Welcome to the Franciscan Institute's Programs and Conferences website. We look forward to welcoming you to an upcoming event. Please note that some conferences are on-campus offerings while others are held virtually via Zoom.
Building the Perfect Bonfire is a three-part workshop designed for Secular Franciscans who want to deepen their understanding of vocation, charism, discernment, and faithful decision-making in today’s secular world. Based on
The Bonfire of the Verities: Franciscan Perspectives on Decision-Making and Choice (Franciscan Institute Publications, 2025), this seminar combines Franciscan tradition, personal experience, and practical tools for Gospel-centered decision-making.
Over three Saturdays in June, participants will explore how Franciscan identity shapes the purpose, process, and consequences of decision-making: personally, communally, and publicly.
What Participants Will Explore
- How vocation is discerned, lived, and renewed over time
- The Role of Charity, Relationships, and Presence in Franciscan Choices
- How spiritual, human, and intellectual “endowment” influences discernment
- The Four Dignities Highlighted in Catholic Social Teachings Used as a Guide for Ethical and Faithful
Decision-Making
- How choices have both temporary and eternal consequences
- How Franciscan stakeholder and servant leadership purifies rather than dominates
Workshop Structure
Session I – Gathering the Kindling
“Who Are You, Lord? And Who Am I?”
Clarifying the meaning, role, and purpose of vocation in the life of a Secular Franciscan. Developing practical tools on how to make decisions and choices that honor the Gospel in life and life to the Gospel commitment.
Session II – Sparking the Fire
“What the Lord Has Revealed to Me”
Developing a personal Franciscan toolkit for discernment, building a spiritual endowment, and sharing wisdom. Defining in practical terms how a fraternal life should and can shape discernment.
Session III – The Fire That Purifies
“Let Us Begin, For Up to Now We Have Done Little”
Making choices grounded in Franciscan charism, focused on service, dignity, and eternal purpose. Exploring how personal and fraternal apostolates, Catholic Social Teachings, JPIC, and Catholic and Franciscan traditions shape love, choices, actions, and define consequences.
Participant Experience
Each session features guided reflection, practical exercises, and small-group discussions. Participants receive a resource guide with key concepts, session takeaways, reflection and discernment tools, and selected readings.
This workshop is designed not to promise perfect decisions, but to cultivate faithful ones—choices shaped by truth, humility, and love, capable of warming and illuminating the world rather than consuming it.
Conventual, Capuchin, and OFM friars
at St. Bonaventure University
Speakers
Joshua Benson, PhD, on "The Testament: Remembering in an Era of Change"
Jay Hammond, PhD, on "The Admonitions: Living in an Era of Change"
Bishop John Stowe, OFM Conventual, on "What I Heard: Responding to our Era of Epochal Change"
Presiders- Preachers
Sean Cardinal O’Malley, OFM. Cap.
Bishop Michael Martin, OFM. Conventual
Cost: $250.00
View the flyer for Celebrating 800 Years conference
Register: 800 Years
At St. Bonaventure, you will find a welcoming environment for all. Friars and attendees will be lodged in the university’s Garden Apartments and Townhouses.
How do we make ethical decisions in both our personal and professional lives? Traditionally, people were taught ethical principles and basic moral norms. However, today, we realize that before we can construct or apply these principles and norms, we first need to understand the worldview that underpins them. This series aims to help participants explore the significant moral frameworks we use to develop our principles and practices.
Based on Fr. David Couturier's new book,
“A New Moral Imagination: The Way of Francis and Clare”, we will examine fundamental questions of morality and ethics, such as "What is the good life?" We will discuss how the Jewish people responded to this question, as well as how the Jesus movement approached it. Additionally, we will delve into the insights of Francis and Clare of Assisi.
The Book Club will foster discussions about ways we can live harmoniously together, drawing from the teachings of the early Franciscan movement.
Cost: $40 plus
purchase of the book.
Register: Franciscan Book Club
This online conference will examine both developments and new lines of inquiry in the various facets of Franciscan Studies (theology, philosophy, history, liturgy, art, contemporary Franciscan life and spirituality) and the challenges facing the pursuit of Franciscan Studies in the current academic, cultural, and economic moments.
View the flyer for the Future of Franciscan Studies conference
Register: Future of Franciscan Studies
The 800th anniversary of the death of Francis of Assisi in 2026 invites us to contemplate his life in relation to our own life, charism, action, and leadership. This two-day online conference brings together scholars from various backgrounds and disciplines to exchange ideas on inspirational leadership then and now.
View the agenda for the Inaugural Virtual Conference of the IAFS
Register: Franciscan Leadership