A Spirit That Still Speaks
by friar Valentine M. Jankowski, OFM Conv.

May the Lord Jesus bless you with his peace.
I write from Holy Cross Friary in Mesilla Park, New Mexico, where I am grateful to continue serving in ministry. I am now 91 years old, and I have the distinction of being the only living member of the Province of Our Lady of Consolation who was in some way associated with the Franciscans in the 1940s. In 1948, I entered Mount St. Francis Seminary in Indiana.
That was many years ago, but St. Francis has never stopped speaking to my heart.
Before I entered the seminary, I had never met a Franciscan friar. Like many people, however, I had already heard something about St. Francis as a child. There was something about him that stayed with people. There still is.
St. Francis did not begin with a plan to found a great religious order. He began by listening to God. He felt called to embrace a different way of life. One that was simple, humble, sincere, and centered on the Gospel. Only later did he experience what he described so beautifully, “the Lord gave me brothers.”
When those brothers numbered twelve, Francis set out with them for Rome to seek the blessing of the pope. From that small beginning grew a fraternity of men dedicated to living simply and proclaiming the Gospel. Soon, women were drawn to this same spirit through St. Clare and the Poor Ladies. Others, whose lives did not permit them to become friars or nuns, also found a way to follow Christ in the world through Francis.
The graced genius of St. Francis was his humility, sincerity, and love. He saw everyone and everything as brother or sister. He loved Creation not as something to possess, but as something that gave glory to God. He loved people not according to status, wealth, or usefulness, but as children of the same Father.
That is why St. Francis still matters.
Pope Leo XIV’s decision to declare 2026, the 800th anniversary of St. Francis’ passing, as a special year of grace is not only a gift to Franciscans, but to the whole Church. The pope calls all the faithful, according to their own possibilities, to imitate the Poverello of Assisi and to be shaped more fully after the model of Christ.
After all these years, I still believe this is the heart of the Franciscan vocation: to live the Gospel with simplicity, to proclaim peace, and to love God’s people and God’s Creation with an undivided heart.
Thank you, Pope Leo, for this gift. And may God bless all who seek to follow Christ in the spirit of St. Francis.