attachments opens space for deeper awareness and visceral sense of the beauty all around us. This letting go is not a superficial acceptance of life’s events. Instead, it’s a deep awareness and acceptance of all that is interconnected. 

Plum Village and Engaged Buddhism 

Such a capacity of presence, awareness, and acceptance comes with significant contemplative practice that can be found in other spiritual traditions such as the Plum Village tradition of Zen Buddhism. 

Thich Nhat Hanh (1926–2022), the Zen Buddhist monk and scholar who founded the Plum Village Tradition of Engaged Buddhism and the related Order of Interbeing, was a great admirer of Francis of Assisi. Like Francis, Thich Nhat Hanh (known affectionately as “Thay,” or “Teacher”) practiced and taught a simple way of being that can be readily misunderstood and made into a simplistic caricature much like that of St. Francis. But for those of us who practice either spiritual path, we know that the simple path is not necessarily an easy one. 

Like Francis, Thich Nhat Hanh cultivated a spiritual practice of presence and awareness of interdependence through bitterly harsh experiences of war. Bearing witness to the grisly realities of violence in his homeland of Vietnam in the 1960s, Thich Nhat Hanh lived into a way of peace through self-awareness, knowing that if he let the violence that surrounded him enter his own way of being, his own capacity for inner peace would be destroyed and, with it, the possibility of peaceful resolution of any conflict, no matter how big or small. 

Knowing that suffering grows in the distancing between people, Thay noted common forms of suffering, such as judgment, denial, avoidance, and resistance. Cultivating the capacity to be present with what is—all that is—without judgment, denial, avoidance, or resistance lies at the heart of Thay’s teachings and practice. Knowing that denial and pushing away lead to suffering, Thich Nhat Han practiced and encouraged others to practice curiosity to understand others. This includes awareness of our own judgments that are obstacles to deep and real presence to what is. 

When one can let go of all the obstacles that tempt us—distractions, judgments, and any behavior that separates us from one another—we are able to cultivate and sustain relationships with one another and all of life that surrounds us. We sense the pain of another person, and we feel empathy. We see the beauty of a flower, and we feel delight. We find ourselves in relationships of interdependence or, as Thich Nhat Hanh often said, in “interbeing,” so our experiences are shared and not held at a distance. The relationships we maintain with one another and with our world become central to our being. 

We “inter-are,” according to Thay. 

Living the Canticle 

More than just thinking about the sibling connections Francis sang about in his canticle, I am now sensing these connections with the world around me on a deep, visceral level. This is what Francis was getting at: cultivating a rapport with this world that is not abstract or merely transactional, but instead experiencing the world viscerally without judgment or denial, without resistance or avoidance, as a brother and a sister with all the familiarity (and tension) implied in a family. 

It is an experience that could make us quite vulnerable, which is why much of the time most people run away from this closeness and disregard or trivialize this way of being with judgment. But when the realities of life hit, and you have lost everything, what is left is the stunning beauty of our relationships with one another, with this world, and with our God. This path of interdependence is care-filled, relational, and felt.

This is how we come to understand the real wisdom of Francis and begin to live the canticle. 

A proud member of Generation X pens an open letter to this beloved millennial saint. 

Let me begin by saying that I’ve always admired saints. I love their openness to grace when my doors are often shut to it. But, if I may, they are alien to me. Your brother-saint, Thomas Aquinas, framed it better than I ever could: “The dignity of the saints is so great because they are not of this world, but ‘of the household of God.’” That sums it up. You were in the world but not totally of the world. 

More baggage to unpack: I am Generation X, once branded the “lost” generation by Time, sandwiched in between the baby boomers and your proud lot, the millennials. But I think “forgotten” rings truer. Gen X has never been given proper credit. You’ll forgive me when I say that as millennials ascended to power in the 2000s, like many in my age bracket, there was begrudging respect coupled with a collective eye roll. Our cynicism is baked in. We can’t help it. 

