On becoming a Secular (Third Order) Franciscan.

 

I believe I was named after my father’s brother, Frank Rega. Unfortunately, my birth certificate says Frank, instead of my uncle’s real name, Francesco. That was 1942. I would love to have been Francesco, especially now that I am a Secular Franciscan. 

 

I was just a Sunday Catholic who went to public schools. But around the time I received the sacrament of Confirmation, I was thinking of becoming a priest, due to our inspiring parish priest. I used to collect baseball cards and articles about players, and I thought that I could put them in a little suitcase and keep them even if I became a priest. I would give everything up but not that collection!

 

Unfortunately during my High School years I lost the faith to the point of becoming an agnostic – maybe there is a God but we can’t know it. I was reading a lot of Bertrand Russell, who was a non-violent pacifist (good), but he did not consider himself a Christian (bad). Looking back, I wish I had been reading Thomas Aquinas instead. 

 

I went to college and graduated from Rutgers University in 1965 in New Brunswick, New Jersey. Rutgers was, and probably still is, a liberal left-wing hotbed, and I fit right in. As a Psychology major, some of my classes treated the false theory of evolution as a scientific fact, and I did not disagree. I don’t recall ever going to Mass during this time. 

 

I was seeking after Truth, but did not connect Truth with God. I tried graduate school at the Yale Institute of Human Relations, but dropped out after one year because I did not think I could really learn what life was all about by sitting in a classroom.

 

So I found myself living and working in New York City. After a lot of adventures and various jobs, I ended up back in New Jersey, beginning a career as a computer programmer. Somewhere around the early 1970’s, in my search for Truth, I walked into a Catholic bookstore and purchased a book called The Little Flowers of St. Francis of Assisi. This book put my life back on track. After reading it, I truly believed in the Lord. 

 

From an agnostic I returned to the Catholic faith, and to Mass. However it was not the Mass I knew when I was confirmed. After the Vatican II Council, there were a lot of changes and even confusion in the Church. I visited the parish of the priest who had inspired my youthful desire to become one, and at his Mass, for Holy Communion they gave out pieces of cake! 

 

Throughout those post-Conciliar years, I did a lot of reading from Catholic authors, and finally got to St. Thomas Aquinas. Better late than never. But my main attraction was St. Francis, and how he lived close to nature, and to Jesus. I also developed a devotion to the Blessed Virgin, to St. Joseph, and to Padre Pio. 

 

My computer work took me to Philadelphia, where I lived in an apartment within walking distance to the Cathedral of Sts. Peter and Paul, which became my parish. Providentially, the cathedral hosted a large secular Franciscan fraternity, known appropriately as the Cathedral Fraternity. Fortunately their monthly meeting was on a Saturday, so although I was working full-time I could join with them. Many of the members participated in a very fruitful apostolate of feeding the hungry and helping the poor at the St. Francis Inn, a facility with a large dining area founded by three Franciscan friars (https://stfrancisinn.org/), located in Kensington. 

 

I was received into the Third Order on March 13, 1982 (my Reception Day), but I was not yet professed. However, I was invested with the Brown Scapular and the cord, sacramentals which have since been replaced for Franciscan seculars by the TAU cross. Unfortunately, the Cathedral Fraternity no longer exists.

 

Next stop in my computer career was Washington, D.C., and I took an apartment near the campus of Catholic University. The Franciscan Monastery of the Holy Land in America (https://myfranciscan.org/) was only about two miles away, and I joined their Secular group, named Mt. St. Sepulchre Fraternity. Since they met on the third Sunday of the month, I was able to participate although working full-time. 

 

It was there that I became a professed Secular Franciscan, on June 19, 1983, at the age of 41. I don’t recall that the fraternity had a special apostolate, other than helping in some way at the monastery with the many visitors who tour the famous rose gardens and replicas of Catholic shrines.

 

After my retirement from the computer world, I moved to coastal Sussex County in Southern Delaware. Around 2004 I saw an announcement in my church bulletin about an effort to form a new Secular Franciscan fraternity to be named after St. Clare. I began going to their gatherings, and after a few years the fraternity was granted official canonical status. Based in Rehoboth Beach, the St. Clare Fraternity meets on Thursdays once a month, which is not a problem for retirees since so many live in the county, although the demographics are changing with new construction everywhere. 

 

Their apostolates revolve around providing food, clothing and other assets for many charitable causes. Since I now had more time as a retiree, I began to write Catholic books, including one on St. Francis titled St. Francis of Assisi and the Conversion of the Muslims. Then a few years ago, mainly due to health issues, I formally became an inactive member of the St. Clare Fraternity. 

 

View my Catholic website here http://www.frankrega.com/