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HOW THE THIRD ORDER BEGAN IN NEW ZEALAND 

– PRIOR TO 1969

Prior to 1969, the Third Order together with the Companions was the Franciscan presence in New Zealand. Every year from 1962 the Third Order and the Companions arranged a friar's annual visit to take missions and retreats all around New Zealand. In 1956 Brother Charles had made the first trip to New Zealand and admitted the first Companions. The Companions initially paid the rent of the Brothers' House in Cable Street by the London docks, then from 1959 the Companions, and from 1962 the tertiaries, were by finance and prayer supporting the work of the Brothers in New Guinea and at the same time praying for the establishment of a religious community for men in New Zealand.

Because of the difficulty of supervision from England, Brother Charles had concentrated on making Companions and had not encouraged a Third Order. However, when the Brothers came to New Guinea in 1959 and established a friary at Jegarata (now Haruro) in 1960, the situation changed.

In May 1960, Father Francis Fennell, a Welsh tertiary who was appointed the first psychiatric chaplain at Oakley Hospital in Auckland, spoke to a group of Companions and others in Auckland about the Third Order. As a result of his talk, several people were interested. In 1961, Francis Fennell visited Brother Geoffrey, the New Guinea Guardian, at the recently established Friary at Jegarata, According to Geoffrey he was surprised to see "a diminutive priest in clerical dressed in black from head to toe and sweating profusely." They made a plan for Geoffrey to visit New Zealand in 1962 to visit prospective tertiaries and to pre- pare for a full scale mission by Brother Donald in 1963.

In the arrangements for the New Zealand-wide tours, Geoffrey worked very closely with the Warden of the Companions in New Zealand, Father Percy Warren. Appointed by Bishop Simkin in 1956 after Brother Charles' visit, Father Warren's care extended over the Companions' groups throughout New Zealand. Geoffrey duly noviced the first eight tertiaries in Auckland in 1962 during his one month tour of New Zealand. When Brother Donald came the next year for three months, he took the first Third Order retreat at Simkin House, Waiheke. The following year in 1964 Brother Brian, then the Principal of the Evangelist College in Jegarata, made the first professions at the retreat at St. John's College, and in 1965 the First Chapter was held at the retreat that Brother Geoffrey took at 1Gngs College in Auckland. In 1966, Brother William took the first of the Wallis House retreats.

From 1963 to 1970 the growing Third Order whose members were in Auckland, Wellington and the South Island met together every year for their annual retreat. Of these eight retreats, four were in Wellington (three at Wallis House and one at the Cenacle) and four were in Auckland.

The Brothers who had visited from New Guinea on the annual tours between 1962 and 1969 had had an important influence on the formation and growth of the Third Order in New Zealand. Brother Geoffrey, the Guardian in New Guinea then Provincial Minister of the Pacific Province from 1967, visited New Zealand three times in 1962, 1965 and 1968. Brother Brian, appointed Chaplain General of the Third Order by Brother Geoffrey, visited twice in 1964 and 1967. Though Francis Fennell by his enthusiasm inspired people to test their vocations to the Third Order especially in Auckland and helped to persuade the Brothers in New Guinea to look after them, much depended on the visits of the various Brothers who talked to the tertiaries, conducted retreats and gave spiritual direction. Geoffrey and Brian as Chaplain nurtured the fledgling New Zealand Order and Brother Brian was novice counsellor for men. The first women novices were counselled by tertiaries in England, notably Mary Johnson, Cecily Paget and Emma Burnside.

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