Finding St. Francis and choosing to stand on the margins

It was early 2013 and I was fresh from three months of formation with Franciscan Mission Service. I had just arrived in Bolivia, South America, to live and serve for at least the next two years as a Franciscan lay missioner. I had spent the autumn months of 2012 in daily classes learning about Franciscan…

Old-fashioned trunk-centered simplicity

I admire my sisters’ tales of trunks. Long before I entered the Franciscan Sisters of Perpetual Adoration – and long before Vatican II for that matter – the common, communal practice was that every sister had to fit all of her personal property into one trunk. Our Franciscan lifestyle is an itinerant one. As sisters…