Who lives in Holy Name Province?

There are 325 Franciscan Friars in Holy Name Province serving the people of God in a wide variety of settings – colleges, parishes, urban ministry centers and diverse social ministries along the East Coast. Today we continue the mission of Saint Francis to make the Gospel message come alive in our contemporary world. We live in cities, suburbs and rural areas. Our backgrounds are diverse and our ministries are varied; most of us serve in pastoral roles, while others work in education, social ministry, administration and manual trades.

What is the mission of the Franciscan Friars of Holy Name Province?

The core of the Franciscan charism is in the living out of the Gospel of Jesus Christ within the Church according to the rule of life proposed and observed by Saint Francis of Assisi to preach this message to every creature. This is our purpose and mission.

Our message is very simple: God loves each of us totally and unconditionally.

What makes the Franciscan Friars different?

The Franciscan Friars have always been thought of as “of
the people and with the people”. Living in community is a core value and often helps the Friars to put things in a more “down to earth” perspective. The Friars never see themselves as better than anyone, and therefore they are not usually judgmental and are very accepting of everyone, those who are in the faith community and those who are not.

All Are Welcome is the core of Franciscan hospitality.

I [Pope Francis] like to contemplate the holiness present in the patience of God’s people: in those parents who raise their children with immense love, in those men and women who work hard to support their families, in the sick, in elderly religious who never lose their smile. In their daily perseverance I see the holiness of the church militant.

Very often it is a holiness found in our next-door neighbor, those who, living in our midst, reflect God’s presence. We might call them ‘the middle class of holiness.”

Let us be spurred on by the signs of holiness that the Lord shows us through the humblest members of (God’s) people… Holiness is the most attractive face of the church. But even out- side the Catholic Church, and in very different contexts, the Holy Spirit raises up “signs of his presence that help Christ’s followers.”

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.

Fr. Zachary Kunz, 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. Details are meager, but the Metropolitan Catholic Almanac for 1845, the forerunner of the Official Catholic Directory, states the name of the church and the pastor. Fr. Zachary chose for his patron the man of peace, Saint Francis of Assisi.

The cornerstone of a new church was blessed and laid on May 9, 1844 by the Coadjutor Bishop of New York, the Most Reverend John McCloskey. In a very short time the church was completed, and on August 1, 1844, the future Cardinal Archbishop of New York, Bishop McCloskey, dedicated Saint Francis of Assisi Church on West 31st Street.

There were two rooms in the basement of the small church. Fr. Zachary lived in one of the rooms, and in the other he opened his parish school, for among the German immigrants there was an unwritten law that there must be a school wherever there is a church. A document in the original cornerstone shows that Peter Jeny was the first teacher of this new school which eventually grew into a center of primary education for the boys and girls of the parish.

The simple rite of blessing church bells indicates the existence of a vibrant Secular Franciscan presence in the parish as well as the potential growth of the parish since more than 100 children were confirmed by Bishop Hughes the day after he blessed the church bell on September 16, 1847. Saint Francis Church was the third Catholic church in New York City to boast of church bells, and the second to sound the Angelus three times a day.

Fr. Zachary died very suddenly in 1848. A Sunday picnic had been planned for the parish, and when the very prompt Fr. Zachary did not appear for Sunday Mass, some of the people went to his little room where they found him dead, the victim of a stroke. His sudden death deprived the people of a very capable and zealous missionary pastor.

This is the second 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.