I hope you’ll forgive this personal detour long enough for me to say that I stand in wonder of what you did in your 15 years. I wasn’t extraordinary at 15. I was typical—even conventional. I wanted to drive around with friends and savor the freedoms of my nascent adulthood. As teens go, you were different. An upgrade. 

You started a website tracking Eucharistic miracles and approved Marian apparitions, which shows an investment in your spiritual health uncommon in the young. Building a website isn’t extraordinary, then or now: There are dozens of sites devoted to cats floating in outer space. What sets yours apart is its mission and founder. 

I wonder if you understood how your faith would set you apart from other millennials. Indifference to religion is foreign to no generation, but it usually roots itself in the middle teen years. That taste of freedom can lure people away from the faith. You were the exception. Faith wasn’t something to run from but toward. 

✦✦✦

You encouraged others to be their most unique selves. “All people are born as originals,” you said once, “but many die as photocopies.” Again, you were the exception. There is no duplicate of you. 

My heart breaks for young people today who first encounter the world through an app. I scan the vast landscape of “influencers” today and all I can see are pretty photocopies encouraging their followers to speak, lift, dress, eat, dance, and moisturize as they do. People are conditioned now to follow a leader; individuality is unfashionable. But you understood that no two paths should look the same. 

While the Western world is encouraged to conform ourselves to the larger collective, you reminded us that God created us to be unique. “All the hairs of your head are counted,” Matthew 10:30–31 reads. “Do not be afraid.” That seemed to be your own mission statement. And your faith was fearless. 

I wish I had your example when I was trying to find my own voice. Gen X was the last to navigate the waters of adolescence without the horrors of social media. But growing up is always a challenge. It was designed that way. I’m sorry you never got to taste real adulthood. To me—and perhaps the world—you’ll always be 15. But thankfully, your soul was older than your years. Time is what you make of it. 

✦✦✦

You were a good son. You were not perfect, but you were perfectly made. I like to think that your mother, Antonia, was given one opportunity to make it count with you. She could not have done better. She gifted the world a young man whose heart stayed fixed on God. Even when you were bullied at day care, I can see you clenching your little fists, not to lash out but to maintain control. God is watching—of that you were sure. Not many preadolescents have the presence of mind to understand that. 

When I was young (but old enough to know better), I would pull the chairs out from under the other kids and roar as they hit the floor. It was my thing. I would also halt escalators and pull the wigs off mannequins in department stores. I wasn’t rotten but I was work. Let’s be fair: a work in progress.

But you, Carlo, were imbued with a kind of stillness and wisdom not found in most children. You were emotionally and spiritually aware. There are adults in this world in positions of power who haven’t learned that lesson. You mastered it before you could drive, but you had a model to go on. 

When Jesus was 12 and his parents thought he was lost, they found him in the Temple in Jerusalem. His mother, frazzled, admonished her son. His response makes me think of you. From Luke 2:49: “Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?” 

You loved Eucharistic adoration—that much we know. So, your heart was always in your Father’s house. Deep in prayer or lost in thought, you were centered in church. God’s house is a respite. You found it there. 

✦✦✦

When you died, the world lost a legend, but heaven gained a saint. No one in this life can escape death. If you live into adulthood, it’s a win. Your time was brief, but you made those years reverberate the world over. The saints who came before you did the same. Joan of Arc, the true phoenix of Catholic saints, said, “One life is all we have . . . but to sacrifice what you are and to live without belief, that is a fate more terrible than dying.” 

While there is wisdom in stopping long enough to appreciate where we are standing, one eye should be on the road ahead. You understood that. Gratitude is about taking a breath and surveying life’s blessings. But how many of us work in collaboration with God on the life to follow? 

I look to saints like you—and Joan—to give me a measure of hope in this life and a road map for the next. But you were not content to live an anonymous life of piety. You put it online. Like any millennial worth his weight, you understood that the digital world at the time was flowering. 

