Round and round we go in our search,
Looking for God here and there,
In places we know he is not
Through the experience,
Of desperate lives
Here below.

Round and round we go in our search
Through many trials and errors
Forgetting the true place
Ofhis real presence,
In our center:
Our heart.

The carousel of search finally stops,
With no more whirling rounds,
To entrap us in motion.
Our life can be still:
For he is found
In our heart.

By Eugene V. LaPlante, A.A.
December 11, 2011

By Fr. Frans Desmet, AA

It was on December 17, 1991, that Fathers Frans Desmet (South Belgium) and Thierry Cocquerez (France), having taken off from Logan Airport in Boston (USA), arrived at Seoul International Airport where they were welcomed by the local superior of the Missionary Fathers of St. Columban. The following day they were joined by Fr. Leo Brassard (USA) whose plane had been delayed in Los Angeles with technical difficulties. And so it was that the Assumptionists were to set foot once again in the Far East.  For, in fact, they were forced to leave Manchuria in 1954 under pressure from the Communists. Christmas would be celebrated with the Oblate Sisters of the Assumption in Kwangju, a city in the southwest part of the country. It would be there that the community would establish its first community after two years of language study in Seoul.

- Could you tell us a little bit about your history with the Assumptionists?

- I come from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) where I was born in December 1965 in the small village of Beni-Paida, in the province of North Kivu. My adventure with the Assumptionists began in 1984 when I met Fr. Christian Blanc, of happy memory, who was visiting the Orant Sisters of the Assumption in Beni. Six months later, I was already a postulant, and two years later, on September 16, 1986, a young Assumptionist.

Since then, I have come to know, to love, and to transmit to others my love for the Assumption, which has really become my new family.

Fr. Marcel Neusch, philosopher and theologian, has read St. Augustine a lot. He has studied him a lot, reflected on him a lot, and also taught about him a lot. He has done so as a professor in theological schools and seminaries, as a retreat master, and as a conference speaker --- before the most varied audiences and at every level. He has also written a lot on the bishop of Hippo, in erudite tomes as well as humble magazines. Without being a ‘specialist’ of St. Augustine in the strict sense of the word, let us say that Marcel Neusch knows his subject. And he knows how to make him known and loved thanks to his recognized ability as teacher and as one who knows how to make complex information accessible.