Labor Day is Monday, September 5, 2022

Here is our Holiday Schedule:

Mass at 12:00 PM
There are no confessions on Labor Day
Church offices will be closed.

Have a restful and safe holiday!

Join our Summer Backpack Drive!

The Church of St. Francis of Assisi is collecting brand-new backpacks and school supplies for kids who need some help as they go back to school this fall.

Donations will be accepted from August 13th through August 26th.
A donation box will be in the church by the Blessed Mother altar during that time.  Backpacks and supplies can also be dropped off at the front desk.

Backpacks and supplies will be distributed to families in need through the St. Francis breadline pantry.

Make back to school easier. Please donate today!

We are collecting:

• new backpacks
• notebooks
• pens
• pencils and sharpeners
• crayons

Questions? please contact Joe Nuzzi at jnuzzi@stfrancisnyc.org

Transition is God’s Way of Promotion

Transition is God’s way of promotion. And we here at St. Francis of Assisi are going through a bit of a transition, as one of our Friars, Fr. Brian Smail, O.F.M., is transitioning from our parish to the provincial offices. Our director of music and pastoral associate, Meredith, sat down for a little Q and A… here is what she learned: 

Meredith: How long have you been a Friar and can you share a bit of your journey with us in a nutshell?  

Fr. Brian: I have been a friar since 1992 (30 years). I am what they used to call a “delayed vocation”… now they call it a “second career vocation.” I used to work at Bank of America in Boston for 15 years. Part of my job was going into Boston. When I was in Boston working I would go into St. Anthony’s shrine which was down in the financial district. That is when I met the friars. In those days I didn’t even know what a friar was. What was the difference between a friar and a regular priest? Interestingly enough, the first friar I ever met was Fr. Michael Carnevale. He was at Arch Street at the time. I was able to ask him questions about what his life was like. He told me about his life. And at that time I really wasn’t interested in being a friar. I was fascinated by their life. The more I got to know them and what they did, how they with each other and the people that they served.., it attracted me more and more. One day I was in the lobby and there was an application to be a friar, so I took it. That application remained in my brief case for two years, I kid you not! Two years!  Anyway… I filled it out! I was accepted. It was not an easy decision. I had a very comfortable life. I wasn’t wealthy by any means… but I had a comfortable life. My family and all my friends were in Boston. I was in my mid 30’s then. But something told me that if I don’t do this now, I am going to regret it some day. So I took the plunge. My novice director when I went in was Father Andrew Reitz and that was in Brookline, Massachusetts. That is how I got involved with the Friars. Bumping into them in downtown Boston. Learning about them and being attracted to their way of life. 

Meredith: When did you come to NYC? 

Fr. Brian: I came to NYC in 2007. I had been in Boston for 9 years at St. Anthony’s. And I was asked to be the Director of Vocations. The provincial John O’Conner asked me to move to NYC. It wasn’t like he asked me, “Brian would you like to do this…” – it was more like, “Brian, I need you to do this!” But he did let me think about it. I figured I was being asked to do something that was important to the province, so I did it. And again, it was a whole new experience… moving to NYC. I didn’t know anyone here. The Friars were so welcoming to me. Fr. Jerome Massimino was the pastor then, and he made me feel right at home. I would say it was an easy transition in terms of my community life as a friar. It took a while to really get into the vocation director position. But I grew to love it. I did that for 7 years. And it was one of the longest terms anyone ever served as vocation director. It is an office that really needs a fresh pair of eyes and skills to move it forward to the next level. So I did what was mine to do. Because I liked the parish here so much, (I used to help out here when I was vocation director) I asked to stay here and work at the parish). 

Meredith: When you transitioned to the parish, in what capacity did you work here? 

Fr. Brian: I worked here in the church as Parochial Vicar. I also wanted to do more than sacramental ministry. I was already certified as a spiritual director. I did a program at Boston College for that. So that was one of the things I brought with me. I also did Adult Faith Formation and Bereavement Ministry which I very much have enjoyed. And of course, the sacramental things. 

Meredith: You have been at the Church of St. Francis of Assisi working with us here since 2014 full-time until now. Now you are transitioning back to the province. What will your work entail with the province? 

Fr. Brian: It is kind of complicated, as it is a number of areas. It primarily the area of finance and development. So many people that the friars have served are very, very generous to us. They remember us in their wills and bequests and trusts. I process those. I am also the grant administrator for the Bonfils grant and the benevolence grants that the province disperses. I will also be working on other projects in development. 

