May 20, 2005

Oldenburg Franciscan elected president of Franciscan Federation

Franciscan Sister Jean Marie Cleveland, congregational minister of the Sisters of the Third Order of St. Francis in Oldenburg, was recently elected president of the Franciscan Federation.

During her one-year term, Sister Jean Marie will oversee the organization of which more than 80 Franciscan communities across the United States are members.

The Franciscan Federation holds an annual conference each summer, and Sister Jean Marie said in a prepared statement that much of the work she will be doing in the coming months will involve preparation for the 2005 conference.

“I would like to collect the mission statements of the 80 communities to ascertain common words and phrases because the theme of the 2005 conference is ‘Returning to the Mission,’ ” she said. “I would then seek to integrate the federation task force’s work titled Freeing the Fire of our Franciscan way of living with the theme of mission.”

Sister Jean Marie explained that Freeing the Fire explored a variety of ‘flames,’ which include Franciscan evangelical identity, global concerns, Gospel values and ecclesial relationships.

“My main objective in working in the federation is to help us live our lives better,” Sister Jean Marie said. “In other words, finding out what it is we can do together that we can’t do by ourselves. In Freeing the Fire of Franciscanism, we need more communities working together to figure out who will serve the poor and how this will be accomplished.” †

 

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