On May 2, 2015 — a day of great joy — Brother Ronald Sibugan, A.A., was ordained to the priesthood by Bishop Robert McManus in front of a standing room-only crowd at the Assumption College Chapel of the Holy Spirit.

An Assumptionist for ten years, Father Ronald — a campus minister at the College and vocation director for the Congregation — was joined by his parents, who visited the United States from Manila for the first time in their lives to be with their son on this special occasion.

On Saturday, March 21, 2015, the bishop of Rancagua, Chile, Most Rev. Alejandro Goic, ordained two Assumptionists brothers, Jorge Rojas and Alejandro Godoy, to the diaconate in the basilica of Our Lady of Lourdes in Santiago. Many fellow religious and a large crowd of lay friends and parishioners attended the ceremony to pray for these young men and show their support.

Br. Manuel Alejandro Godoy Vásquez, born on April 28, 1980, in the city of Santiago itself, is the son of Manuel Fernando and Ana Magdalena. Alejandro has one brother, Pedro, and two sisters, Ana María and Claudia. Alejandro began his Assumptionist formation as a candidate in 2006 in the Chilean capital, completed his novitiate in 2009-2010, and started theology studies in 2010 at the Universidad Católica de Chile. He was then asked to join the Assumptionist mission in Riobamba, Ecuador, the community of Nuestra Señora del Chimborazo, where he has worked ever since in two Assumptionist parishes, especially involved in youth and vocation ministry. He recently completed his theological studies at the Franciscan seminary in Quito.

Villa Pag-Asa, Piat City

Since Typhoon Ondoy struck the Philippines in 2009, Kaloob, the NGO established by the Assumptionists to aid victims of natural catastrophes, has been working in the city of Piat to build houses, provide micro-financing to residents so that they can launch small businesses to earn a living for their families, and provide university scholarships to a limited number of promising, but poor, students in the city.

This past year, after months in the planning, Kaloob initiated a new project entitled: Water for Villa Pag-Asa. It was created this past August in partnership with Piat mayor's office which requested that Kaloob concentrate its efforts on the town's refugees displaced from the river-bank because of flooding during the typhoon period. This project will help 100 families. It was recently completed, in March, in partnership with the mayor's office and the French student association RES’eau.

MESSAGE OF POPE FRANCIS FOR THE 52^nd WORLD DAY OF PRAYER FOR VOCATIONS

26 APRIL 2015 - FOURTH SUNDAY OF EASTER
Theme: Exodus, a fundamental experience of vocation

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

The Fourth Sunday of Easter offers us the figure of the Good Shepherd who knows his sheep: he calls them, he feeds them and he guides them. For over fifty years the universal Church has celebrated this Sunday as the World Day of Prayer for Vocations. In this way she reminds us of our need to pray, as Jesus himself told his disciples, so that “the Lord of the harvest may send out laborers into his harvest” (Lk 10:2). Jesus command came in the context of his sending out missionaries. He called not only the twelve Apostles, but another seventy-two disciples whom he then sent out, two by two, for the mission (cf. Lk 10:1-6). Since the Church “is by her very nature missionary” (Ad Gentes, 2), the Christian vocation is necessarily born of the experience of mission. Hearing and following the voice of Christ the Good Shepherd, means letting ourselves be attracted and guided by him, in consecration to him; it means allowing the Holy Spirit to draw us into this missionary dynamism, awakening within us the desire, the joy and the courage to offer our own lives in the service of the Kingdom of God.