Friar News

The 116-year-old St. Anthony’s Friary in northern New Jersey – home to nearly 30 friars, most of them senior members of the Province – has received much-needed functional and aesthetic upgrades to enhance the safety and comfort of friars, including a modern elevator, fireproof staircase, and exterior observation decks on each of the five residential floors with spectacular vistas of the Ramapo Mountains.

Robert Frazzetta and Dominic Monti appointed general visitors

Two friars with strong connections to St. Camillus Church in Silver Spring, Maryland, are scheduled to be ordained to the priesthood there on May 29. All are welcomed to virtually attend the liturgy that will be celebrated by Cardinal Wilton Gregory of the Archdiocese of Washington.

Things are cooking in the kitchen at the friary on West 31st Street in New York City, as friars share their culinary skills and favorite recipes in Friar Chef how-to video series that brings faith, food and friars into the homes of thousands across the country

When he began his year as a postulant with the Province in 1994, it wasn’t the most dramatic step taken by Steven Patti in his journey toward religious vocation. That came the year before, when Steve resigned from his job at a publishing company and left family and friends in suburban Boston to join the Province’s Franciscan Volunteer Ministry – taking the last open position as a lay volunteer minister at the St. Francis Inn soup kitchen in one of the most impoverished neighborhoods in Philadelphia.

Funeral services for Franciscan friar who was teacher, tailor held on March 20

By his own admission, Michael Jones has never cared for traveling. In fact, he seldom ventured from Allegany, the small town in Western New York where he grew up, attended college, and worked until joining Holy Name Province in his early 30s. Yet, during his two-and-a-half-decade time as a Franciscan friar, Michael treasures the eight trips he made with mission teams of St. Patrick-St. Anthony Parish in Hartford, Connecticut, to their sister parish in Fouji, Zoranje, Haiti – where he and the group would walk the final stretch into the small village because there wasn’t a road to support the safe passage of motor vehicles.

As a child in the Philippines, the beauty of stained-glass windows at his local church was the most vivid memory of Sunday Mass for Michael Reyes – “very much my first catechism,” he says. In many ways, those stained-glassed windows were also his first lesson in art – awakening a talent that he now uses in his Franciscan ministry to evangelize and proclaim the Gospel message, including a video reflection series with the Development Office called “Friar Art” that blends paintings with faith and life lessons.