St. Anthony of Padua Fraternity Bulletin
Vol. 12 No. 6   June and July 2007

Minister's message
by Tammy

We celebrated Baccalaureate mass and graduation this past week for our second child, Carolyn. While her group of friends is very diverse and each uniquely different, they have each been moving to the point of graduation and will begin a different journey along life's path. Hopefully, the religious reinforcement they each received in a Catholic high school environment will be a strong foundation for the journey they will each take and God will be present for them as they travel that road. We, too, are on a journey and must continually be active in events and activities that allow us to grow.

Today is Holy Trinity Sunday. Fr. Lester Bach, OFM Cap was present and celebrated this mass with the regional council and Spiritual Assistants as well as Fraternal Visitor Patricia Brandwein-Ball, SFO, National Councilor. I can't help but to reflect upon the Holy Spirit and the role he plays in all of our lives. He is always present and available and we just need to open our hearts. Sometimes, we may not feel worthy, but we are all worthy of God's love.

Each of the Franciscans I met had a different charism about them. I shared a room on Saturday night with a 71-year old woman who was professed many years ago and has moved back to Minnesota after spending 30 years in California. This week she is hosting a meeting to try to start a fraternity in Waseca where she is now living with the help of an SFO from the fraternity she has been attending in Faribault. (Does this remind you of anyone else?) She shared some of her faith with me, as did others, and I feel I have truly grown spiritually from those encounters. Speaking of another emerging fraternity, Dennis and Pearl Whelan were present from the Brown�s Valley fraternity.

While many fraternities talked about their members aging, the Holy Spirit is at work and the order is growing. The report from Fr. Bach and Pat, as National visitors, is that we have a very strong region, with an excellent hard-working Council who has their affairs and their records in order. They were very impressed with how we all worked together on Saturday to effect changes to our guidelines and pass the 2007 budget. We are especially blessed to have three such people as a part of our fraternity (Tom, Kim and Carol) who serve our region so well. We were asked to come back to our fraternities with the message that next year at this time will be when Regional elections take place and that all fraternities should be praying every month for discernment about nominations and who from their fraternities might be called to serve (including some that have served their fraternities and have taken a respite).

We closed Saturday night with a prayer service where we remembered Lorraine Gunderson from our fraternity - let us take time to remember what our deceased members brought us each by their witness of the Franciscan faith and be cognizant of the fact that our faith and witness may be helping another person to grow in their faith (along with the help of the Holy Spirit!)