January 23, 2018

Thanks to the help of the Augustinians of the Assumption in USA and France, as well as the Oblates Sisters of the Assumption, a young woman has the opportunity to study abroad in Nîmes, France for a school year. Veronika Jaster is a junior in high school from Northborough, Massachusetts, and she is the daughter of Tomasz Jaster, who works for the Assumptionists in their Boston headquarters.

Veronika is staying with a host family who is very caring and welcoming, and she attends the Institut Emmanuel d’Alzon with her host sister. The Institute is a private Catholic school that is composed of a middle school, high school, vocational school and university. Veronika is studying in the high school’s Literary branch, where most of her courses focus on the humanities and the arts. Veronika also plays the cello in the high school’s music band.

She often visits the city’s Assumptionist communities and spends time with the Brothers and Sisters. One of the Sisters gave her a tour of the local Emmanuel d’Alzon museum, and Veronika found it very interesting to learn about the history of d’Alzon’s childhood, his mission, and his legacy that continues today all over the world.

A few days ago the first rays of sunlight returned to the Arctic Circle, the first since November, and the new home of Fr.  Barry Bercier who became pastor of a Inuit parish in Igloolik,  Nunanvut (Canada) last summer (see http://www.assumption.us/news/1578-from-north-of-the-border-way-north).  Recently he wrote describing some of his activities in the far north.

“….every day, sometime twice a day, kids come over here wanting to eat, and so I fetch them soup or chili or eggs, pancakes, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, etc., and give them hot chocolate, tea or coffee. (Kids up here typically drink coffee).  The tea and coffee they load with sugar, enormous, breathtaking amounts of sugar.  I try to persuade them to ease up on it, but everybody up here is hooked.  I was talking to one of the young hunters (he should be in school but he prefers to be out on the land—and it seems to me it’s just the place he should be)... He said about ‘pop’— what they call Coca Cola—‘When I’m out hunting, it keeps me warm.’  Makes some sense, but still, they take in way to much sugar.  And there’s no dentist in town, so the effects are evident whenever they smile. There is a project for feeding people, They call it ‘Feeding Nunavut.’  They used the parish hall once for one of their feasts.”

Fr. Xavier, second from left with Fr. General, second from right, and the other members of the Istanbul community

January 9, 2018

Source: La Croix

Fr. Xavier Jacob, renowned specialist of Islam in Turkey, has died.

A pastor of Christians in Turkey, this Assumptionist distinguished himself by his studies of Islam in Turkey and by his translations of liturgical texts into Turkish.

Fr. Xavier Jacob, 89 years old, died on the afternoon of Tuesday, December 26, 2017, the same day as another apostle of the Christian-Muslim dialogue, Fr. Maurice Borrmans.

Born in Alsatia on January 15, 1927, Fr. Xavier was ordained an Assumptionist in 1953 and was described then as « a friendly and serviceable brother, whose intelligence is only equaled by his modesty.”

After spending some time at the headquarters for the Revue des études byzantines (today located at the Institut Catholique of Paris), he was assigned to the Assumptionist apostolate in Turkey. He would then spend 54 years there --- 40 years in Ankara and 14 in Kadikoy/Istanbul (formerly known as Chalcedon)--- where he ministered to Christians there and to the small remnant of Christians in Konya (formerly Iconium).

Main church, Nossa Senhora da Guia (Our Lady of Guidance), Cerro Azul, Paraná

At its December 2017 meeting the Superior general, Fr. Benoit Griere with the agreement of the Plenary General Council approved the opening of the first new foundation in Brazil in 35 years and the first outside of Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo and Minas Gerais, where all other five communities are located. The commune of Cerro Azul in the state of Paraná counts some 17,000 inhabitants, and there exists but one parish, Nossa Senhora da Guia (Our Lady of Guidance). The largest part of the commune's population is concentrated outside of the town proper where only 6,000 live. This reality is due mainly to the fact that the main source of employment is citrus farming, together with some cattle-raising and mining. Catholics make up 58% of the population, Protestants the other 42%.

The parish has been under the leadership of the same pastor for the last 40 years and his advanced age makes it impossible for him to continue. As a matter of fact, for any number of years he has been unable to provide the kind of leadership needed for a community seeking greater involvement and lay formation. The arrival of an Assumptionist community of three religious is seen by parishioners as a godsend.