PORT ST. LUCIE | More than 800 years ago, St. Francis of Assisi founded the Secular Franciscan Order, now officially known as the Order of Franciscan Seculars, a lay order within the Catholic Church. It was established canonically in 1221 for the purpose of bringing the Gospel to everyday life.
Secular Franciscans, lay, religious and clergy, strive to live the Franciscan charism by “walking in the footsteps of St. Francis” and living out the Gospel. They shine the light of Christ with outreach to the marginalized and embrace joyful service to others.
The St. Elizabeth of Hungary Fraternity in Port St. Lucie is one of the groups in the Five Franciscan Martyrs Region (lower Alabama, Georgia and Florida) that meet at St. Lucie Parish third Saturdays of the month.
“We are in the world, but we live the Gospel to life and life to Gospel, going out as disciples in the world,” said Rosemary Konas, Secular Franciscan regional and fraternity minister and St. Lucie parishioner. “It’s a calling from the Holy Spirit that you feel there is something more that you want to be spiritually involved with.”
Conventual Franciscan Father Paul Gabriel, parochial vicar at St. Lucie, is the St. Elizabeth fraternity’s spiritual advisor. “This fraternity came into fruition through our being here as Conventual Franciscans,” he said.
The Order of Franciscan Seculars was founded by “St. Francis as a penitent movement, and it took on a life of its own for laypeople who wanted to follow the Franciscan charism but didn’t necessarily feel called to a religious life,” Father Gabriel said.
“This is not a social group; it’s not another church group,” but it is “a vocation, a calling, to follow your life under Franciscan ideals and to live that way to the best of your ability, as we all do,” he said.
OFS members wear a tau, or wooden Franciscan cross, which is a recognized symbol of a Franciscan, and they pray a seraphic crown rosary, which has seven decades dedicated to the seven joys or seven sorrows of the Virgin Mary.
On Thursdays the St. Lucie parish hosts a drive-thru at the parish center where volunteers and OFS members, such as Tina Dunn and Jeff Shultz, hand out prepared meals to those who are in need of assistance.
Shultz, a convert to Catholicism and member of the parish, is in charge of the meal ministry. He believes he received a miraculous healing from an eye condition (keratoconus) after visiting the tomb of St. Francis of Assisi in Italy. “I didn’t even know St. Lucy was the patron saint of eyes,” Shultz said.
Stopping on a recent Thursday to pick up food for an elderly woman was St. Lucie parishioner Sandra Frank. “This is great. I just pick up the food and take it to a 93-year-old lady who doesn’t have a car. And so I said, ‘I’ll come and I’ll get it for you,’” she said.
Luis Ramos, an OFS member who is grand Knight of Knights of Columbus Council 7514, said, “I have been doing this about 15 years and it gives me pleasure to volunteer.” Bread ministry volunteer Richard Eze added, “I look forward to coming here on Thursdays. It gives me joy.”
Catholic convert Anthony Fedele volunteers in the kitchen and helps out on Thursdays. “I came into the Catholic Church a year and a half ago at Easter,” he said. “I had a St. Paul-style conversion on Feb. 3, 2024, and realized, ‘Oh, my God, Jesus is real.’”
For more information on the St. Elizabeth of Hungary Fraternity at St. Lucie Parish, email Rosemary Konas at RKonas@gmail.com. To learn about other activities at the parish, visit https://stlucie.cc/. Events throughout the Diocese of Palm Beach can be viewed at www.diocesepb.org/news/.
