To all Assumptionists at Christmastime

Cans send kids in Congo to school

By William T. Clew

Lynn Brouillette of Brimfield delivers mail for the United States Postal Service.
And she collects cans and bottles to send youngsters to school in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (D.R.C.) in central Africa.

The only thing that one has to do with the other is that some of the people on her mail route in Sturbridge, Brimfield, Holland and Wales save their bottles and cans for her. She does not pick them up while she's delivering mail, but does so afterwards, or has helpers pick them up, she said.

She picks them up every couple of weeks, she said. She cashes them in, gets a check and sends it to Father Ephrem Kapitula, an Assumptionist stationed in Butanbo, D.R.C.
Father Kapitula uses the money to pay the cost of schooling for youngsters picked by the local parish, Ms. Brouillette said.

Augustine intended his community in Hippo Regius to be a concrete representation of the “Whole Christ.” He began the Rule for his community with these words:“ In the first place, live in harmony and be of one mind and heart intent on God; for this is the purpose of your coming together.” His community was to be, within the Church, an example of what the Church is in the first place, the “Body of Christ” intent on ascending to God the Father.

If the Gospel is to be really Good News for real men and women, he insisted that it must to be concrete: it has to be a promise that can be realized in the present. Living “in community” was not a matter of lifestyle; it was matter of “reality.” The only good worth possessing, the only real “common good” is God. In a community where each possesses God, all other possessions lose their significance and can be held in common. Where God can be one’s lover, exclusive relationships lose their significance and their power. Where God is the Sovereign Good, one’s own will for a happiness infinitely less than God loses its hold on one’s life. An Augustinian community is to be where God is pursued exclusively as the only Good that is really humanly satisfying.

To be “of one heart and one soul intent on God” is for the community to have Christ at the center of their lives and to be that center themselves. This requires the courage that Father D’Alzon demands: to be Christ for one another. A community where the brothers or sisters dare to be Christ for one another becomes itself the promise of possibility for the Church. If you want to be saved, be Jesus Christ yourself in your world. If you need an example to encourage you to be Jesus Christ for others, you should be able to see it in a community that has set out to live in the spirit of Saint Augustine.

by Father Roger Corriveau, A.A.

An Assumptionist perspective

In the closing sermon of a retreat that Fr. D’Alzon, founder of the Assumptionists, gave to his religious, he addresses the topic of the meaning of the Feast of the Assumption for members of the Assumption family.

He points out that, in truth “we did not choose this title – it was providentially chosen for us. The words inscribed over the front door of this establishment [Assumption College in Nimes, France] had been there for many years before we took possession of what was to become the cradle of our religious family. It was not we ourselves who chose Our Blessed Lady triumphant in Heaven to be our special protectress. It was she who seems to have looked down from Heaven and said: ‘This house was given to me – I, in turn, give it to you.’” Spiritual Writings, p 1025.

Mary’s Assumption is understood in the context of Mary’s total role as Mother of Christ and Mother of the Church. Fr. D’Alzon saw Mary in that way and so do his sons and daughters in the Assumption family. “The mystery that unifies the life of Mary is the Immaculate Conception; the mystery that fulfills her in glory is the Assumption. Between the two and in order to unify them we discover her compassion.” (Letter to Mother Marie Correnson, Letters VII, pp 140-141). The Assumptionist sees Mary as inseparably united to Christ in His redemptive work. Mary was preserved from original sin, alone among the children of Adam and Eve to have that privilege because she was to be the mother of Jesus Christ, Son of God. Her glorious Assumption is the logical consequence of that beginning, her obedience to the call of the Annunciation and the close union of Mary with Christ during his life on earth.

What are the consequences of this doctrine for us believers? Immense hope for the followers of Christ.

Assumptionists are also sensitive to the importance of this feast for christians of the Eastern Churches. The Byzantine liturgy for the feast of the Dormition of Mary (the falling asleep of Mary) [as the feast is called in the East] contains this troparion:” In giving birth you kept your virginity; in your Dormition you did not leave the world, O Mother of God, but were joined to the source of Life. You conceived the living God and, by your prayers, will deliver our souls from death.”

Fr. Martin Jugie (1878-1954) Assumptionist theologian and specialist in the theology of the Easter Churches, was a major contributor to the studies that preceded the proclamation of the dogma of Mary’s Assumption by Pius XII in November 1950.