Celebrating 500 Years of Capuchin Life: First Came the Habit
Between April and May 2025, we commemorate half a millennium, 500 years, since a Franciscan Observant friar, Matteo da Bascio, felt God's call in his heart to return to the way of life that he perceived was intended by Francis of Assisi for his brothers. In the spring (April-May) of 1525, Matteo, wearing a simpler habit and a pointed hood, barefoot and carrying a cross, began his journey as an itinerant preacher. Although at first his desire for a more austere life was not well received, he obtained the verbal approval of Medici Pope Clement VII, who allowed him to live according to this ideal. What was born in the silence and humility of a single friar soon became a legitimized reform that revitalized the Franciscan spirit in Italy and would, ultimately, spread throughout the world.
We'll let Cuthbert Hesse of Brighton's narration mark the occasion (The Capuchins, vol. I, p. 21):
Our Cleveland Parishes Collaborate on a Lenten Revival
The parishes of St. Agnes/Our Lady of Fatima and Holy Spirit in Cleveland sponsored the Collaborative Lenten Revival on the evenings of Ash Wednesday through Friday, March 5-8 at St. Agnes. It was in conjunction with the four African American Churches of the Diocese, presenting this three-day Revival as a jumpstart for the forty-day Lenten Journey.
From our Novitiate: The Caperone, March 2025
Check out the news from our Capuchin Novices
at San Lorenzo Friary in Santa Ynez, CA,
in March's edition
of their monthly Caperone.
"And Then Came Dawn" Gets Another Life
At our Capuchin archives in Pittsburgh, PA, we've digitized some of our videos that would no longer be available to posterity when the last VHS cassette player is laid to rest (and most may have already gone to their eternal pastures or friary basements?). The most recent is an important film in our Province story: And Then Came Dawn.
And Then Came Dawn, highlighting our mission work in Papua New Guinea which had begun in 1955, was filmed in the early '70s and produced by Karl-Heinz Stellmach, the photographer who filmed the outdoor scenes of Austria in the film The Sound of Music in the early '60s. The film was shown on national public television stations in Spring of 1973.
The Pittsburgh showing on WQED-TV was on Sunday, April 8th, 1973, at Noon, and arrived with a lot of fanfare among our brothers. It was acclaimed as a "masterpiece of anthropology and mission documentation." [Carnegie Alumni News, March 1973] The Pittsburgh incarnation included all three segments of the production in a 90-minute presentation. Now that it's been digitized from a VHS tape you can view all three together on our posted video. And we found quite a few faces of friars in their younger days as you can see in the collage.
March for Life 2025
January's March for Life certainly experienced a Capuchin presence . . . . As our brother Pablo Lopez, OFM Cap., our photographer and reporter wrote:
We had our brother Cardinal Sean O'Malley, OFM Cap., as the celebrant for the Mass for Life in the Crypt Church of the Basilica of the National Shrines, joined with many concelebrants. Our Vocation Director, Br. Mike Herlihey, OFM Cap., was the homilist for the Mass." To round out the group, our Cap Corps Lay Volunteers, friars from Baltimore and Cleveland's Capuchin Formation Program were in attendance at the Mass and march, as well as as well as 14 candidates who were staying the weekend at Capuchin College to discern our way of life.
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