In the years since you died, we have strayed. Too often we create or spread malice online. My prayer for all of us is that we take a page from your book and learn to be instruments of peace in the digital world that seems to favor aggression. That is part of your legacy. And while no one can escape death, you surrendered your will to that of God’s. The rest of us can learn from that. 

✦✦✦

And now you belong to the ages. I have always categorized you as “the millennial saint,” but that is limiting. You are timeless. I am from the generation that preceded yours, but I was 15 once too: one foot in childhood, the other inching toward adulthood. And it is because you lived in between those two stages of life that you can empathize with the young while inspiring the old. In Isaiah it is said that a child will lead us. I am only too happy to follow. 

As the Church promotes you from blessed to saint, count me among the masses of people of all generations who are grateful that you walked with us in this life and ahead of us in the one to come. You finished the race, Carlo. You kept the faith. 

Say a prayer for us wounded souls here—that we somehow leave the world better than we found it. 

Pace, fratello—
Chris 

Sidebar: Chiara Badano: The ‘Light’ of Generation X

When Chiara Badano joined the Focolare Movement in her native Italy at the age of 9, she was called “Luce” or “light” by its founder, Servant of God Chiara Lubich (1920–2008).

It was a worthy nickname. Born in Sassello in 1971, Chiara was, in many respects, a typical European girl who loved music, dancing, and sports. But her religious fervor was so prominent that she faced alienation from her peers. In 1988, shoulder pain, thought to be a tennis injury, turned out to be bone cancer.

Unfazed, she is reported to have said, “It’s for you, Jesus. If you want it, I want it too.”

It was around this time that Gen X began to ascend to prominence. The media painted them as aimless and unfulfilled. Chiara, on the contrary, seemed perpetually at peace and desired only what God had planned for her—even when treatment for her cancer was painful and, ultimately, futile. She died in 1990. Before she passed, she said, “I care only about doing the will of God, doing it well, in the present moment.”

Pope Benedict XVI beatified Chiara Badano in 2010. To find out more about her life and her light, visit ChiaraBadano.org/en.

Franciscan charism, lifestyle, and mission—those were the three things discussed at the recent Franciscan synod.

When the Franciscan friars of Our Lady of Guadalupe Province gathered in January in Kansas City, Missouri, they came to do one thing—listen to where the Holy Spirit was leading them. They accomplished this through the culmination of much reflection, discussion, prayer, and camaraderie.

The Franciscan synod was inspired both by the Catholic Church’s current Synod on Synodality and the formation of the new Our Lady of Guadalupe Province in October 2023. Brother Keith Douglass Warner, OFM, says as part of that change, the friars also wanted to find ways to renew themselves. A synod seemed the perfect vehicle to help them do just that.

“It nicely aligned with the [2025] Jubilee Year theme of hope, because we’re trying to be messengers of hope and reconciliation in a world that’s struggling,” says Brother Warner, director of renewal for the province and a key figure in the planning for the synod.

Walking Together

The average Catholic may have heard of the term synod but not have a good understanding of what the process truly means or looks like. So what is it? “If you were to translate synodality into everyday words, it would be listening and discerning together,” says Brother Warner. Discernment is a part of our Christian tradition and has been practiced especially by religious orders, but not only them.

“I think that part of the universal call to holiness from Vatican II is going to be reflected in this desire for the discernment together as something that all people are called to do because it has to do with how we live the Gospel and respond together in community,” says Brother Warner.

The goal of the Franciscan synod was threefold: To discern the path the friars should walk together into the future, especially in the face of difficult choices about ministry, resources, and lifestyle; engage deeply in a process of renewal of their charism, lifestyle, and mission; and further form their identity and culture as one new province.

Brother Warner says that when the province reorganized, the friars made it clear that they didn’t want things to be business as usual.

