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Friar Stories: Journeys to Franciscan Life

Fr. Kenneth Himes, OFM

Kenneth R. Himes, OFM is a native of Brooklyn, N.Y., he was professed as a Franciscan in 1975 and ordained a priest in 1976. He holds a Ph.D. in theology from Duke University.

How one came to religious life may be of some interest, but more important is why one remains in religious life. People join the friars for all sorts of reasons, many highly idealistic and, not uncommonly, naive or immature in this idealism.

Coming to know the reality of religious life, its joys and troubles, while growing in commitment to a religious community is a long road and one that takes many turns. Why a man remains faithful and committed to the Franciscans is the more telling story then why he first entered.

While in high school I had read Johannes Jorgenson's biography of St. Francis and became attracted to Fran-ciscanism. I came to the Order because of Francis, but I realize that I will not stay because of him. It is not enough to know how Francis saw reality and lived his life. I do love Francis's vision but now I must make it my own.

It has been, and is, painfully obvious to me that I do not have that vision yet. That is because my self-identity entails not only being a Franciscan but being a sinner. As a Franciscan my hope is to move Christ to the center of life. As a sinner I know he is not there yet. My conviction is that if Christ is ever to be my center it will happen in the fraternity and the Church I have come to know as a Franciscan.

Christianity is the basic commitment in my life; being Roman Catholic is the most satisfying and true understanding of the event of Christ. For me Franciscanism is a further specification of my bap-tismal commitment as a Catholic Christian. It is my way into the mystery of Christ. It is as though I find the gospel so broad and the Church so great, that I need a road map to guide me on my pilgrimage. That is what Francis and the Franciscans have provided me. There are other ways to be Christian, other ways of life in the Catholic Church, but the path that I follow is the one walked by friars who have gone before me and friars who walk with me now.

Like other Franciscans, I believe deeply in the incarnation of Christ. God became human, he walked this earth, gazed at the same sky I see, felt the same breeze, knew the same joy and pain. And so I have come to cherish what is human and earthly for it is there I find traces of my God. The elements of nature, the flesh and blood of other persons, the events of history — these are locales for my encounters with God. I meet the Lord in the experience of the Church, being part of his people.

And while I treasure the universality of The Church, I find myself experiencing a church. Franciscanism divorced from The Church has no appeal, yet it is my experience of Franciscan life that
enables me to know and love The Church. It is the Christian life as I have found it with the Franciscans
which nourishes my love for God and God's people. Apart from the concrete experience of the life and
ministry of the friars I do not think I could be what God wants me to be.

What is that which God wants me to be? To be faithful to the image of God in which I am
made. For each of us the truest self is to grow in the image of God who created us. Once aware of
that image of God my task is to be transformed into greater and greater likeness to the image. To
be transparent, to let the image of God show through me, that is the aim. To call forth and reverence that image in others and in all of life, that is the purpose of ministry.

There are many vignettes that I could recount, events and friars that have moved me, helped me to
see something of God's loving presence in the world. Those moments when God's presence
breaks through our blindness can occur in may ways and at many places. For me they have happened here among the friars and among the people we serve. If I want to see Christ more clearly, come to know and love him more, I believe it will continue to happen with the Franciscans.

—This essay was written in 1990 when Fr. Kenneth was an associate professor of moral theology at the Washington Theological Union in Silver Spring, Md. It appeared in the December 1990 issue of The Anthonian magazine.