Secular Franciscan Order OFS South Australia (2026)

23/08/2026

The rule and life of the lesser brothers is this: To observe the holy gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, living in obedience without anything of our own, and in chastity. Brother Francis promises obedience and reverence to the Lord Pope Honorius and his canonically elected successors, and to the Roman Church; and the rest of the brothers are obliged to obey Francis and his successors. - The Rule of St. Francis

The Gospel 🕊
Not simply to believe it, but to live it.
Everything else flows from this...

🔹️ Observe the Gospel

The Gospel becomes the measure of our choices, our relationships, our priorities and our everyday lives.

🔹️ Obedience

Obedience to the Rule teaches humility, discipline and trust: the willingness to listen, to be corrected, to surrender self-will and to remain faithful when the excitement fades.

🔹️ Poverty

Poverty is not simply having less. It is learning that nothing we own should own us.

Less attachment.
Less accumulation.
Less dependence on comfort.

🔹️ Chastity

Chastity is learning to love without possessing.
It means allowing love to become generous rather than self-centred, respecting the dignity of every person and refusing to turn another human being into something I use for myself.

🔹️ Obedience to the Pope

Francis placed his fraternity within the communion of the Church. He promised obedience and reverence to the Pope and the Roman Church.

The Gospel teaches us what to live.
Poverty teaches us what to let go of.
Chastity teaches us how to love.
Obedience teaches us how to surrender.

Together they form a life increasingly centred not on self, but on Christ.

23/08/2026

To be great, one must first know what it is like to be small, because humility is the foundation of true greatness...

22/08/2026

Learning from St Francis 🕊
Bring peace wherever you go...

St Francis spent much of his life on the road. He left behind comfort, familiarity and certainty. He travelled from place to place, often owning almost nothing. Yet somehow, wherever Francis went, home seemed to appear around him.

Sometimes we cannot choose where life takes us. We may find ourselves in a new city, a new job, a difficult season, or somewhere that simply doesn’t feel like home.

Home can be created wherever there is peace, welcome, beauty and love.

A simple meal shared with someone.
A quiet corner for prayer.
A door left open.
A stranger treated like a friend.
A place where nobody has to pretend.

St Francis understood that you don't need much to make a place feel like home. Sometimes all it takes is the decision to bring a little warmth into an unfamiliar place.

And maybe that's part of our vocation too. We may not always be able to choose where we are, but we can choose what we bring into the space.

🔸️ Bring peace
🔸️ Bring kindness
🔸️ Bring beauty
🔸️ Bring laughter
🔸️ Bring God

And wherever you go, leave behind a little piece of home.

Home is not always the place we come back to. Sometimes it is the atmosphere of love we create wherever we are.

22/08/2026

Cooperating With Grace
When Grace Comes Knocking

St Francis understood something that can completely change the way we live: God’s grace is not a substitute for our cooperation.

Grace opens the door.
We still have to walk through it.

God can give us the desire to change, the courage to forgive, the strength to begin again, the opportunity to serve, and the light to recognise what is right.

But we have to respond.

St Francis could have admired the Gospel from a distance. Instead, he acted on it. He embraced the l***r. He rebuilt what was broken. He chose poverty. He forgave. He went where God was calling him, even when he didn't know exactly where the road would lead.

That is cooperation with grace.

Not trying to save ourselves by our own strength. Not sitting back and expecting God to do everything.

Sometimes grace looks like a sudden conversion. More often, it looks like a small decision repeated every day.

One more act of patience.
One honest apology.
One temptation resisted.
One person forgiven.
One step toward God.

And when we cooperate with what God is already doing within us, our ordinary life can slowly become something extraordinary.

Grace asks for a response.

God can give us the light, but we have to choose to walk in it.

He can give us the desire to change, but we have to take the first step.

He can give us the courage to forgive, but we still have to open our hands and let go.

He can place someone in our path who needs love, but we have to stop and love them.

This is the mystery of grace: God does the first work, but He invites us to cooperate.

🔸️ Start the day with “Yes.” Offer God your day before you know what it will bring.

🔸️ Act on the good you already know. Don't wait for a perfect sign. If you know something is right, do it.

🔸️ Respond quickly to opportunities for love. When someone needs help, encouragement or forgiveness, don't overthink it.