Meredith: What is the thing you will miss the most about working at the Church of St. Francis of Assisi? 

Fr. Brian: One of the things I love about this parish is that you meet people from all walks of life. Different ethnic backgrounds, socio-economic backgrounds, everybody. This is a parish of choice for many, many people. You also meet people from all over the world. I am going to miss that the most. And also the staff. We have a great staff here of incredibly talented people. I will miss that a lot. That is why I am hoping that once I get settled in this new job I can help out as my schedule permits. I can’t imagine being a public minister, and not doing that type of work. I will definitely miss that. But you know in this life sometimes when you are asked to do something, it’s not so much about you but about what the province needs. 

Meredith: Thank  you for taking the time to meet with me this morning. We are so grateful for the years you have been with us here and we will surely miss you, but find comfort knowing you are next door and hopefully will have time in your schedule to worship with us!!  Blessings on your new endeavors. 

Fr. Brian Smail, OFM will be ending his full time service at the Church of St. Francis of Assisi at the end of this month.  Fr. Brian has been asked to minister in the Provincial Office. He will continue to live in the friary on 31st street with the friars and he plans to continue to  help out in the church as he is able.

We are very grateful for his many years of ministry with us at the Church of St. Francis of Assisi. In addition to presiding at the Eucharist and hearing Confession, Fr. Brian also served our community by providing spiritual direction and by leading our bereavement ministry.

We have been blessed by his presence and ministry and we wish him luck with his new responsibilities serving the whole province.

Helping Hands for the Disabled

Helping Hands for the Disabled is an agency that helps people who are blind.  They are looking for volunteers who will:

• Read mail for the client
• Go shopping with the client
• Run errands
• Go for a walk
• Assist with small tasks

If you are interested in helping out and can make a 2-3 hour commitment per week, please contact Edward Trochimczuk ( etrochimczuk@stfrancisnyc.org ).  The agency will also offer a $20/per visit stipend.

I have been helping people enter the Catholic Church for 15 years at St. Francis of Assisi and from time-to-time people ask me, “Why do people convert?”

It’s a good question and it’s not so easy to answer.  People’s journeys to coming to know Jesus and deciding to become a disciple are as diverse and unique as people are themselves.

But in my experience, there are some common denominators that cut across the varied ways people come to Christ and to the Church. Some people are moved by a book they read, or a movie they watch, or YouTube videos they see, and they start to know about Jesus through those media.  Other people grow up around and among Catholics and they have a familiarity with the Church even if they are not members.  Some people are not baptized but they have parents or grandparents who are faithful members of the Church, and sometimes they feel like becoming Catholic is a homecoming to a family tradition.  Other people fall in love with someone who is Catholic, and they are introduced to the Church by their significant other. Some people are simply seekers by nature, who are looking for meaning in life.  The journey starts in all different kinds of ways.

The of points of entry can be wildly diverse but at some point, these journeys find common elements:

All seekers (which the Church calls “inquirers” because they start to ask questions about Jesus and the Church) at some point come in contact with disciples who impress them or even inspire them. People become attached to someone who is already Catholic: a significant other, a friend, a relative, a colleague – and they are attracted to something about that person that they like.  Converts often point to sense of joy, or an inner of peace, or wisdom, or compassion, as qualities that they like, and they see in Catholics they know.

In other words, people lead people to Christ.  The journey may start with a book, or a curiosity, or a speech or whatever, but people who actual convert always speak of a “someone” who then brings them to Christ.

This personal witness is a primary and crucial part of the spiritual journey into the Church.

The second part of the journey is just as important: the prospective convert encounters a community of disciples who embody Jesus’ message.  By the time a potential convert meets the flesh and blood people of the Church they usually already know at least a little bit about Jesus’ message of love, compassion, inclusion, welcome, healing, and mercy. If they experience these qualities being lived in the community, the journey usually continues.  If they meet a community that is lukewarm in living Jesus’ message – or worse – a community that embodies judgment, bigotry, injustice or – God forbid – even hatred, then their journey usually stalls.  The witness of the local community is crucial to new people coming to know Jesus.  We must be what we are called to be:  Christ’s very body in the world.

All of this is to say, people convert because they experience the love of God flowing through the people who are already anointed with God’s Spirit.  In my experience when people encounter Jesus himself, authentically embodied in His’ disciples, they fall in love with God, and they realize the truth that God loves them – and all of us – first and always.

