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Welcome to our Regional Website. We are delighted you’ve chosen to visit us here. More than 200 Secular Franciscans are members of the Troubadours of Peace Regional Fraternity, located in Washington, Oregon, Idaho, and Alaska.  

      

We are laywomen, laymen or members of the diocesan clergy who have made a public Profession of the Rule of life given to us by St. Francis and approved by the Catholic Church. We have committed ourselves to living the Gospel of Our Lord Jesus Christ, by the grace of ongoing conversion in our lives, always “going from Gospel to life and life to the Gospel” (The Rule of the Secular Franciscan Order, article #4), following the example of Saints Francis and Clare of Assisi. We live in our homes and with our families while gathering on a regular basis with our local Franciscan communities (fraternities). All together, there are 17 such local groups in our Region.

      

As you visit these pages of our Regional Website, we hope you will get a sense of who we are, what we do, and the Gospel values that animate and guide our lives as followers of Jesus Christ in the manner of St. Francis of Assisi. As the Secular branch of the Franciscan Family in the Church, our life parallels and complements the life lived by our vowed Religious Franciscan Sisters and Brothers. Our process of vocational discernment and initial formation which prepares us to make a life-long commitment as Franciscans is as serious and important as the formation undergone by the other branches of the Franciscan Family.

      

So, what drew you to visit this Website? Perhaps you are just curious about us, and you are most welcome. But perhaps you have felt a stirring within you, an attraction to St. Francis, a desire to live a deeper, fuller, richer spiritual life. If so, we can help you to discern whether or not God may be calling you to explore the Secular Franciscan way of life. If that’s the case, please feel free to contact us using the link provided on this Website.

 

Let us always remember to pray for one another.

 

Peace and all good,

 

Clare M. Reidy, OFS

Regional Minister