The Society of Saint Francis - some of our stories

	Franciscan calling
	Some of our stories
	Living as Franciscans
	What next?
	Growing into the life

some of our stories

Click to go to another individual's story: Maximilian SSF, Phyllis CSF, John SSF, Liz CSF, Nicholas Alan SSF

Maximilian SSF

Maximilian was re-admitted to the novitiate in Lent 2000, made his first profession in 2002 and his life profession in 2005. He has spent much of his life in SSF as part of the household at Alnmouth, but is now, with Paschal, involved in a new small house in Walsingham, serving the shrine and pilgrims, while training for ordination.

From around age nine I was aware of a sense of calling to some form of Religious Life but that it might be something for "later on" in my life. During my early twenties, while working as a nurse, I moved through a time of having my faith shaken by many of the experiences of suffering I encountered. There then followed a progressive awareness of not just the existence of God, but that He knew me personally. I began to read the Gospels again, and meet Jesus afresh. Attending Church became essential during this time, and my Parish Priest helped greatly as my discernment continued. I came to realise that "later on" could be much sooner than I thought!

Eventually, I responded to God's call by testing my vocation with the Society of Saint Francis. After three years, as my noviciate reached its end, it became clear that the time was not right for me to apply for making vows, and I left the Order. This turned out to be a time of significant growth, personally and spiritually. I would describe my spiritual home as being within the Catholic tradition of the Church of England, but during this time, God drew me to an evangelical Anglican Church, where I served on the PCC, and worked extensively with youth ministry. I also on occasion attended a nearby Anglo Catholic Church, and these two aspects of the spiritual life have merged within me, and continue to yield fruit.

Throughout the five years following my departure from the Order, I worked as a Counsellor and Community Support Worker, which was very fulfilling. However, I found myself persistently, although not stiflingly, reflecting on my life as a Friar and my decision to leave. In response to what I came to see as God's promptings, I approached SSF to seek advice on what I should do. When I was invited to rejoin, I was aware of a deep sense of rightness, and of a response to God's timing. As I confirmed my vows before the Bishop at my Life Profession, I was overwhelmed by a profound joy, which continues to sustain me.

A sense of calling to the priesthood has also been with me over the years. I have recently been recommended to begin training for ordination, and it became clear that my primary vocation to be a Friar needed to be in place first.

I am immensely grateful to SSF for taking the risk of allowing me to rejoin the Franciscan path following my departure, and therefore myself, risk submitting to God's call. I believe it is possible to offer all that we do to Jesus, and that He will accept and work through it. I also believe though, that God has a specific path He would have each of us take. Through careful discernment from ourselves and those around us, we can take the risk of stepping onto this path, and move forward, with joy, and in faith that Jesus assuredly walks with us.

Click to go to another individual's story: Phyllis CSF, John SSF, Liz CSF, Nicholas Alan SSF

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Phyllis CSF

Phyllis joined CSF in 1977, was life professed in 1988, and has lived in various CSF houses during her time in Community. Currently she is living at Compton Durville where she is currently house bursar.

It took about 10 years to realise that God might be calling ME to the Religious Life – from a “no way, not me,Lord” to “Yes,Lord” after all the buts. I was working overseas when the “Yes” began to emerge, and sensed that God was asking me to go deeper – not better or busier but deeper. A transforming sermon on Luke 5 convinced me I could no longer live on the edge but had to launch into the deep.

Gradually I realised I was not being called to the community with whom I had been living nor to the community of which I had been an associate, but to the differently challenging Community of St.Francis. Since joining CSF in 1977 I have experienced many highs and lows and know that the religious life is neither a soft option nor an escape or even “tame” as some people suggest. God uses all the experiences which are brought into Community to enhance our life and God’s work. My call is not a one-off, I know God continues to call me to this corporate life of prayer, work and witness and no one is more surprised than me.

Click to go to another individual's story: Maximilian SSF, John SSF, Liz CSF, Nicholas Alan SSF

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John SSF

John became a novice early in 2002, made his first profession in 2005, and his life profession on 4^th April 2008, the 40^th anniversary of the assassination of Martin Luther King.

How did I end up joining a Franciscan Community? It crept up on me and suddenly pounced. I was a Baptist for 25 years, a minister for half of them. From that tradition I received a love of scripture, a desire to communicate the gospel effectively and many other blessings. The civil rights leader Martin Luther King was my hero.

By exploring the retreat movement I discovered the power of silence to draw us deeper into God and stumbled across the realisation that there was a significant contemplative dimension to my personality that needed to be taken seriously if prayer and ministry were to be truly in and of the Holy Spirit.

The disintegration of my marriage and the accompanying recognition of guilt and failure prompted a lot of soul searching. Did God still want me to serve him, or to bow out gracelessly? Confused, I confided in a spiritual counsellor who accompanied me through the darkness and helped me to listen for my own inner voice. In my gospel reading one day, someone said to Jesus, “I will follow you wherever you go” (Luke 9:57). My sense that this was what God wanted to hear from me engendered a mixture of profound gratitude and terror. Gratitude marginally prevailed. I consented, still fairly clueless as to where ‘wherever’ might be.

