Order of Secular Franciscans

The Secular Franciscan Order is an officially recognized Order, by the pope, in the Catholic Church. It takes about 3 years to become a professed Secular Franciscan. After about 3 years of formation, a person makes their permanent and lifelong profession and commitment to the Order. We differ from other Orders in the fact that we do not belong to a convent or monastery or anything like that. We are regular Catholic lay men and women, married or single, with regular jobs, but wanting to grow in our spirituality by using St. Francis as our model. We meet in a fraternity gathering once a month. These monthly gatherings consist of prayer, gospel sharing, deciding on an opportunity to meet some need of the poor, etc. There are Secular Fraternities across the United States and around the world in almost every country. There is a hierarchy so to speak. Local fraternities, such as ours in St. Cloud are part of a regional fraternity, regional fraternities are part of a national fraternity, and the national fraternities are part of the international fraternity. Each fraternity is pretty much self governing, but receives spiritual guidance from a spiritual assistant and from a Franciscan friar from the Franciscan Order that they are "bonded" to.