“They didn’t want just an administrative restructuring; they wanted efforts to renew our life and charism,” he says. “We were doing what we’ve always done, and people started to realize we need a fresh approach that reflects the best of our tradition, the best of our imagination, and to discern that we need to do that together.”

When the friars gathered in January, they built on over a year’s worth of work. Friars and ministry partners gathered locally last winter and spring to discuss three questions: Which facets of our charism are we called to express in fraternity, Church, and world today? How are we called to live out fraternitas and minoritas concretely in our daily lives? What priorities should guide our mission and evangelization over the next three, six, and nine years?

The discussions continued in the fall, when almost 300 friars gathered for seven regional synodal assemblies to review and discuss the reports from the first round.

At the end of last year, a group of young adults from across the country gathered with friars to discuss three topics: the hopes and dreams young adults hold for the Church, the relevancy of Franciscan spirituality among young people today, and ways Franciscans can better accompany young people.

Finally, in January, the friars culminated the year of preparation by gathering with secular Franciscans, Franciscan sisters, and lay partners to discuss on a national level where the Holy Spirit was calling the order to go.

Darleen Pryds, PhD, a professor at the Franciscan School of Theology at the University of San Diego, was one of the lay participants. She says the discussions at the tables were thoughtful and spirit-filled.

“I noticed a breakdown of habitual reticence to speak truth. I noticed a deep listening with undivided attention and uncharacteristic pauses that allowed each person to consider their words and their thoughts/beliefs before sharing,” she says.

Prayer, she adds, was a key part of the gathering. “We prayed at the beginning of each session, and we had communal morning prayer, evening prayer, and Mass. Without the liturgical prayer, the synod is just another meeting.”

Brother Michael Reyes, OFM, served as a facilitator for one of the discussion tables. He says the process was a good one, for he believes we’ve become a society that has forgotten how to listen. “We think we’re listening, but actually we’re trying to come up with a response in our head or a judgment already in our head,” he says.
“I think the concept of synod brings us back to the very basic idea of listen without judgment, listen without any intention.”

A Messy, but Necessary, Process

But as with any discussion, there can be tension and disagreements. Father Roger Lopez, OFM, says that’s just part of the process, though.

“I would say one of my takeaways from the synod is that the synodal process is messy. It’s not linear. It’s not A+B will equal C. It’s like subset 1, subset 2, subset A234,” he says. The process may also “take us places that we don’t want to go and challenges us in ways that we are afraid. The synodal process requires patience. It requires being gentle with each other.”

The benefit, he says, “is that people are heard and listened to, and you come out where everyone realizes it may not have gone the way I thought, but I can get behind this because I was part of the process.”

He recalls a story about St. Francis, where the saint was asked, of all the friars, who was the perfect brother. “Oh, I know that. It’s Juniper because of his humility. It’s Leo because of his attentiveness to detail. It’s Ruffino because . . . and he started going through this list. He pulled out the attributes of every single friar.”

The point of the story, Father Lopez says, is that “the perfect friar is not found in one person. It’s found in the collection of all of us. We’re trying to bring about the best parts of who we are.”

Brother Reyes agrees. “I think that’s the beauty of the Franciscan Order. You come in bringing your gifts and then the brothers, the order, are somehow able to gather what you bring and use it for the good of the people of God,” he says.

Visual Representation of Themes

Brother Reyes is a perfect example of bringing out people’s best gifts on behalf of the friars. He created the images that served as a visual representation of the three themes of the synod: charism, fraternity, and ministry. Brother Warner had reached out to Brother Reyes asking if he had any existing images the friars could use for the synod.

Brother Reyes did one better, though, and created new images. He says he tried to use a lot of materials from the earth, such as walnut ink. He even used one surprising element for the illustrations. “I used coffee by accident. It was like a Bob Ross accident—a happy accident. I was doing the illustrations, and I was drinking coffee and it dripped. And I’m like, ‘Oh, that’s beautiful.’ So I had coffee in it.”

