Essential to the life and work of the friars is loving and generous service to our brothers and sisters in need. We are called to live amongst, listen to, care for, and support materially the poor and destitute with whom we choose to share our lives. This is one of the reasons why our friaries must be located in neighborhoods noted for poverty. Also, we are committed to having each friar personally and directly involved in hands-on work with the poor.
Some expressions of this work include: the St. Anthony's Shelter for Renewal, soup kitchens, food pantries, clothing rooms, and the Saint Benedict Joseph Medical Center in Comayagua, Honduras. The friars' facilities and services to the poor are to be cheerful, evidently Catholic, and contributing to the dignity, safety, and comfort of those whom we serve.
“We are called to live amongst, listen to, care for, and support materially the poor and destitute with whom we choose to share our lives. ”
“The quest for divine beauty impels consecrated persons to care for the deformed image of God on the faces of their brothers and sisters, faces disfigured by hunger, faces disillusioned by political promises, faces humiliated by seeing their culture despised, faces frightened by constant and indiscriminate violence and drugs, humiliated faces of abused women, and tired faces of migrants who are not given a warm welcome.”
-Pope John Paul II, Vita Consecrata