Sydney Catholic Stephen Noone celebrated his birthday this year like no other—making his first profession of vows with the Order of Capuchin Friars Minor in a beautiful celebration at St Mary MacKillop Memorial Chapel in North Sydney.
The 15 July milestone, also the feast of St Bonaventure, brought together a group of the 32-year old’s family, friends and fellow friars to see him profess his commitment to Christ, dressed in the order’s distinctive brown habit and sandals.
“I was pumped, I was really looking forward to it because it’s one of those things where, you can say you love someone, and I know that God loves me and I love God, but I wanted to show my commitment in a deeper way,” Br Noone OFM Cap told The Catholic Weekly.
“You hear people say they are so happy to have married their best friend, and I can see a similarity in religious life, where if Jesus is our best friend, as religious we get the opportunity to demonstrate this by consecrating ourselves to Him.
One of five children, Br Noone grew up in Merrylands in western Sydney, attended St Margaret Mary’s Primary School and Parramatta Marist High School, and grew up within the ecumenical Servants of Jesus community.
He later lived in Stanmore and attended St Joseph’s Newtown for two years prior to joining the order.
The former human resources professional had worked in a number of secular and Catholic environments for a few years before realising he felt “a bit empty” and began a deeper search for meaning for his life.
Working at the Diocese of Parramatta at the time, he was given the opportunity to travel to World Youth Day Poland in 2016 where he felt deeply moved by Pope Francis’ sermons.
“He said things like stop being a couch potato, and I remember looking back at those homilies and thinking they weren’t anything special, but the Holy Spirit was at work because they stirred up a deep desire for me to do more with my faith and not just settle for the mediocre,” he said.
A visit to Assisi with a friend, where he learnt more about St Francis also “blew me away,” he said.
Returning home, he began searching for what that ‘something’ more with his life and faith meant, considering a potential career change and beginning a relationship with the possibility of marriage until a moment hit him when he was listening to a worship song.
“I had this impression on my heart of, wow, I really love Jesus, but in a way that surprised me. It felt like God was inviting me to something exclusive,” he said.
“Later, in prayer I took some time to say, ‘Okay God, when I put aside work and family and friends, hobbies, anything that’s taking up space in my life, what is it that I really desire?
“And it just came through so clearly—leave it all behind.
“When that little God moment occurred, everything fell into place. I could look back at the previous five or six years and see that’s really what I had wanted but didn’t know how to articulate it. I just connected it immediately with religious life, and with Jesus’ call to the disciples in the Gospels.
“If I’m honest, it wasn’t a particularly joyful realisation at the time, but it was very peaceful, and it was the most settled, the most peaceful I’d been about my direction and purpose in life for a very long time.
“Now I have responded to the call, reading those Gospel passages resonates differently. It’s joyful, reading that now; rather than being at arm’s length there’s a sense of relatability which I didn’t have before.
“I’ve experienced it now and I love it.
“But there’s also a sense of, ‘Lord, I was just an HR guy so if you want me to be a priest you’ve got to teach me!’”
After spending his novitiate in California Br Noone will now reside in the order’s student formation house in Hawthorn in inner Melbourne, where among other things he will assist with ministry to young adults and serve at their St Francis Table ministry in South Melbourne.
In Sydney the order most visible through the Friars’ Van ministry based in Leichhardt, in which friars and volunteers travel to Woolloomooloo to serve coffee and sweets, and engage with people who are in need—which also gives young men and women an opportunity to serve the poor in a supportive atmosphere.
Vocations director for the Capuchin Franciscan Friars of Australia Fr Christopher Maher OFM Cap told The Catholic Weekly that the spirit of the Franciscan reform is one of humility, service to all, and silent prayer.
“We are encouraged to go to places other people don’t want to go, which is difficult, but that’s what St Francis did,” he said.
“Christ became one of us, an act of humility that we can’t compete with.
“That’s our inspiration to live the grace of Christ, to go forth and serve others with that, but we also have a focus on communal prayer, regularly having silent time with the Lord but doing it together.
“It’s a lot easier to grow in that prayer life when you’re supported by your community who are doing it with you.”
Enquiries: vocations@capuchinfriars.org.au
