Below is a table comparing August 2017 collections to our current July 2018 collections.

As you can see our collections fell short of our budget.

We need everyone to do their part to keep St. Francis on firm financial ground.  The best way to use this is to make your offering using our online giving system.

You can sign up for online giving HERE.

We ask all of our members and visitors to offer the equivalent of ONE HOUR of their weekly salary per week to support the mission of the church.

Thank you to all of you who are already doing your part.

Recently, our Young Adult Ministry went on a weekend retreat to Mt. Alvernia Retreat Center in Wappingers Falls, New York. While preparing for the retreat, some of our young adults asked that we spend time on the retreat helping them understand the Mass. As a result, the whole retreat was devoted to taking various parts of the Mass and explaining how they relate to our lives.

The book What Happens at Mass was given to the retreatants so that they could follow up afterwards. It was further suggested that there be a “What Happens at Mass” discussion group here to delve into this book even more deeply and so that participants thoroughly understand the richness of the Mass.

In the introduction to the book, Jeremy Driscoll, O.S.B., explains that “Mass is a ritual… Mass is about love… Mass… is an encounter.”

Even though a person may have gone to Mass for years, this book can deepen your appreciation of this “encounter” with the living God, and deepen your awareness of God’s continuing presence in your life.

The book is available in the lobby of the Parish House.

The Church of St. Francis of Assisi on West 31st Street in New YorkCity stands as a living memorial of the missionary vanguard of Franciscan friars from Europe who sailed to New York to care for the spiritual needs of the immigrants of the mid-19th century. Saint Francis Church and Friary have been intimately related to the birth and growth of both the Custody of the Immaculate Conception and the Province of the Most Holy Name of Jesus, and the names of the friars who have labored faithfully and generously for the past 175 years in the spiritual oasis of the Big Apple are countless.

In the 1840’s, the West Side of New York City between 23rd Street and Times Square was a pleasant residential community of some 400 residents living along the Hudson River in the area known as Bloomingdale. Trees lined the streets and farms, and country estates dotted the lovely landscape. Many of the inhabitants were staunch Germans from Prussia, Bavaria, Bohemia, Austria, and Hungary. A large number of them were Catholics, who, if they wished to hear the word of God in their own language, had to trek to Saint Nicholas Church on East 2nd Street.

Early in 1840, the first Pastor of St. Nicholas Church, Father John S. Raffeiner, laid the cornerstone of a small frame church on West 30th Street between 7th and 8th Avenues. The little church remained a mission of St. Nicholas parish until September 14, 1840 when a Hungarian Franciscan became its first Pastor. In the first baptismal register the friar identified himself as the “Reverend Zacharias Kung, O.S.F. Ref., of the Province of Our Lady of Hungary, a priest and missionary.”

Fr. Zachary Kunz had come to America with a few of his confreres at the urgent request of some American bishops who were concerned about the spiritual care of the newly arrived immigrants. He found his parishioners scattered along the banks of the Hudson River between 24th and 40th Streets. Six days after his arrival – on September 20, 1840 – the little church was dedicated and named in honor of St. John the Baptist. However, his pastorate was brief and stormy. Trusteeism, which was raising havoc in many parts of New York, quickly put an end to his missionary efforts. The rebellious conduct of the trustees reached such outrageous proportions that Bishop John Hughes felt obliged to place the church under interdict. The little church remained closed until 1845.

Fr. Zachary, heartsick over the divisions, and concerned about the welfare of the peaceful members of his parish, asked the bishop for permission to establish a new parish. The bishop consented to dividing the parish lines, and Fr. Zachary began his plans for a new parish church on West 31st Street between 6th and 7th Avenues.

This is the first in a series of articles on the history of our parish which will be published throughout our 175th anniversary year. They are adapted from the writings of Fr. Flavian Walsh, O.F.M., Pastor from 1985-87.

The Letter to the Hebrews presents a number of testimonies that encourage us to “run with perseverance the race that is set before us.” It speaks of Abraham, Sarah, Moses, Gideon and others. Above all it invites us to realize that “a great cloud of witnesses” impels us to advance constantly toward the goal. These witnesses may include our mothers, grandmothers or other loved ones. Their lives may not always have been perfect, yet even amid their faults and failings they kept moving forward and proved pleasing to the Lord.

The saints now in God’s presence preserve their bonds of love and communion with us… Each of us can say “Surrounded, led, and guided by the friends of God… I do not have to carry alone what, in truth, I could never carry alone. All the saints of God are there to protect me, to sustain me and to carry me.”