For many people, Thanksgiving is the most truly American of our national holidays, encompassing in its simple and beautiful traditions the highest  ideals and greatest aspirations of our country. We believe that these ideals include the need to give thanks to our Creator and so we pray:

O Loving God, your gifts to us are countless and your goodness is without limit. As we come in thanksgiving to You, teach us to use wisely the riches of land and sea and to be forever grateful for all the blessings which come from You. Open our hearts to notice the needs of others that we may give as freely as we have received from You.

With grateful hearts we also thank You this Thanksgiving Week for the many ways you sustain and nourish us, through the gift of life itself, our faith, family and friends with surprises of joy, growth and unconditional love. We make this prayer through Jesus Your Son and the power of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

On All Saints Day 2014, our brother Hervé Stéphan returned to the Father’s house. Hervé, the seventh superior general of the Assumptionists, left us after 89 years, of which 70 were spent as a religious.

He was a genuinely free man who lived his Assumptionist vocation in all its depth and who knew how to share it with his fellow travelers in the Congregation, but also with the lay-people he met. Superior general from 1975 to 1987, he led our « little religious family » along the ways of brotherhood. Hervé had a passion for Jesus Christ, true man and true God. He inherited his faith from his Breton family and strengthened it at our minor seminary of St. Maur. He had a fierce love for and attachment to his homeland of Brittany. He relished walking along its coast, windswept and drizzly. During his walks he would often gather pebbles of varied shapes that he would convert into little works of religious art: Virgin and Child, a Last Supper, etc. Yes, Hervé was an artist by temperament.

On October 6, 2014, my friend Ronda Lamoree and I flew out of Logan Airport to the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).  Our purpose was to meet the sponsored children who are part of Kids in the Congo, a 501 (c) 3 non-profit organization co-founded by Congolese Assumptionist Fr. Salvator Musande and myself.

Dear Brothers and Sisters of the Assumption Family

We are celebrating the feast of Fr. d’Alzon as we do every year. Just about everywhere in the world, our communities and our lay friends are gathering to honor the memory of this man of God. Emmanuel d’Alzon remains a model for each of us and for all who desire to draw near to the God of Jesus Christ with a heart that is open and ready to serve. I believe, as I have said many times, in the holiness of our founder. He was a man given over to the cause of the Kingdom, a generous man who discovered that « for me, life is Christ ».