The three pieces, Brother Reyes says, “are supposed to be talking to each other. The first image I created is just the feet of the friar, barefoot and walking by himself. For me, that’s how we started our vocation. We entered the order by ourselves, so you’re walking alone.”

The second image is of three friars walking together. Brother Reyes believes it is a reminder that a friar never walks alone. “There’s always your community of brothers, your fraternity that’s always walking with you,” he says.

The final one, which shows a foot being washed, is his favorite. “It has a lot of meaning to me. It’s me serving my brothers, my community, so that in the long run I could serve the people of God much better. It’s us, each brother, washing each other’s feet.” Perhaps it’s his favorite because it is so personal. Brother Reyes lives in a retirement home with 30 older friars. It is a decision, he says, that he made by choice.

“There’s so much wisdom that I gain from that house,” he says. “It humbles me as a friar. I’m only able to wash other people’s feet because of my brothers who had walked this path before me. Whenever I see one of my 90-year-old brothers saying evening prayer or talk to them about their past ministries, victories, or failures, it’s life-giving to me. I like to think that it makes me a better servant to God’s people.”

Call to Action

At the end of the synod, participants gathered the fruits of their discussions and handed them over to the leadership team of the province. From there, the team developed a document that “charts a collective path into the future for the 637 Franciscan friars of the Province of Our Lady of Guadalupe and will help establish the culture and define the identity of the recently formed province.”

The eight priorities that were established in the report were:

Priority 1: We will work to be more fraternal with each other as brothers.

Priority 2: The Gospel compels us to respond to the needs of the poor, marginalized (including women) and vulnerable persons, and our common home.

Priority 3: We commit ourselves to listening to and accompanying young adults.

Priority 4: Each local fraternity will make lifestyle decisions (prayer, simplicity, finance) consistent with our vows and within general provincial guidelines.

Priority 5: We will deepen our ongoing formation in the Franciscan charism both for ourselves and with the larger Franciscan family.

Priority 6: We will deepen the contemplative dimension of our vocation.

Priority 7: In light of the Gospel, we will read the signs of the times and respond with creativity and hope to the reality we encounter.

Priority 8: We will advocate to change structures that adversely affect the poor.

The results of this collective discernment will be taken to an international gathering in Assisi this June, where it will help provide strategic direction for the international order. According to the document: “St. Francis and Pope Francis agree listening can change us. Pope Francis speaks of synodal conversion, a change that takes place in us when we listen to the religious experiences of others. Through this listening process we can hear the voice of the Holy Spirit, the true minister general of the Franciscan Order. Our synodal discernment creates conditions that can change us.”

An Ongoing Process

Brother Warner says that this will not be the last time Franciscan audiences hear about synodality.

“We may be sort of trying to adjust the language a little bit so it’s not quite so specialized, but I think reviewing or renewing the spirit of discernment, as in community, is going to be really a big part of who Franciscans are in the years to come,” he says.

How does this process affect the average Catholic? Father Lopez says those are questions the friars are looking at as well, such as how can this process benefit Franciscan parishes, schools, nonprofits, families, our country, and the world.

The synodal process is about listening with an open heart and allowing everyone to speak at the table, says Father Lopez. “From there, start to talk like, OK, what are we seeing? Where is God leading us?” But he says it can’t be listening just for the sake of listening. There needs to be action.

“I think that’s the takeaway for whoever is reading this. Look at your family.

“How can I give my children a seat at the table? My grandparents a seat at the table? My spouse a seat at the table? Every family knows it’s challenging listening to each other.”

Brother Reyes says that, despite the challenges the friars face, such as declining numbers, he has hope. “Hearing the stories of our lay partners in ministry, hearing the stories of people that we’ve served in our parishes, in our ministries, gives me hope that they have Franciscan hearts, that through them we wash their feet and hopefully they’re washing other people’s feet, sharing that all-encompassing, unconditional love. It’s very simple.”

