BY WILLIAM MCDONOUGH, STAFF WRITER
Francis Week at St. Bonaventure is a week celebrating the founder of the Order of Friars Minor – or simply Franciscan Friars – and his accomplishments. St. Bonaventure celebrated six days of events in memory of the beloved Saint, according to SBU News.
According to the SBU News’ schoolwide email, Francis Week kicked off on Friday, Oct. 1, with an overnight trip to Mt. Irenaeus. Four students attended the overnight, and three different students arrived at the mountain the next day for the day of service at the mountain.
Six different opportunities for service were offered on Saturday. These included a service day at Mt. Irenaeus, volunteering at the Warming House, and cleaning gravestones in the cemetery across from campus.
Gabriel Côté, a freshman business management major, attended the block party on Monday.
“The block party I went to wasn’t all that exciting, unfortunately,” said Côté. “I knew about [Francis Week], but I wasn’t really told exactly what was going on.”
Côté claimed not to know that the events for Francis Week were even for Francis Week.
“I saw these [Francis Week] posters around, but I just kinda thought they were cool fun things that happened every week,” said Côté. “It is good in the sense that there’s a lot of events that ministry puts on throughout the year, but when you do put on a lot of activities, it is hard to set aside a week and say, ‘this is really special.’”
In describing this problem, Côté went on to add that he didn’t know that the feast on Monday in the Hickey Dining Hall was for the Feast of Saint Francis.
A number of issues with Francis Week are due to image, according Jamie O’Malley, a sophomore marketing major and student PR worker in University Ministries.
“I think it’s our advertising. I think that we advertise to the people who already know about it,” O’Malley said. “I think if you’re involved in University Ministries then you know about it, but you probably don’t know about it if you aren’t.”
O’Malley followed up by specifying that she did think that Francis Week was fun and believed that Francis Week was “a celebration of what our school represents.”
Br. Kevin Kriso, O.F.M., devoted his life to the practices and teachings of St. Francis. He described the goodness that franciscan spirituality can provide for the world.
“[Franciscan spirituality] helps address the destruction of the natural world, climate change, migrants and immigrants, poverty, the threat of war, violence and unhappiness between people,” said Kristo. “The Franciscan mindset and teachings are more relevant now than ever. I wish students would take away that religion is not a bad word, and the wonderful approach to life that Francis had is a lifegiving, very practical and very needed approach, especially for this day and time.”Francis Week ended Oct. 6 with a playing of a movie, “The Sultan and the Saint,” by University Ministries. Written with input from scholars including Fr. Michael Calabria, O.F.M., Ph.D., director of the university’s Center for Arab and Islamic Studies, the film tells the story of Saint Francis of Assisi and Muslim ruler al-Malik al-Kamil in 1219.
mcdonowo19@bonaventure.edu