The Church calls the journey of conversation the “Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults” (RCIA) and I have had the privilege of directing this ministry at St. Francis for 15 years.  I do not do this ministry alone.  I work with a team of committed volunteers who, I believe, are called and gifted for this ministry.  But I am acutely aware that the RCIA ministry team, which works very hard all year, does not introduce our inquires to Christ by ourselves.  It takes the whole Church, living, breathing, with flesh and blood and gathering in the local community – to bring someone to Christ.  Our ministry team can do nothing, unless everyone in the pews at St. Francis is doing their job to live as faithful disciples of Jesus.  The ministry of evangelization ministry belongs to all of us.

So why do people convert?

Fundamentally, people convert because we are doing our best to be Christ’s disciples – individually and as a parish community – and people come to know, through us, that God loves them.

Yet, people still need to be invited.  People come closer to the Church because a member of the church takes the risk and invites someone they know, who they believe may be interested in exploring further, to come and take a look.  If we find love and life in Christ, we have to be willing to invite others to share the abundant life we have been invited into.  The invitation should always be gentle, and without any coercion, but we should be ready to invite because sometimes people are waiting for an invitation.  If they are interested, that’s great.  If they are not… that’s fine too.  At the end of the day, the call comes from God and God has his eye on all of us.  We don’t have to worry about where anyone’s journey goes.  We just need to embody the love of God whether people stay or go.

“The harvest is plenty” says the Lord, “but the laborers are few.”  Well folks… if you are reading this… you are one of the laborers.  Let’s rejoice in the abundance of the harvest and do our part.

-Joseph Nuzzi
Director of Evangelization
Church of St. Francis of Assisi

So here is an invitation from me:

Are you interested in exploring Catholicism for yourself?

Do you know someone who might be interested in finding out more about our faith?

Were you baptized in another Christian church and are thinking about joining the Catholic Church?

Are you Catholic but never received Confirmation or First Communion?

Our RCIA will begin on Tuesday, September 12, 2022 but I’d be happy to talk to you about questions at any time.

Our RCIA meets every Tuesday from 6:30 PM to 8:00 PM beginning September 13th.   These classes are designed for people who may or may not be sure that they want to join the Catholic church.  We present a comprehensive overview of Catholic faith and traditions designed for adults.  Anyone inquiring into the Catholic faith may attend these sessions with no obligations.

The RCIA is free for anyone exploring Catholicism.

If you would like to find out more about our Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults, please contact me:

Joseph Nuzzi
Director of Evangelization
212-736-8500 x365
jnuzzi@stfrancisnyc.org

Today, July 14,is the Feast of Saint Kateri Tekakwitha, the first Native American canonized to sainthood. She is the patron saint to Indigenous Americans and ecology.

She lived by the motto “Who will teach me what is most pleasing to God, that I may do it?”

Like her, let us live our lives with a God focus and concern for others.

Saint Kateri Tekakwitha, pray for us!

Saint Kateri Tekakwitha by Br. Robert Lentz, OFM

Statement of Cardinal Blase J. Cupich, archbishop of Chicago, on the July 4 mass shooting in Highland Park

(posted on the website of the Archdiocese of Chicago, July 4, 2022)

I have been watching the news in horror as at least 6 are dead and many more were wounded after a gunman opened fire as families attended an Independence Day parade in Highland Park. What should have been a peaceful celebration of our nation’s founding ended in unspeakable tragedy.

Please join me in praying for the victims and their loved ones, who never imagined a July 4 celebration could become a killing ground. Pray too for the safety of first responders as they pursue the person responsible for this tragedy. They bravely rushed into the danger to treat victims and to protect others from harm.

The parade reportedly had a heavy presence of police and fire vehicles, yet this shooter was able to wound at least two dozen people before he stopped, or was stopped, and fled. Victims ranged in age from 8 to 85. Weapons designed to rapidly destroy human bodies have no place in civil society.

It is barely July, and this year the United States is already experiencing more than one mass shooting a day. Chicago Police reported at least 55 shot and 7 killed since Friday, and the holiday weekend is not yet over. Gun violence is now the leading cause of death for U.S. children.

Whatever one makes of the right to bear arms, there is plenty of room for prudential judgment in interpreting the Second Amendment so as to enact serious, broadly popular gun-safety measures. The Senate finally passed a significant, yet modest, gun-safety bill last month. But clearly more must be done.