Are there topics still to be addressed? Yes, say participants. But the conversation has begun, and the friars and their partners are ready to go wherever the Holy Spirit leads them.

In a city known for its relentless pace, St. Francis Friends of the Poor offers a sanctuary where time slows and healing begins.  

It was “one of those mornings.” Just moments before her interview with St. Anthony Messenger, Christina Byrne was dealing with a situation in the halls of Residence II on West 22nd Street in New York City. A worried resident had bolted downstairs to the front desk and shared that his neighbor was naked, screaming at someone who wasn’t there, and frantically moving all his belongings into the hallway. 

Byrne, the executive director of St. Francis Friends of the Poor (SFFP) since January 2020, had grown accustomed to these “episodes.” The scene, in fact, proved the opposite of what someone might think. It was actually a window into how the model of SFFP was working—that’s right, working: an example of communal living and the spirit of radical acceptance and nonjudgment that prevails as residents are mutually connected through the suffering they share. 

“The culture really becomes more than fraternal here—it’s familial,” Byrne says. 

Had an episode like this unfolded in a standard apartment complex or neighborhood, it’s likely the first response would be to call the police. Understandable, but not all officers are trained to de-escalate or effectively assist people experiencing a mental health emergency. 

But at SFFP, which has offered permanent supportive housing services to homeless men and women living with serious mental illness for 45 years, the residents have a mutual understanding of each other’s afflictions. There was no judging the naked man screaming at an invisible enemy. His neighbors knew what it was like to have a “bad day,” a psychotic break, or feel trapped in one’s head. 

The person was not the problem, his neighbors knew. He just needed a little help, which they, too, have needed and may need again tomorrow. They are a community of beautiful people embodying a relational attitude that flowed right from the Franciscan heart of the organization. 

Three Friars and an Impossible Dream 

In the mid-1970s, Franciscan Friars John Felice and John McVean were working the daily breadline at the Church of St. Francis of Assisi on West 31st Street in Manhattan; the breadline continues to this day. Though they believed in the importance of the breadline, they noticed a deeper problem. 

The deinstitutionalization of people with mental illness throughout the ’60s and ’70s led to an influx of homelessness, as patients were released from psychiatric hospitals without sufficient support to take on their mental health conditions and navigate their lives. 

Friars Felice, McVean, and another Franciscan priest named Thomas Walters began to dream. What if they could acquire a residence in New York City that could provide long-term, permanent housing for those who experienced chronic homelessness and mental illness? Their goal: Bring dignity and self-respect to the marginalized within the homeless population by providing them with a home. 

It was a vision that seemed impossible. 

“[The vision] was kind of based on the lives we lived in the friary,” Friar McVean shared in a 2017 organizational video. “That’s the kind of housing we provide. It just came naturally to us.” 

In 1980, they purchased an old welfare hotel on East 24th Street (Residence I) that now has 85 rooms. St. Francis Friends of the Poor was born. In 1982, they did it again with a hotel on West 22nd Street (Residence II), which now has 90 rooms. And, in 1985, they did it again with a property on Eighth Avenue (Residence III), which has 80 rooms. It was a “just do it” attitude that has remained with the organization and continues as SFFP plans for Residence IV. “In their hearts, they are a bunch of hippies, defying authority on every single level,” Byrne laughs. 

Their pioneering of what would now be described as a “housing-first model” attracted frequent media coverage from local journalist Gabe Pressman, and Friar Felice even made an appearance on Good Morning America. The trinity of friars worked closely with New York City Mayor Ed Koch to meet the city’s homeless problem head-on, standing behind him at press conferences as the city tackled this issue. SFFP became the city’s first known recognized provider of permanent supportive housing for people who experienced homelessness and chronic mental illness. 

Friar Felice humbly shared in the 2017 video, “We were just three friars who saw something that needed fixing.” 

How Did They Do It? 

