Franciscan friars in middle of 300-mile trek

The plan was not to have a plan, just a destination: the Monastery of the Holy Land in Washington, D.C., sometime around the middle of July.

“We aren’t packing any food, we have hardly any money and we each just have one change of clothes,” said Fr. Mark Soehner, one of six Franciscan friars on a trek by foot from Roanoke to Washington, D.C. “Legally, we’re probably vagabonds.”

They do have a cell phone, but Soehner keeps it turned off.

“We see this as a pilgrimage,” he explained. “The idea is to live in the moment, the way our founder, St. Francis, did.”

Soehner and Fr. Ed Shea are Franciscan priests. Richard Goodin, Roger Lopez, Cliff Hennings and Joshua van Cleef are “brothers,” working toward their final vows. All are based at the Guardian of St. Joseph Friary in Chicago.

“The Holy Land is a major focus of our order,” Hennings said, “which is why we chose that destination. Then we got a map, traced back 300 miles and came up with Roanoke. But this is really more about the journey than the destination.”

Soehner and the four brothers (Shea planned to join the group later) reached Charlottesville on Tuesday afternoon. Last Saturday morning, they were sitting at Russ and Joan Beimler’s kitchen table in the Sandusky section of Lynchburg. The Beimlers had expected them a day earlier, but Soehner just smiled at that.

“We don’t plan,” he said. “We just say to people who have invited us, ‘We’ll be there between Monday and Thursday,’ and that’s a big step for most people.”

A story in the “Catholic Virginian” brought the friars numerous offers of nightly lodging, but most of them were not on their route.

“We just trust that we’ll have a place to stay,” Soehner said. “We also offer to work for what we get.”

“So far,” said Lopez, “we’ve pulled weeds, cleaned closets, painted a shed, moved banana trees and tamped down asphalt.”

The closets were at St. Thomas More in Lynchburg, where the group spent half a day.

“Some people give us money,” Soehner said, “and our rule is that we have to spend it by the end of the day. Once, we gave everything we had to a waitress who had told us not to leave her a tip.”

As for lodging, it has ranged from private homes to wayside rest areas to a trampoline that accommodated five of them behind a fire station.

“It wasn’t very comfortable,” Goodin said, “but we were grateful.”

They try to walk 10 to 15 miles a day, often trudging single file down the shoulder of the highway, an eye-catching sight in their brown cassocks.

“We’ve had people just pull over and stop to talk to us,” Goodin said.

“Along the way, we’re learning about the basic kindness of people,” Lopez said, “and also about the common ground we all have. Most people realize that Christ and God are in everyone.”

Their attire is ill-suited for the time of year, Soehner conceded, “but we just try to stay well hydrated.”

Given that they left Lynchburg on Sunday afternoon and got to a point 60 miles north in just more than two days, the obvious question was: how?

“There’s a reason why we arrived in Charlottesville that quickly,” Soehner said. “We were going to spend the night at St. Francis of Assisi in Amherst. We thought that was a good omen but the priest came along and offered a place at the rectory, which turned out to be 20 miles north.”

Tuesday night, they stayed with a young Charlottesville man who had just joined the Dominican order and had no furniture in his rented house.

“We slept on the floor,” Soehner said Wednesday, “and today we’re helping him clean his house. The only food he has are some frozen chicken wings, and we’ll feast on them later.”

Monday, their benefactor in Nelson County introduced himself by his Native American name, Healing Bear.

“He had a double flute, which was pretty cool,” Soehner said, “and he played some Native American music for us. Then he wanted us to do some Gregorian chants, but the best we could do were some hymns.”

Apparently, Franciscans don’t chant. They don’t cheat, either.

“We were wondering about that 20-mile ride,” Soehner said, “and whether we should go back and really walk that distance. Then we decided it was a gift from God.”