The right to bear arms does not eclipse the right to life, or the right of all Americans to go about their lives free of the fear that they might be shredded by bullets at any moment. Gun violence is a life issue. We must continue to pray that all our officials, elected and unelected alike, will redouble their commitment to keeping safe the people they have sworn to serve.

Pope Francis wrote to the people of Chicagoland in 2016: “As Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said, humanity ‘must evolve for all human conflict a method which rejects revenge, aggression and retaliation. The foundation of such a method is love.’ I urge all people, especially young men and women, to respond to Dr. King’s prophetic words and know that a culture of nonviolence is not an unattainable dream, but a path that has produced decisive results.”

May the Lord of mercy embrace in love those who have died, bring healing to the wounded, comfort to their loved ones, and courage to all of us, so that we may respond to this tragedy united as God’s children to build a path to safety and peace.

(Photo: CNS/Cheney Orr, Reuters)

5/28/22

How St. Francis of Assisi’s RCIA Program Changed Me

By Katherine Cullen, MFA, LMSW

If you had told me one or two years ago that I would convert to Catholicism, I would not have believed you. I was convinced I wasn’t “good enough” to set foot inside a church—let alone a Roman Catholic one. 

My parents had me baptized and raised in the Protestant faith. But when their marriage ended in 2001 and two airplanes tore through the Twin Towers 80 blocks south of my home in Manhattan, my faith faltered. I drifted away from the church, from prayer, and ultimately from the moral and spiritual structure these practices gave me. It took me two decades to find my way back to a relationship with God. And that reunion would not have been possible without the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults (RCIA) program at St. Francis of Assisi Church.

I first came to St. Francis on November 27th, 2021 with the man who would later that year become my husband. He was a Catholic, and I had implored him to bring me to one of the Masses he spoke so fondly about and regularly attended. I was nervous as we ambled up the steps at the church’s entryway, fearful someone might tell me I wasn’t fit to be here. That I didn’t belong. Yet the sight of two smiling ushers assured me, and their greeting encapsulated how I instantly felt in this place of worship: Welcome. Further assurance arrived as my future husband pointed out that to the right of our pew was a statue of St. Andrew Kim—the saint whose feast day falls on my birthday.

I followed the lead of the parishioners around me, standing and sitting, kneeling, and praying as they did. As readers came and went from the lectern, as Father Barry delivered a homily on how the latest movie he’d seen applied to the Gospel, my concern that I would feel like an outsider given my ignorance of the Catholic liturgy melted away. Though I wasn’t familiar with every detail of the Mass, I was nevertheless so very moved by and inexplicably woven into it. As I watched a beautifully diverse line of people process towards the altar to receive the Eucharist, I wanted to know how I could become a part of this community.

Several days of Googling “how to become a Catholic” later, I reached out to Joe Nuzzi, Director of Evangelization at St. Francis of Assisi Church, to inquire about the parish’s RCIA program. He invited me to sit in on that evening’s class. The topics alone—salvation history, earthly versus mystical conceptions of time—were enough to sell me on officially enrolling. But what stuck out so profoundly to me was the warmth, wisdom, and down-to-earth-ness of the RCIA volunteer staff, other students, and most of all, of Joe himself.

Every Tuesday from that day until my confirmation on April 16, 2022 became a day I looked forward to all week, no matter how tired my day job left me. So too did each Sunday, when us catechumens (or RCIA students) were dismissed from the 5pm Mass to “Break Open The Word” and reflect on the context, meaning, and personal resonance of Jesus’s life and teachings.

The energy and enthusiasm sparked by our weekly sessions sustained me through even the hardest of days doing field based social work with severely mentally ill adults, coping with my father’s Alzheimer’s, and discerning what the next steps of my career were. Through them, I learned how to make more room for God in my heart. This might explain why I found myself becoming more loving, calmer, hopeful, and spiritually stronger as the RCIA program progressed.

I believe that the insight, sense of belonging, healing and growth I have experienced is a unique function of the community and staff at St. Francis of Assisi Church. I strongly encourage anyone curious to learn more about the Catholic faith to explore our parish’s RCIA program—and for already confirmed Catholics wishing to deepen their spirituality and sense of community, to sponsor a catechumen. If your experience is anything like mine it will be nothing short of life changing.