Byrne remembers working for Catholic Charities a decade before her tenure as executive director at SFFP. Her colleagues wanted to establish a housing-first model in Washington, DC, and were stunned to discover SFFP had already been doing exactly that for decades. They traveled to meet with the trio of friars—Felice, McVean, and Walters—to listen and learn. They wondered what so many wonder: How did they do it? 

One might think that making chronic mental illness and homelessness a requirement for residents in single-room occupancy hotels with shared bathrooms would be a recipe for disaster. However, SFFP residents remain for an average of 18 years. Eighteen years. 

The biggest barrier that SFFP’s demographic faces is often simply leaving the building, so Monday through Friday, SFFP brings social workers, nurses, psychiatrists, medical doctors, case managers, entitlement specialists, and financial advisors to the residential buildings. They also keep the front desk in each building open 24/7 in case any issues arise. 

“It’s our job to earn their trust enough so that they will eventually want to receive some of the services,” Byrne says. 

The organization’s approach to rent is also empowering to the residents. Rent for affordable housing cannot legally exceed 30 percent of a tenant’s income, but SFFP’s rent, on average, is $212. “The fathers set their own standard,” Byrne reflects. “Whatever rent they were charging 40 years ago is essentially the same rent we’re charging now.” 

Today there is a push in big cities for more integrated affordable housing in which people facing similar struggles with homelessness or mental illness live among families and other working-class people. The goal is to de-stigmatize people who are facing mental health challenges and prevent them from being “othered” or even siloed, like in the days of mental health institutions. SFFP’s success, however, makes the case for the opposite. In integrated housing, there are more 911 calls and complaints, which can lead to more turnover and evictions, which then costs more money for affordable housing programs. 

“We have never evicted someone for not paying their rent or for being a hoarder or anything like that,” Byrne shares. “We work with them, you know, with their illness to help them be the best person they can be. Having all these people living together, we would argue that the success of the model that we’ve had—and others who also have these kinds of older congregate care settings—is because everyone who lives in the building is sharing an experience. They all know that their colleagues and neighbors are going through the same thing.” 

Another model SFFP’s success seems to challenge is the criteria- and performance-based model: Stay sober, get a bed; stay clean, get a meal.

“Relationships are a huge part of recovery,” adds Jessica Feldman, the director of quality assurance and strategic initiatives at SFFP. “When someone from the streets comes into a program and they’re asked all these horrendously personal questions with the expectation they should share everything because they are the ones being served, well, there’s a power differential there.” 

Brother Adolfo Mercado, a friar interning at SFFP and carrying on the legacies of Felice, McVean, and Walters, discusses how he and SFFP staffers help to facilitate culture in each building. He recalls one resident sharing with him that a neighbor kept knocking on his door for money, and the resident didn’t know what to do. Brother Mercado listened to him, walked him through his anxiety, and helped him realize that the knocking was probably disruptive to his neighbors too. If the resident had called the front desk, no one would know it was him. 

Small as this example may seem, it is an everyday conversation that shows SFFP’s attention to detail as staffers come alongside residents and walk with them through their day-to-day challenges. Residents tend to gravitate to the on-site friars, often garbed in their brown habits, to discuss spirituality or issues of the soul. “There could not be a more marginalized group than people who both have been serially homeless and living with serious mental illness,” shares Feldman. “The fathers provided something that most social service folks don’t: true, meaningful relationship and connection. I’m pretty much a devout atheist, but I don’t think SFFP could do what it does without its underlying faith-based history.” 

Ripples into the Future 

On July 23, 2023, one of the founding friars, Friar Felice, died after a long battle with Alzheimer’s. Residents, usually wary to leave their places of security, could be seen walking the roughly eight blocks to the Church of St. Francis of Assisi for the funeral to pay their respects—the very church where Friars Felice and McVean had worked the breadline and dreamed their dream. 

