Three Columbus seminarians recently finished a profound summer assignment in one of the roughest boroughs in New York City.
Perhaps divine providence influenced Kevin Girardi, John Paul Haemmerle and Michael Haemmerle to learn of the possible missionary stint with the Franciscan Friars of the Renewal in the Bronx.
Girardi, whose home parish is Columbus Our Lady of Victory, was just starting his 2021 summer assignment at Westerville St. Paul Church when a former son of the parish, just-ordained Father Joseph Michael, CFR, came home to visit and celebrate a few Masses at St. Paul. With him were fellow Franciscan friars and a Franciscan deacon.
“I was really captivated by how prayerful and penitential they were,” said Girardi, who is currently serving his pastoral year in the Knox County Consortium of Parishes. “Plus, part of the appeal was that they were always joyful and possessed a zest for life that was nothing short of radiant.
“A few weeks later, I mentioned my encounter with the Franciscans to Father Bill Hahn (diocesan director of vocations) and commented that, were the opportunity to arise, I’d love to be able to spend a little time working and praying with them.”
In talking with Father Joseph Michael, Girardi learned that the Franciscan friary in the South Bronx operates a night shelter for homeless men and accepts applications from men worldwide, who are discerning to become priests or religious brothers, to be missionaries there for limited periods.
In 2021, then-Bishop Robert Brennan added a pastoral year (September through May, between Theology 2 and Theology 3) for Columbus seminarians. This freed up the summer for some seminarians, so, in fall 2021, after consulting with the Franciscans, Father Hahn gave Girardi the go-ahead to apply.
About that time, John Paul Haemmerle, whose home parish is Columbus St. Patrick Church, told Father Hahn that during summer 2022 he wanted to focus on growing in his spiritual life and spending more time in structured, intentional prayer.
John Paul, who is currently serving his pastoral year at Gahanna St. Matthew Church, said, “One thought I had was to do that through working with the poor and especially alongside a religious order to see how they were able to maintain a balance between their active charism and their intense spiritual life.”
He told Father Hahn that he had heard about the homeless shelter in the Bronx, operated by the CFRs (Community of Franciscans of the Renewal), and Father Hahn encouraged him to talk to Girardi and consider applying as a missionary.
Michael Haemmerle, John Paul’s older brother and fellow seminarian at the Josephinum (currently Theology 3) and whose home parish is also Columbus St. Patrick, said, “I wanted to do some sort of work with the poor for my 2022 summer assignment.
“I cooked and served lunches at the Holy Family soup kitchen (in the Franklinton area of west Columbus) a few years back but had only limited interaction with the people who came there. I really wanted a more immersive experience in ministering to the indigent population. I was hoping for an assignment in a foreign country, but the COVID pandemic put a halt to that.
“It was about that time that Kevin and my brother, John Paul, approached me and asked if I’d like to join them as missionaries at the CFR shelter in the Bronx the following summer. I jumped at the opportunity and am so thankful I did.”
The three seminarians left Columbus the day after Bishop Earl Fernandes’ ordination and installation May 31 and drove to the Bronx. A week earlier they had attended orientation and training, so they started working in St. Anthony Shelter of the Renewal the day following their arrival.
The Franciscan Friars of the Renewal was founded as a religious order in 1987 by Father Benedict Groeschel, CFR, and about 10 other Franciscan friars, mostly Capuchins. The order was created to work with the homeless and the poor. They were given property by the Archdiocese of New York that included the building serving as their friary as well as a former parish church, St. Adalbert’s, that had been closed for years.
In the late 1990s, the friars acquired a former apartment building next to the church that had seen better days. A fire had rendered it uninhabitable, but the friars raised funds to transform it into a night shelter for homeless men.
The men staying at the shelter are referred to as “guests” of the friars to give them a sense of dignity and self-worth. The guests can stay up to six months, and most have jobs such as working as clerks or in trades.
A typical day for the missionaries, who vary in number from six to 10, consists of rising early, having morning prayer (Lauds), and then some would cook breakfast for the guests. The guests would get up at 5:30 a.m.
One missionary would man the office where the guests could retrieve their phones and other personal items they were not allowed to keep in their rooms, such as prescription medications and knives that they carry for protection on the street.
