On November 20, 2014, Father Richard Lamoureux, A.A., gave this year's D'Alzon Lecture at Assumption College, Worcester, MA. He spoke about "Michelangelo's Thoughts on the Body," with special attention to the unfinished Rondanini Pieta the artist worked on in the last years of his life. It was a remarkably erudite and engaging explication of a mysterious work. Please enjoy it.
Four members of the Assumption College women’s soccer team are traveling this month to help impoverished children in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, as part of the Hands Together organization. The students are senior Nikki Brady of Rockland, Mass.; junior Meg Campbell of Springfield, Mass.; junior Katie Bealka of East Freetown, Mass.; and first-year student Nikki Sloan of Stow, Mass.
Springfield, Mass.-based Hands Together is a nonprofit organization devoted to educating, inspiring and encouraging people to understand the importance of responding to the needs of the poor and disadvantaged. The organization has several project locations, including Hands Together Catholic Schools.
Campbell—whose father, Doug Campbell is executive director of Hands Together—introduced the idea of a trip to Haiti to Assumption Women’s Soccer Head Coach Kevin Meek and the rest of the team. She has traveled there several times to help the children served by the organization.
"It's had a profound effect on me and expanded my view of the world and of people,” Meg Campbell said of her experiences in Haiti. “Assumption is quite small and relatively protected, and I know that there is a world out there that is not at all like Assumption.
I spoke with Assumptionist Fr. Donald Espinosa, one of the founders of the house, about this frontier in lay and clerical formation. Here are some thoughts gleaned from our conversation.
- Father Donald, could you share a bit about your own background?
Fr. Donald Espinosa: My mother used to tell me about Father Mollard, the pastor, who would make sure he visited every home regularly. It seemed perfectly normal to everyone. He'd stop people and say, "I'm going to your house tonight," and they'd go home and make a special meal and clean the house and shine up the kids, and Father would come in and eat with them, get everyone in front of him, give them a blessing, and then take the donation envelope. Everyone had their place -- but there was something reassuring about that. You didn't exactly feel embraced by the church, but you felt like you belonged to something, and you knew who you were.
Residents in front of their current home, with Br. Jean-Baptiste
(In the bustling and sprawling metropolis of Saigon, the Assumptionists run an orphanage that resembles a big family. The experience has been so positive and the needs are so great that the Congregation is considering building a new house as soon as possible, larger, more functional, and more welcoming.)
It's early morning in Saigon. Frosted light with bluish tints rises over this southern city, re-baptized Hô Chi Minh City since the end of the Vietnam War in 1975. An overwhelming swarm of motorbikes fills the maze of the city's by-ways. Only a few narrow back streets, still asleep, escape this deafening invasion.
Peter Li Inc. of Dayton was recently acquired by Bayard Inc., a Catholic media company owned by the Augustinians of the Assumption/Assumptionist. Founded in 1971, Peter Li Inc. serves the K-12 market. Its two divisions include the Peter Li Education Group, publisher of Catechist and Today’s Catholic Teacher magazines, and the Pflaum Publishing Group, publisher of Catholic religious education programs and supplemental materials. Bayard’s periodicals in North America include Catholic Digest, Living with Christ, Today's Parish, Exploring the Sunday's Readings, and children's magazines, Owl, Chirp and Chickadee. Bayard, Inc. also owns the Novalis and Twenty-Third Publications trademarks.
