One day, as Francis of Assisi approached the church of San Damiano, he was taken by its disrepair. Inspired, he went into the church to pray. Suddenly he heard a voice say to him, quietly, “Francis, go and repair my house which, as you see, is falling into ruin.” Moved by the spirit, Francis set about repairing the church itself, though the instruction was to repair Christ’s Church worldwide. Francis was compelled to do both—and he did. By virtue of his life, St. Francis of Assisi guided both the faithful and the fallen away back home. And that is what we continue to do at Franciscan Media.

We have been helping people grow in their love of Jesus based on the life and spirit of St. Francis of Assisi since 1893. He radically loved Jesus and understood that Christ was in all of creation. St. Francis learned to imitate Christ and to recognize Christ in everything. Because of this, St. Francis lived a life full of great joy. He saw that the Church was imperfect and wanted to live the Gospel—not just preach it—so he sought permission from the Church to do so. Thus, the Franciscan Order was born.

At Franciscan Media, we long to help people understand this love and help them find their connection to creation as sons and daughters of God.

Currently, Franciscan Media is sharing over 2.3 million blessings monthly. We define a blessing as the moment our audience interacts with our resources. Here are some examples: We send out over 3 million e-mails per month, which share the Franciscan spirit. We have an audience hungry for that spirit: With a 34% open rate, over 1 million e-mails are read  each month. We get over 500,000 visits to our websites monthly. That is 6 million visits per year. We send St. Anthony Messenger to 50,000 homes every month. Through our social media channels, we touch roughly 750,000 people monthly. About 43,000 people purchase books to read or listen to per month, which is over 500,000 books per year. We have many outreaches, and our staff is dedicated to growing these platforms and reaching more people.

As disciples of Christ, we help people discover new lives full of great joy. We help people seek the transformative love of Jesus. We provide a light to point people to Jesus and his love for us. People who love God want others to know God. We will provide our audience with the resources to share the Good News.

Today, the Church is polarized. Just as St. Francis wanted to be part of the solution in his day, Franciscan Media wants to be part of the solution today.  With joy and with purpose, we seek to follow in the footsteps of our founder, St. Francis of Assisi, and share with our audience the grace of our loving God.