Jean Vanier’s classic book “Community and Growth” had sat unread on my shelf for years. I opened it, and was captivated by his descriptions of the call to community and the call of the poor. Both of these calls reverberated around my heart. Some vague memory induced me to read Brother Ramon’s ‘Franciscan Spirituality’. This template of discipleship, with its simplicity and itinerancy, seemed to fit me. It revealed a pattern that made sense of the broken jumble that was all I could otherwise perceive my life to be; it presented inspiring challenges; it resurrected my dreams.

Visits to friaries immersed me in liturgical catholic worship. This required adjustments and rethinking, but proved over time to be liberating, full of beauty and joy, not the superstitious straitjacket of my prejudiced imagination. Weirdly I felt I belonged in this strange territory. Step by step and under the authority and care of the brothers I made the transition to a new home. All of me came. Positive and negative life experiences. Grace and grit. All of me was received.

Six years on I have lived in and visited poorer places and people than before and hope to do more of this. I am still at home moving from brokenness to wholeness in the company of these lovely, infuriating Franciscan brothers and sisters, seeking to follow Jesus wherever.

Click to go to another individual's story: Maximilian SSF, Phyllis CSF, Liz CSF, Nicholas Alan SSF

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Liz CSF

Sr Liz made her first profession in April 2007, and is presently Guest Sister at Compton Durville.

My name is Sr Liz, an ordained priest and currently a sister in First Profession with CSF at Compton Durville in Somerset.

So why am I here?

Well the ‘seed’ of Community has been around for some time. Over the years in times of quiet reflection I have felt God’s promise of a deeper and more intimate relationship with him, a constant searching and yearning. It was during the Life Profession Service of another sister, that I (rather alarmingly) felt an overwhelming sense of ‘belonging’ and knew that this was something that I needed to explore further. Drawn by the freedom, joy and spontaneity I had seen, I began to hear myself asking those unspoken questions, knowing in my depths that I had to step out in faith and trust (although I confess rather tentatively and not without much apprehension!). There was something about searching for a corporate rhythm, routine and discipline of life that was rooted in prayer, because I firmly believe that all that I do has to come from that solid foundation, from that centre of being in relationship with God, a relationship that is renewed daily in prayer, word and sacrament.

So five years on, how has it been?

Well, it has certainly been a time of great change, transformation and revelation, of much emotional upheaval and turmoil but also a time of great liberation as the different aspects of my life begin to come together, like the pieces of a jigsaw. Each piece is being carefully refined and transformed as I am brought to a greater place of healing and wholeness in God’s love and as I begin to really discover the person God created me to be.

Click to go to another individual's story: Maximilian SSF, Phyllis CSF, John SSF, Nicholas Alan SSF

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Nicholas Alan SSF

Br Nicholas Alan made his life profession in 2002, and is presently Guardian of Glasshampton Monastery.

Where does a vocation begin? For me it was more of a growing conviction only recognised in hindsight, but I remember a time when there was something about the words ‘monk’ and ‘monastery’ that kept leaping out of the page in books that I was reading. I was studying Theology at university at the time, and finding some of the critical theologians hard going. It was the books by monks and nuns that really captured my imagination – people like the Cistercian Thomas Merton, or Dom Henri Le Saux, a Benedictine who went to India taking the name Abhishiktananda, a Christian in Hindu robes. Here was a faith lived with integrity and abandonment to God, which called for a response from my heart.

It took me a while to make up my mind though. First I wrote to various communities for men in the Church of England, asking if I could live alongside their community for a while. They all seemed to say, Why not try the Franciscans? So I went to visit Hilfield Friary in Dorset, but I knew it was too early for me to join. I wanted to see the world. Eight years later, now living in Korea, I knew that it was time to return and get on with what I believed God had been patiently calling me to do.

Many things drew me to the Franciscans. Partly it was the corporate commitment to prayer at regular times each day. I had tried to do that on my own, using the SSF Office Book and re-connecting in spirit with the SSF, but it was so difficult on my own to maintain the discipline. I realised I needed the help of others in my prayers. And I didn’t like living alone. Community seemed to offer the balance of individual space and the companionship of others on a spiritual path. And Francis, full of wisdom’s folly, was a refreshing and exhilarating example of poverty and joy in his love of God and all his brothers and sisters.

But in the end, what kept me in the SSF was simply that these brothers and sisters were the people I had come to know and love. They were and are my family. How could I think of leaving them? And it wasn’t just them. Friendships with members of other communities, not just Anglican but Roman Catholic, Orthodox, and Buddhist too were increasingly important to me. They were all part of what I had become. Of course the desire for a wife and family was still there, but somewhere along the line a choice had been made and one path followed with another left unexplored.

And in this company of brothers and sisters, both those with whom I live and pray and those I have visited and come to know as friends, with these companions I honestly feel that living this life makes a difference. People visit our communities and are changed: refreshed and revitalised in spirit, strengthened to live their own lives to the full. People and groups we visit find something in this crazy choice of ours that inspires them, just as I was inspired as a student. When you live this life for a while, you soon realise that it is not you who work any of these miracles, it can only be God. And if God is here, then the one thing necessary has already been found.

Click to go to another individual's story: Maximilian SSF, Phyllis CSF, John SSF, Liz CSF

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