🔸️ Do the difficult thing grace is inviting you to do. Apologise. Forgive. Tell the truth. Let go. Begin again.

🔸️ Make space for silence. Grace is often subtle. Slow down enough to notice where God may be leading.

🔸️ Learn to say "no". St Francis chose simplicity because he understood that attachment can make us deaf to God's invitation.

🔸️ Begin again when you fail. Don't turn one failure into an identity. Receive mercy, get up and cooperate again.

Grace can transform a life.
But we have to let it.

22/08/2026

St Clare & Technology
The Patron Saint of Television

Imagine being too sick to leave your room for Christmas Mass.

That was St Clare of Assisi in 1252.

According to her canonization testimony, Clare was unable to join her sisters at San Damiano for the Christmas liturgy. Yet from her sickbed, she miraculously saw and heard the entire celebration taking place in the church.

In a sense, Clare experienced something remarkably similar to live-streaming.

No camera.
No screen.
No internet.
No broadcast signal.

And yet she was able to experience an event happening somewhere else in real time.

It is one of the most fascinating stories in the life of St Clare because it invites us to think about technology in an entirely different way.

Technology allows us to overcome distance.

A livestream can bring Mass into a hospital room. A video call can connect families across continents. A phone can allow someone who is isolated to hear another person's voice.

We have always wanted to overcome distance, to see what we cannot physically reach, and to remain connected to what matters most.

St Clare's Christmas miracle feels almost like a glimpse of our technological future, centuries before humanity had the means to create it.

Perhaps that is what makes St Clare's story so fascinating for our technological age. The technology may change, but the human longing remains the same. We invent screens, cameras, satellites and networks because we want to overcome distance, to see what we cannot see, to hear what we cannot hear, and to be present where we cannot physically be.

St Clare's experience reminds us that technology is never the ultimate goal. Its value lies in what it makes possible. When technology helps us encounter truth, people and God more deeply, it becomes more than a tool, it becomes a way of extending human presence beyond our physical limits.

22/08/2026

Franciscan Values & Technology
Simple Hearts, Powerful Tools

The Franciscans have never been afraid of new technology. In fact, some of them were remarkably ahead of their time.

🔹️ Franciscan Printing Press in Jerusalem

The Franciscan Custody of the Holy Land established a printing press in Jerusalem in 1847. It produced religious material in languages including Arabic, Latin, Italian, French, Greek, and Hebrew to support local communities, schools, and Christian pilgrims.

The first book ever printed in Arabic and Italian was a catechism dating back to 1847.

🔹️ St Maximilian Kolbe

He took this Franciscan instinct to another level.

At Niepokalanów, he combined radical poverty with the most advanced communication technology available. The friars lived simply, while the printing operation used modern machinery capable of producing thousands of copies an hour. Knight of the Immaculate eventually reached enormous circulation, and in 1935 Kolbe launched a daily newspaper.

And he didn't stop with print.

In 1938, Niepokalanów began experimental radio broadcasts. Kolbe even explored aviation as a way of getting publications to people more quickly.

His principle was radical: use the newest tools available but don't let the tools become the mission. That is deeply Franciscan.

And fascinatingly, St Maximilian Kolbe was also deeply interested in science and technology. As a young friar, he designed an early concept for a spacecraft, which he called an eteroplan, and even submitted the design to the Italian patent office in 1915. His ideas explored rocket propulsion and human space travel decades before the Space Age began.

Technology is a gift when it helps us communicate truth, serve others, cultivate beauty and bring people closer to God. St Maximilian Kolbe embraced the possibilities of his age with remarkable courage and imagination. The question for us is the same: not simply what can technology do, but what can we do with it for the good of others and the glory of God?

22/08/2026

'Honor your father and your mother'

At its heart, the 4th Commandment is about learning to recognise the people who gave us life and refusing to let familiarity make us forget their value.

Parents give life, protection, guidance and countless sacrifices that children often understand only much later. To honour them is to recognise the gift they have been and continue to be...

The 4th Commandment can sound simple until family relationships are complicated.

St Francis understood that love is not sentimental. It is costly, truthful and sometimes requires great wisdom.

Sometimes honour looks like forgiveness from a distance. Sometimes it means staying close, even when life gets busy.

Sometimes it means saying “I love you,” “thank you,” and “I’m sorry” while there is still time. Sometimes it means setting a firm boundary.

