This week Houghton welcomed back the Franciscan Friars of the Renewal, a group of both friars and sisters that have visited every few years since 1989. With their distinctive gray habits and cord around their waist, they were hard to miss. They seemed to be everywhere this week, engaging with students in the classroom as well as on campus.
The Friary began in the Bronx of New York, where they continue to meet the material and spiritual needs of the homeless in the New York area; needs such as setting up soup kitchens, providing food, counseling, clothing, and shelter for homeless people. Over the years they have been blessed, growing into multiple friaries and having the opportunity to travel, and visit places such as Houghton.
The friars and sisters enjoyed hanging out in the lounges, dining halls, and eating meals with the students. “They are accessible to our students, that is one of the gifts they bring,” said Michael Lastoria, Director of Counseling Services, and coordinator of the Franciscan Friars visits.
According to Lastoria, the friars and sisters are very knowledgeable and love to talk to the students about many topics such as the Reformation, social injustice, Roman Catholicism, the new Pope Francis, and a number of other things. Lastoria said, “both theologically and spiritually, they are a gifted group”.
At every meal the friars and sisters sat with students to engage them in conversations. On one of those nights during dinner, two of the sisters, Sister Mary Pieta and Sister Maria Grace, sat engaging in conversation with a table full of students.
Sister Mary Pieta, originally from Kansas, has been part of the convent for eight years. She attended a college very similar to Houghton, and during her junior year she began to enter in a deeper relationship with Jesus. “Feeling like my heart couldn’t be satisfied by anything but him, I had to give my life to him there wasn’t any other option. It was an impulsive love, someone who had given himself so totally for me,” she said with great passion and joy on her face.
The Franciscan Renewal was formed in the spring of 1987 by a group of friars with the intention of a communal reform within the Catholic Church. The friars observed a rise in theological confusion and false teachings made by the Catholic Church during the 1970s and 1980s. This crisis was causing a major decline in religious life, so the friars made the decision to start the renewal.
This community is made up of friars and sisters, embracing the gospel of Jesus Christ, adhering to the teachings of Saint Francis of Assisi, and keeping to the root of the Capuchin tradition. They show a strong passion in assisting the poor and the homeless as well as evangelizing to others.
Currently, the convent that Sister Mary Pieta and Sister Maria Grace both live in has a food pantry which distributes food to about 200 people. “You are always giving food, but it’s always with a prayer, meeting their physical needs but hopefully also reaching to their spiritual needs as well,” said Pieta. They also have a Bible study, where they read scripture, pray, and have discussions with their neighbors. In addition to food pantries and Bible studies, their convent frequently participates in home visits, including those to nursing homes.
Lastoria said “I just love the spiritual activity that I see going on, the livelihood, and the energy that they bring to campus, how they interact with the students. It’s a breath of fresh air.”
The friars and sisters had many opportunities to connect with the Houghton community this week. They were our special guests in chapel on both Wednesday and Friday with both services being led by father Glenn Sudano, one of the original members of the Franciscan Friars of the Renewal. During worship, the friars and sisters shared their musical and vocal talents, showing the great passion they have for their faith.
They expressed their Catholic faith by sharing an instructional sacrament of the mass with communion, which was one of the things Dean Jordan was looking forward to the most. In their words, this instructional mass “kind of unpacks it and helps people to see, and say ok this is what they’re doing and this is why they are saying this.”
After the mass, the friars held a jam session located in Java 101 where students, faculty, and staff were given the opportunity to worship alongside their new friar friends.
Jordan was excited to have them and said, “I think it’s important for our students to learn a little bit about what that subset of Christianity is like, I want them to see people who have given everything to follow Jesus in a way that most Protestants don’t grow up thinking about it.
Sister Pieta expressed how it was a great joy to come and visit Houghton, and said it was a pleasure to be with the students, learn about them, the school, and its traditions. She also expressed how she hoped that her and her sisters and the brothers were joyful witnesses to the Houghton community and said, “There is something unique and special about the brothers and the sisters and priests because we’re are consecrated and totally given over to Christ, so just even that witness of seeing someone who has given themselves totally and fully over to the Lord. Hopefully we hope [sic] to be an inspiration to you all; that it’s possible to live radically to Jesus in that way.”