On Sunday, September 6, Assumption celebrated a milestone in its rich 116-year history as it formally marked the transition to Assumption University with the annual Mass of the Holy Spirit and unveiling of the new university sign at the front entrance of campus.

The Mass of the Holy Spirit is held annually as the Assumption community gathers to seek the guidance and wisdom of the Holy Spirit for the academic year.

“We come together this morning as a community at an unusual moment. One might say a moment of paradox, a time of joy and a time of challenge,” said President Francesco C. Cesareo, Ph.D., noting that being able to celebrate in person and the transition to university are both joyous, yet cloaked in a time of uncertainty, worry, and unrest and upheaval in society. Today, we ask the God of Wisdom to help make us wise, and to help us understand what it means to be a human being because that is at the heart of a Catholic liberal education. The Holy Spirit is the conduit through which we ask the God of Wisdom to make us wise.”

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"Service to the poor is an essential part of our “calling card” as Assumptionists. Our brothers and lay Assumptionists in Mexico have responded to that call in parish apostolates at Parroquia San Andres Totoltepec and Parroquia Santiago Apostol. Here in the States, since the closing of Guadalupe in the late 1990’s, we have looked for an opportunity for more hands-on ministry to those in need."

Our foundation in El Paso marks the beginning of a new chapter of our apostolic legacy of service to the poor and marginalized. We are grateful to God for this opportunity to minister to those in greatest need.

Please enjoy these photos of Assumptionist Hispanic ministry over the years - in New York and Mexico, from 1904 to today!

The Assumptionists’ new foundation in the Diocese of El Paso, Texas, connects us to an important part of our apostolic legacy here in the North American Province. Our oldest sustained foundation in the province was on the lower West Side of Manhattan, at Our Lady of Guadalupe parish. For more than a century, Assumptionists served the Hispanic Catholic immigrants in New York City and beyond. For much of that same time, we were engaged in a similar ministry of hospitality and outreach at Our Lady of Esperanza parish on West 156th parish in Manhattan.

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SAINTLY EXAMPLES FOR A TIME OF PANDEMIC

By Louise Carroll Keeley | July-August 2020

Louise Carroll Keeley, Ph.D., retired in 2019 from Assumption University in Worcester, Massachusetts, as Professor of Philosophy and Provost Emerita.

On August 28, 1877, in Alençon, France, Zélie Martin, 45, died from breast cancer, 12 years after noticing the first signs of disease. By the time she sought medical attention, her condition could not be cured, nor did a pilgrimage to Lourdes less than three months before her death result in a physical healing. She left behind a loving husband, Louis, and five daughters: Marie, 17; Pauline, almost 16; Léonie, 14; Céline, eight; and Thérèse, the youngest, age four.

The death of matriarch Zélie was a searing loss for the family, one that led to their relocation in Lisieux to find consolation and support in proximity to Zélie’s closest living relatives. Louis, 54, the newly widowed father of five daughters, sought the companionship and help of Zélie’s brother, Isidore, and sister-in-law, Céline Fournet. (Zélie’s other sister, Élise, Sister Marie-Dosithée, had died of tuberculosis six months before Zélie’s death.) Louis was an exceptionally kind man, equally fond of and devoted to his daughters, but he was not nearly as accomplished in practical affairs as his deceased wife had been. His temperament was as monastic as hers had been domestically and economically engaged. But with the help of Zélie’s relatives, Louis raised his daughters in an intimate family community of love and faith. All five daughters entered religious life and made final vows: Pauline, Marie, Thérèse, and Céline in the Carmelite community of Lisieux, and Léonie, after three failed attempts (including a brief stint as a Poor Clare), at the Visitation convent at Caen. After Thérèse’s death at the age of 24 in 1897, the publication of her unfinished manuscript, Story of a Soul, led to her canonization in 1925 and the worldwide fame that continues today. Less well known, her parents, Zélie and Louis, were beatified by Pope Benedict XVI in 2008 and canonized seven years later by Pope Francis. Theirs was a family of saints.