In 1816, when Emmanuel d'Alzon was only 6 years old, his family moved from the town of Le Vigan to the chateau of Lavagnac which his mother had inherited. Located in southern France near the village of Montagnac, this beautiful aristocratic residence was the place where d'Alzon grew up and where he would often come back once he set out to do his studies in Paris, Montpellier, and Rome. Even once he became a priest in Nîmes, he would return here to draw healing rest.

This past August 22 Bro. Donné Romuald Marcellin Randrianantenaina was ordained to the priesthood during the closing ceremonies of the bicentennial of Fr. d'Alzon's birth in the Vice-Province of Madagascar. The event took place in the Assumptionist parish of Our Lady of the Assumption in Tulear.

During a celebration the evening before,  after his parents gave him the traditional blessing, Bro. Romuald gave a moving testimony about his somewhat unusual path to the priesthood.

Sixty years ago, on November 1, 1950, Pope Pius XII proclaimed the dogma of the Assumption of Mary.  We may wonder how a religious family with the name “Assumption” might have contributed to this event. It would be presumptuous to think that the Assumption had any influence whatsoever on the Pope’s decision, but it is legitimate to think that certain of its most eminent members helped to bring this idea to maturity, thus preparing the Pope to make his proclamation during the Holy Year.

Among the steps leading up to this definition, the scholarly research, the meetings and the pontifical commissions that were organized, the work done by Father Martin Jugie (1878-1954) holds a particularly important place. The monumental work (747 pages long), The Death and the Assumption of the Virgin Mary published by this historical/doctrinal student in 1944, by the Pope’s own admission, furnished the solid foundation that prepared and hastened the definition of the dogma. This theologian of the “Echos d’Orient” team, a humble and austere man, in publishing this volume could hardly have imagined a better reward than the proclamation of the dogma of the Assumption. When this brilliant professor of Oriental Theological Institute published his book, he dedicated it naturally to Pope Pius XII, protector of the Assumption family. In fact, in 1931, Pope Pius XI had named Eugenio Pacelli, at the time Vatican Secretary of State, Cardinal protector of the religious families of the Assumption.

This past October 1-13, a small group of American pilgrims made their way to Turkey and Israel seeking to walk in the footsteps of Jesus and St. Paul. This small venture carries on the tradition begun by the Assumptionists in the 19th century. In late April 1882, a group of Assumptionists organized the first modern large-scale pilgrimages to the Holy Land when they set sail from the port of Marseilles in two ships, the Picardie and the Guadaloupe, accompanied by some 1,000 stalwart pilgrims. It took 8 days to reach the port of Haifa. Once arrived, they traveled by foot, donkey, horse and camel, sleeping in tents or under the stars. Nothing like it had been seen since the time of the Crusades. In all, the pilgrims stayed for 40 days and began a tradition that would continue uninterrupted till Word War I in 1914 and would restart afterwards.