St. Francis of Assisi wanted all people to live the Gospel in a life of joyful penance. He was aware that not everybody could leave their homes and families to follow Christ the way he and the friars did, or as St. Clare of Assisi and the cloistered nuns did. So he developed a rule for married and single persons, imbued with the Franciscan spirit, that enabled them to pursue lives of prayer and service to the poor. These followers of Francis, the Brothers and Sisters of Penance, are known today as Secular Franciscans.
The Secular Franciscan Order is the largest branch of the Franciscan family. It is also known as the Third Order, one of the three orders founded by St. Francis himself (after the First Order of mendicant friars and the Second Order of cloistered nuns led by St. Clare). Secular Franciscan fraternities of lay people exist all over the world, with an estimated 400,000 members. There are about 10,000 Secular Franciscans in the United States.
From the beginning of the Secular Franciscan Order, St. Francis wanted the First Order friars to accompany the lay men and women who undertook a life of penance—to encourage them and exhort them to practice humility, charity, and peacemaking wherever they dwelled. This is a pastoral responsibility that all Franciscan friars, including the Capuchins, have taken very seriously. In our Province, our friars act as spiritual assistants to local fraternities, providing guidance on matters of faith and morals. We have also established Secular Franciscan fraternities of our own at our parishes.
In addition to providing spiritual assistance to the local fraternities, the Province designates a friar to be the provincial spiritual assistant to the Secular Franciscan Order. This entails traveling to five regions of Secular Franciscan Order across New York and New England; attending gatherings of regional ministers and councils; supervising elections or holding days of recollection; and making visitations to various local fraternities. Fr. Matthias Wesnofske was our provincial spiritual assistant for many years; indeed, from 1991 to 2020, he served as a local, regional, provincial, and national spiritual assistant to the Secular Franciscan Order, including three decades of service to the Tau Cross Region on Long Island.
Currently, Fr. Samuel Fuller is the provincial spiritual assistant. Recently, Father Sam sat down with The Capuchin Journey to describe his journey with the Secular Franciscans.
Father Sam first got involved with the Secular Franciscans through the local fraternity at St. Pius X Parish in Middletown, Conn., while he was parochial vicar there in the early 2010s. He was not the spiritual assistant to the fraternity but simply a fraternal presence to the lay people. Then in 2015, he was transferred to St. Anne-St. Augustin Friary and Parish in Manchester, N.H. While there, the Province encouraged him to get acquainted with the Secular Franciscans of the Elizabeth of Hungary Region, encompassing northern New England. This invitation to fellowship with Third Order communities dovetailed well with Father Sam’s offering of presentations, workshops, and retreats on Franciscan spirituality, especially care for creation and Pope Francis’ encyclical Laudato Si’. In the years that followed, he made several visitations to local fraternities in New Hampshire, traveling north beyond the White Mountains. He also became the spiritual assistant to the local fraternity at St. Thomas Aquinas Parish in Derry, N.H. Father Sam cut back his activities with the Third Order when in late 2017 he succeeded an ailing Fr. Joseph Gurdak as the administrator of St. Anne-Augustin Parish, but he participated when able in both regional and national gatherings.
A year after Father Matthias stepped down as provincial spiritual assistant to the Third Order, the Province approached Father Sam about taking the job. At this time, Father Sam was a chaplain with Capuchin Mobile Ministries in Boston. He was already fully occupied with spiritual care to the homeless and outreach to community partners. Nevertheless, he accepted in December 2021. By the spring of 2023, he realized just how vast the scope of the Third Order ministry is and resolved to get a handle on it. He stepped back from Capuchin Mobile Ministries in September 2023 to focus full-time on being provincial spiritual assistant.
It was a lot of work. The administrative tasks were daunting. How many fraternities were there in each region? Who were the regional ministers and council members? The Province received numerous requests from local fraternities and regional leadership to preside over the profession of new members, sign official documents, and celebrate the sacraments. But beyond this, Father Sam discovered the pastoral dimension of his new ministry. As he met with regional spiritual assistants, he discovered that there was a great need and a hunger in these Third Order communities for the presence of First Order friars like the Capuchins. “We are meant to basically keep things on a steady pathway,” he said. “Seculars always say that things are different when there is a friar. It keeps things on an even keel.”
Father Sam has thrown himself into the work. He travels to five different regions, and he has especially gotten to know the Elizabeth of Hungary Region in northern New England. He has worked with new leadership in that region, who have brought a new energy and vitality to local fraternities. He participates in both district and regional gatherings to help animate the Franciscan charisms. Father Sam does not act as the spiritual assistant to the local fraternities, except for the local fraternity in Milton, Mass., where the Province of St. Mary’s novitiate used to be.
The Third Order fraternities benefit from the friars’ presence, but they are not to be dependent on the friars. They are not merely to take direction passively from their spiritual assistants. The Secular Franciscans are coming into an awareness that the Third Order has its own autonomy and indeed its own charism, Father Sam said. Like their cousins in the First Order and Second Order, the Secular Franciscans were challenged to renewal after the Second Vatican Council, and to that end, they drafted new constitutions in 1978. Friars like Father Sam, Father Matthias, and Fr. Zachary Grant (d. 2012) have worked diligently to instill in the Secular Franciscans a consciousness of the dignity of their unique Franciscan vocation.
Father Sam said that accompanying the Secular Franciscans on their spiritual journey has put him on a spiritual journey of his own. He has embraced the journey, trusting God. “There is no question that graces are involved,” he said. “I see the graces in this and in a sense being placed where I am meant to be.” Like religious groups everywhere, there will be conflicts and challenges within the Third Order—the divisions in our nation also affect the Church. But Father Sam is able to transcend those divides by being present to the communities in the same way a pastor is present to his congregation. “Just because they are Secular Franciscans, I can’t have false or unrealistic expectations of them. You just treat them as they are,” he said. “And you discover some really amazing profound spiritual depth to some individuals.”
He loves preaching to Secular Franciscans because he can lean into Franciscan spirituality. “This is bringing my priesthood into relief. I am discovering that.” He enjoys giving presentations to Third Order communities about the social doctrine of the Church, particularly the prophetic ecological vision of Pope Francis in Laudato Si’, and has more engagements in the months to come. “It is dovetailing very nice. It gives me an opportunity to put on the front burner the Franciscan charisms, whether it is immigration or care for creation.” He takes pride in helping local fraternities live out the fullness of their Franciscan charism.
Father Sam also extends his thanks to the many friars who have ministered to local Third Order fraternities around the Province, including Fr. Brendan Buckley, Fr. Norbert D’Souza, Fr. Divya Karunesh, Fr. John McHugh, Fr. Gerard Mulvey, Fr. Fred Nickle, Fr. Will Tarraza, and Fr. John Tokaz.