Guests normally left the shelter at 6:45 a.m., although they could stay for Mass at 7. Of the 26 or so guests, about 10 attend Mass every day. Upon returning to the shelter in early evening, the guests would eat dinner, relax and spend time with the missionaries and the Franciscans.
According to John Paul, perhaps a quarter of the guests were Catholic, but all are welcome to come to Mass, though non-Catholics could not receive Holy Communion.
“There was something about the Mass that attracted them,” John Paul said. “It kind of drew them in. And, for me, it was cool to see that, while these guys were broken and had a lot of set-backs in their lives – a lot struggled with addiction, or abusive family life when they were growing up and maybe falling into that themselves – it was cool to see that even in their bro-kenness they were striving after holiness, many of them in different ways.
“In the evenings, we missionaries would take turns leading the rosary in the chapel. One night, when it was my turn, I was delayed in getting there, but when I did arrive, I saw a single man inside saying the rosary out loud.
“Even though I was supposed to witness the faith to him, I realized in that moment he had witnessed the faith to me – that we always have to go to Our Lady, we always have to open that relationship with her, because it’s through our relationship with her that we can fall more in love with Christ.”
The missionaries had many duties in the shelter: picking up food donations from grocery sup-pliers and supervising the guests’ chores such as sweeping and cleaning dishes and bathrooms. But they cherished the relaxing moments spent one-on-one with the guests.
They also spent time during the day with the Franciscans. “I was able to see clearly what an or-der priest or a religious brother is,” Girardi said.
“What struck me most is that they are filled with joy. They are some of the most joyful men I’ve ever encountered, yet they are doing some of the most penitential work possible. They’re cooking and cleaning, and they are living a life of prayer and poverty, even to the point of sleeping on the floor every night and fasting.
“Most of all, they truly seemed one with the homeless they are serving. They’re really embrac-ing their vow of poverty, and in doing that it really gives them the freedom to enter into rela-tionships with the guests because there’s no distinction between the lives of the men living in the shelter and the lives the friars and brothers are living. They’re really one in the same.
“I believe the guests are drawn into St. Anthony Shelter not just because it’s a refuge from the streets, but because Jesus is clearly calling them, that He has brought them here to this place where the Blessed Sacrament is present, where there are priests present, where prayer is always taking place, and that they are being drawn here precisely because of their suffering and their brokenness.”
Besides living and working with the CFRs, the missionaries participated in two pro-life marches with the friars and brothers. These were regularly conducted on the first Saturday of every month and would begin with prayer in St. Patrick’s Cathedral, followed by a two-block walk while reciting the rosary, and ending outside an abortion clinic where the marchers would pray.
“All along the march, and especially at the clinic, pro-choice people would push and shove us as well as yell and scream at us for three hours,” Michael said. “But the Franciscans were just focused on prayer, praying for an end to abortion and praying for the conversion of the pro-choice people who were there.
“They (the CFRs) were very aware of spiritual warfare going on, but they were so fatherly in their response, even to those who were spewing hatred toward us.”
Girardi said, “I think the way that the CFRs choose to take on the brokenness and sinfulness of the people they serve sort of crosses over into (diocesan) parish life in that we (as parish priests) are to take on penances for our people, to truly be intercessors for them. The disintegration of life for so many in the Bronx is really present everywhere. We just have more complicated ways of masking it, or acting like it’s not there.
“That same brokenness that the homeless experience in the Bronx, the same longing for mean-ing, longing for purpose, longing to understand why one is sinful even though one hates one’s sins, exists here in every single parish as well.
“And just to know that, that the same healing and renewing effects of the Gospel which can take place in people who are recovering from addiction, or people who have no family, or people who find themselves on the street for whatever reasons, that same Gospel is needed for the people of our parishes.
“So, I’m really glad I decided to follow the call of the Lord to be a missionary serving the less fortunate in the Bronx and that Father Hahn had the confidence in me, John Paul and Michael to send us there.”
Father Hahn agreed and said, “It’s a good story to be told. I think our three seminarians saw this as an immersive process of really helping their formation in growing more fatherly as they move closer to becoming priests and ministering in our diocesan parishes.”
