Newsnote from Barry (this past Monday)

The past two days the wind has been blowing fiercely, so wind chill was 51 below zero. Yesterday we buried the ashes of a woman from here who was murdered by her own daughter while they were living in Ottawa.  It took a month or more to find her body—it had been carried off with the garbage to a huge  Ottawa landfill.  And then, once it was found, there was the forensic work that had to be done.  This week the ashes finally arrived.

After the church service, people piled onto pickup trucks or hopped on skimobiles or four wheelers and headed up to the cemetery.  The cemetery here is on a ridge overlooking the town and the frozen sea.  Blowing snow bright in the sunlight streamed across the ground, sped past our feet, on through the rows of white wooden crosses,  then off the ridge and out over the town.  Everything was swirling, dazzling white, unearthly.  And howling along with the wind was the grieving family.

First Things First…..    a very special word of appreciation to Fr. Dinh for the attentiveness, personal presence and fraternal care he has shown for Leo over these last couple of years….     It’s been tremendous….  In the name of all the brothers in the province, thank you very much.   Thanks also to the community and the staff at Old English Road and the staff at St. Francis Home who took good care of Leo during these recent years of declining health.

I’d like to zero in on two moments in Leo’s life as an Assumptionist….. I’m going to call them his Macedonian moment and his Emmaus moment.    The Macedonian moment is an allusion to the vision that St. Paul received on his second missionary journey of a man in Macedonia standing and begging him.
“Come over to Macedonia and help us.”  In response to that vision, Paul redirected the course of his journey, and the evangelization of the continent of Europe had begun.

In the late 1980’s, a call went out from Claude Marechal, our superior general at the time, to solicit help for the first foundation in Asia.  From throughout the whole congregation, Leo was the first  to respond.  “I haven’t even spoken to my provincial about this, Leo wrote.”    Imagine going over the head of your provincial that way.   When you think of the growth of the Assumption that has taken place in Asia since that Macedonian moment, it’s no small thing to say that Leo was the first to throw his hat into the ring.

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The leadership of Institut d'Alzon in Nimes (in particular Mrs. Virginie Cote, and Mr. Yvan Lachaud), the Oblates Sisters of the Assumption, and the Assumptionists extended a warm welcome to the group and were involved in all the visits of companies and tourist sites in the Nimes region as well as the visit to Le Vigan (where Father d'Alzon was born) and the Lavagnac Castle where he spent most of his childhood. We could not have such a successful trip without their help. Professor Eric Drouart - March 2019

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