Francis of Assisi had a dream – indeed more than one!
Clare of Assisi shared this dream of rebuilding and revivifying
the church of their day.
Their dream of how to live the gospel radically altered the
patterns of religious life in the Roman Catholic tradition.
Religious men and women would no longer live exclusively in the
monastery cloister. The world became the Franciscan cloister!
The dream of Francis and Clare did not die with them. Rather it
pulsed down through the centuries to our present day, nurtured by
people who caught the fire of their dream and re-enkindled it in
dreams of their own. Capuchin-Franciscans have striven to be that
type of people since our founding in 1528. As a community of
brothers we hope to be the stewards and agents of renewal of the
ideals of Francis and Clare today.
The early Capuchins blended a life of preaching, care of the
poor, contemplation and simple living. Their dream took root, and
soon there were Capuchin friars spread throughout Europe!
