The late Tony Bennett sang about a city by the bay where “the morning fog may chill the air.”

For San Francisco lovers, the image is a romantic one. But the morning chill means something different for those who live on the streets of the Tenderloin District.

That’s where Brother Andrew Dinegar, OFM, comes in. He will frequently provide blankets, offering those most desperate a respite from the cold, as well as coffee and

A normal part of life in Butler, New Jersey, (population 8,000) are when the bears come down from the nearby hills, foraging for food.

Only an hour’s drive from Manhattan, the northwest New Jersey borough, tucked away in Morris County near the New York border, also deals with other pressing issues. Its population is aging, its rubber manufacturing base is long gone, and new immigrants, many willing and able to work in low-wage jobs, struggle to get by.

Fr. Matthew Pravetz, OFM, pastor of St. Anthony of Padua Church in Butler, leads a parish which responds in a way that lives up to its Franciscan heritage in its concern for the poor.

They come from different generations, different backgrounds. But the two friars ordained to the priesthood May 4 at St. Camillus Church in Silver Spring, Maryland, are united by a shared vision of Franciscan ministry with a special concern for the need for sacramental ministry.

Father Ponchie Vasquez, OFM, shepherds one of the largest parishes, in area, and also among the poorest that can be found anywhere in the United States.

San Xavier del Bac Mission lies just 10 miles south of downtown Tucson, Arizona, and contains nearly 72,000 acres of Sonoran Desert. There you will find the Tohono O’odham people, whose name translates to Desert People. They total around 33,643 with about 2,300 being part of the parish mission area.

It’s a tale of two cities, a landscape of extremes, in Negril, Westmoreland, Jamaica. The friars serving in this Franciscan mission in the western part of the island know the contradictory images all too well: spectacular beaches, unimaginable poverty, columns of world-class resorts with ultra-luxurious accommodations and decadent cuisine, dilapidated single-room plywood “board” houses with no windows, running water or electricity and barely enough food on the dinner table.

I hope you are enjoying the autumn season! It can only mean that Thanksgiving Day is almost here, so I’d like to share a beautiful story that captures the essence of gratitude and being thankful.