Annual Regional Gathering
By David Cruze-Uribe, OFS
The time has come to gather all the Secular Franciscans of the Brothers and Sisters of St. Francis Region for our Annual Regional Gathering (ARG) on Aug. 9-11 at the Ridgecrest Conference Center in Black Mountain, NC. It is a time for prayer, fellowship, learning, sharing, and joy.
This year we are marking two important anniversaries. First, with all Franciscans throughout the world we are celebrating the 800th anniversary of St. Francis receiving the stigmata. Locally we will be celebrating the 30th anniversary of the founding of our BSSF region.
This year we will also have our triennial visitation from the national fraternity. Our fraternal visitor is Josh Molidor, OFS, and our pastoral visitor is Fr. Jerome Wolbert, OFM.
This is not just a business meeting. We will be having a lot of fun and insightful activities.
There will be an audiovisual presentation on the history of our region, followed by a panel discussion with some of our old-timers who are all still young at heart. Fr. Bob Menard, OFM, our new regional spiritual assistant, will give a talk on the stigmata.
Becky Bresnahan, OFS, and Area 1 Councilor, will speak on “How do we ‘do’ social justice in today’s politically-charged world?” A break-out session will follow both talks.
There will be an open Q&A with the members of the regional executive council, plus special sessions with the JPIC and Multicultural Commission animators, the YouFra animator, and the regional formation director.
We will pray the liturgy of the hours daily in various forms, have Mass and Eucharistic adoration, and on Saturday night, celebrate the Transitus of St. Clare, whose feast day is Sunday, Aug. 11.
As an act of service, we will tie mesh gleaning bags for the Society of St. Andrew, an organization that gathers food donations from farms and distributes them to soup kitchens and food pantries.
We will have the golf cart again this year to continue making our event more accessible.
Annual Regional Gathering Materials