Sometimes it means turning the love you received into the love you give. Sometimes it means praying for someone we cannot safely be around.

Sometimes it means forgiving the small things and not keeping score. Sometimes it means grieving the relationship we wished we had.

St Francis teaches us to seek peace but authentic peace is built on truth, forgiveness, humility and love...

🔹️ Say thank you especially for the things you once took for granted.

🔹️ Stay connected: call, visit or check in regularly.

🔹️ Speak well of them especially when they are not there to hear it.

🔹️ Pray for them and, if they have died, pray for their souls.

We honour our parents not because they were perfect, but because life came to us through them. We need to stop taking that gift for granted...

22/08/2026

Evangelical Poverty
A life measured by what we give, not what we have

We live in a world that constantly asks: How much can you afford?

St Francis asked a different question: How little do I actually need?

That is the edge of evangelical poverty. It isn't romanticising poverty or pretending that money doesn't matter. It is refusing to let comfort become a lifestyle, consumption become an identity, or wealth become security. We can choose to live below what we can afford.

Not because we have to.
Because we choose to.

🔸️ A simpler wardrobe
🔸️ A less expensive holiday
🔸️ One less unnecessary purchase
🔸️ A home that doesn't need upgrading
🔸️ Money set aside for someone who is struggling

When we stop using everything we have to make our own lives bigger, we create space for someone else’s life to become a little better.

22/08/2026

Saints Who Were Inspired by St Francis
Part 1, St Ignatius & St Carlo

St Francis of Assisi did not simply inspire Franciscans. His life reached far beyond his own Order across centuries, cultures, religious communities and very different personalities.

Knights, scholars, priests, founders, teenagers and reformers all encountered St Francis and discovered something in him that made them want to live differently.

🔹️ St Ignatius of Loyola

“What if I did what Francis did?”

While recovering from a battle wound, Ignatius read the lives of the saints. Something began to change. He started asking himself: “What if I should do what St Francis did?”

St Francis became one of the models who awakened in Ignatius the desire to surrender his life completely to God.

Ignatius later travelled to the Holy Land, hoping to remain there permanently. But the Franciscan superior responsible for the Catholic pilgrims ordered him to leave because of the danger. Ignatius obeyed.

The irony is beautiful: a Franciscan sent him away from the Holy Land but St Francis had already helped send Ignatius towards his vocation. Ignatius would eventually live that fire through a very different charism, founding the Society of Jesus.

🔹️ St Carlo Acutis

The teenager who loved Assisi

Carlo Acutis had a particular love for St Francis and for Assisi. His family spent time there, and Carlo grew deeply attached to the city of Francis and Clare. He admired Franciscan simplicity, love for the poor, love of creation and, above all, the radical decision to put Christ at the centre of life.

Carlo loved Assisi so much that he expressed the desire to be buried there. Today, his tomb is in the Church of Santa Maria Maggiore in Assisi.

Centuries apart, two young men discovered the same profound truth: to live a truly great life, you must give yourself completely to Christ.

Perhaps that is the real power of St Francis.
He did not create copies of himself.
He awakened saints.

22/08/2026

The Cost Of Loving

St Francis knew that love always costs something. It asks something from us. It asks us to stay when leaving would be easier. To forgive when pride wants revenge. To give when we would rather keep. To care when there is nothing to gain.

The deepest signs that we truly love someone is this:

We don't want to lose them.

Francis loved God so deeply that he could not imagine living at a distance from Him. He loved people so deeply that their poverty, suffering and loneliness became impossible for him to ignore. He loved creation because he recognised it as gift.

Love changes what we are willing to pay.

When someone matters to us, we make time.
We make sacrifices.
We cross uncomfortable distances.
We apologise.
We forgive.
We begin again.

To love is to become vulnerable.

You cannot truly love someone and remain completely untouched by them. When someone becomes precious to you, their joy matters. Their pain matters. Their absence matters. What happens to them matters.

That is the cost of love.

And perhaps this is one of the uncomfortable questions Francis leaves us with:

Who would you fight to keep in your life by becoming the kind of person worthy of their love?

Because we don't truly live by loving only when it is easy.

We truly live when someone becomes so precious to us that love is worth the cost.

Pax et bonum.

Secular Franciscan Order OFS South Australia

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