Sharing the Joy of the Good News

"We share the joy of St. Francis in a childlike spirit so people can listen better to hear the Word," says Father Kevin Cronin, O.F.M.

A member of the Holy Name Province preaching team, the 51-year-old friar visits parishes in 3 states along the Eastern seaboard.

Although friars usually preach in pairs as a witness to Franciscan fraternity, they sometimes  travel alone.  The province's preaching team, composed of 15 members, is based in New England, Florida and Ho-Ho-Kus, New Jersey; individual friars preach in North Carolina and Toronto, Ontario.

Father Kevin, who lives in Ho-Ho-Kus at  St. Anthony of Padua Friary, typically begins a mission service by loosening up the congregation with a joke or lighthearted song.

Each four-day mission is planned in advance with the parish staff. Each evening focuses on a different theme -- love, forgiveness, healing and sending. The friars preach, and a layperson  provides a short witness talk. "That's part of the collaboration" Father Kevin says.  "We focus on the need for people to take up their roles in the Church."

Besides preaching at morning Masses and conducting an evening service, the friars visit the parish school and religious education program. They also look in on homebound parishioners.

Father Kevin is a graduate of the former St. Joseph's Seraphic Seminary in Callicoon, New York. He says public-speaking courses there were "a real priority." He enhanced his communication skills during a 1987-1993 assignment at St. Mary's Church in Pompton Lakes, New Jersey, where friars and lay staff form the pastoral team.

Born in a Franciscan parish (Holy Cross  in the Bronx, New York), Kevin was fascinated with the friars as a fifth-grader while watching an old black-and-white version of Robin Hood. The jolly Friar Tuck struck Kevin's fancy as a man who served God by helping the poor.

A couple years later, he and some classmates sent letters to different religious orders. One day, a friend found the address for the Franciscans.

Kevn joined the order in 1968, professed final vows four years later and was ordained  in 1974.

During his first assignment at St. Anthony's Shrine in Boston, he worked with a young adult group; five of them joined the Franciscans. "It is one of my greatest joys," he says.

Not surprisingly, he was named vocation director, a post he held for four years. He came to the preaching team six years ago.

The blue-eyed, bearded friar is an extrovert who enjoys the immediate results of mission work. "There is a feelng of accomplishment" he says.

Father Kevin uses different media to spread God's message. He has made video and audiocassettes, written a book, Kenosis: Self-Emptying and the Path of Christian Service (Continuum, 1996), a collection of stories by mission team members.

His favorite quote from St. Francis is: "What else are the servants of God, but God's minstrels, whose work is to lift up people's hearts to spiritual joy, that they might love God gladly." -- John Woods

From the December 1999 issue of St. Anthony Messenger

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