No more than a year later, Friar Walters began making plans to retire after more than 45 years of service. And on December 19, 2024, one month after the initial interviews for this story, Friar McVean passed away. Each of the SFFP buildings held a memorial service for its residents. Brother Mercado recalls the experience: “Literally, one woman was crying and said, ‘He found me on the streets, and now I live here, thanks to him.’” 

Following Friar McVean’s passing, Brother Mercado recalls walking through Manhattan when he received a phone call from a resident. “I need to meet with you,” she said. “I was kind of worried, like, ‘What’s going on here?’” he reflects. Brother Mercado went to the residence and was greeted by the “grandmotherly” person who had called him. She had been an SFFP resident for a long time. Sitting next to her was one of SFFP’s financial advisors. Brother Mercado sat down. 

Just a few decades before this resident had been lost on the streets. Now this resident wanted to make a $3,000 donation in memory of Friar McVean. 

“The impact that the fathers had,” Byrne shares, “not just on the people that they provided support to over the years, but every other person living with mental illness who now is able to get the support they need to live in the community safely because of them and the whole network that they created—in the city and around the country—is just overwhelming.” 

Byrne, the first lay, non-Franciscan executive director in the organization’s history, seeks to guide SFFP into the future, animated by the friars’ vision, philosophy, and legacy. She remembers how the eulogy began at Father McVean’s funeral in January, with a quote attributed to St. Francis of Assisi: “Start by doing what’s necessary; then do what’s possible, and suddenly you are doing the impossible.” 

In the ensuing days, two radically different things happened, which reminded me that it’s our hearts that need changing first, and our minds will follow. 

When the News Hits Close to Home 

First, on February 7, a group of white supremacists bearing Nazi flags stood at an overpass in Evendale, Ohio, spewing messages of Nazism and hate. This overpass is 3.1 miles from the home I share with my wife, Belinda, who is originally from Mexico. And here was a group proudly announcing their vision for America: one cleansed of ethnic and racial minorities, immigrant populations, and Catholics—in other words, people like my wife and me. I was aghast, embarrassed, and angry. 

But that’s not where it ended. A group of counter-demonstrators formed, largely from the historically Black neighborhood of Lincoln Heights, essentially driving away the hate group. In the following days, a demonstration dedicated to peace and racial harmony was held in the same spot, and I noticed hearts and peace signs on another nearby overpass. The surrounding community’s reaction helped remind me not to dwell in a place of anger. But what’s the next step from there? 

We Are Connected 

Three days after the demonstration, Pope Francis released a letter to the US bishops on the issue of migration in our country. In it, he quoted from Pope Pius XII’s 1952 apostolic constitution, Exsul Familia, which firmly identifies the Holy Family as refugees in a hostile foreign land. The document goes on to affirm the fundamental dignity of exiles, migrants, and prisoners of war.

In a sense, Pope Francis’ letter is a continuation of Exsul Familia. “Christians know very well that it is only by affirming the infinite dignity of all that our own identity as persons and as communities reaches its maturity,” he wrote. “Christian love is not a concentric expansion of interests that little by little extend to other persons and groups. In other words: The human person is not a mere individual, relatively expansive, with some philanthropic feelings!” 

The Franciscan Province of Our Lady of Guadalupe also weighed in on the topic in an official statement from the provincial council. “Catholic social teaching demands that we recognize that all human beings are created in the image of God and therefore possess an inherent and inalienable dignity and respect,” the statement read. “The human rights that flow from the dignity of each human person include the right to migrate in the face of severe violence or desperate poverty.” Visit Friars.US to read the province’s full statement. 

I know many of us feel disjointed right now, unsure of how we will ever feel whole as a nation again or engage in peaceful, fruitful dialogue. But Pope Francis’ letter is part of the wake-up call that we need. When we appeal to each other’s dignity, we start building something beautiful: solidarity. And when we lean into solidarity, we might just find our primitive fear of those unlike us replaced by the feelings that welled up in St. Francis when he embraced the leper: deep and abiding love and compassion. May we meet each other in that same sacred space.