Our brother Secular, Lee Potts, has created a website to highlight Secular Franciscans who are good examples of Living the Rule of our order.

Our Secular Franciscan charism is as unique as those of our brothers and sisters in the First Order, Second Order, and Third Order Regular. Our gift is the challenge to live out the Rule in our secular state, which for most of means we don’t have that daily community support more common in the other branches of our family. This is why our monthly fraternity meetings are so critically important to our life; it is our community time to share our joys and challenges, and to simply be with our sisters and brothers. It’s our once-a-month family gathering.

A harder challenge to overcome is to feel connected to our fellow Seculars beyond our local fraternity. We are a large family! I would venture to guess that few of us feel close to our extended family around the world–after all, there are at least 400,000 of us! Imagine the collective joy and wisdom we could all share with one-another!

And this is what I like about Lee’s Living the Rule website. In this digital age we have the ability to share experiences well beyond our immediate fraternal family. Being able to share the practical, individual experiences of being a Secular can strengthen us all.

If you know a Secular Franciscan who exemplifies what it is to live out our Rule of Life (and I imagine you do), please take the time to visit Lee’s website.

Peace and all good,

Andy