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 52nd 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.
On Friday, February 25, 2015, five young Brazilians began their year of postulancy in Campinas, a university city about an hour west of the metropolis of Sao Paulo. The occasion took place during the visit of Fr. Benoit Griere, superior general, from February 18 to March 4. The five postulants all come from Assumptionist parishes in this largest Catholic country in the world, some 130 million.
Assumptionists arrived from Holland and France in the 1930s and established communities in different parts of this vast country. In the 1970s as more and more vocations arrived, the two groups joined forces to form the newly arrived Brazilians and eventually became a single vice-province and then a province.
The Assumptionists serve 5 parishes, a house of formation, and two retreat centers.
RE: DISTRESS CALL FROM MEMBERS OF GENERAL COUNCILS OF RELIGIOUS COMMUNITIES IN THE FACE OF THE BARBARIC MASSACRES TAKING PLACE IN THE DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF THE CONGO (DRC), ESPECIALLY IN THE DIOCESE OF BENI-BUTEMBO
1. Introduction
We, the members of the general councils of various orders and congregations present in the Diocese of Butembo-Beni, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, have been informed of recent unrest and massacres in the region of the dioceses of Butembo-Beni, Bunia and Goma. We were shocked to learn of the dreadful slaughter of unarmed civilians.
Dear sisters and brothers, we address this message to all men and women of good-will in the name of this suffering people so that you might make your own our cry.
2. The dignity of the human person finds its source in God and is inalienable.
We denounce and condemn the cruelty and brutality of these killings – of adults and children alike – in the regions of the Diocese of Butembo-Beni. We are writing this communiqué in the light of our faith. Each person is created in the image of God (Gn 1:27). The massacres besetting the region of Mbau in the Diocese of Butembo-Beni are clearly a crime against humanity.
