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.

On June 21, a typhoon slammed into Iloilo and Antique regions of the Philippines, causing extensive damage. Please check links below for information sent by members of the new Assumptionist Community in the Philippines:

Letter 1

Letter 2

Letter 3

On Sunday, May 25, the Feast of Corpus Christi, several friends gathered with the community to celebrate mass and honor those who had recently received advanced academic degrees. Brother Dinh and Tomasz Kierul both received degrees in Theology for the Weston School of Theology. Tomasz’s wife, Natalia, received a master’s in Education from BU and Sheila Vargas, received a similar degree from BC. Mass was followed by a delicious cookout and congenial conversation on a beautifully sunny day.

This was also the occasion to announce that Brother Dinh will be leaving Brighton to assume his duties in the Campus Ministry Team at Assumption College. Adding to the festivities, albeit “in absentia”, were Tomasz and Ana Jaster who became US citizens on May 22.

In his remarks at mass, Fr. Claude noted that we are all members of the Body Of Christ by virtue of our Baptism and that whenever one member accomplishes something we all rejoice. He also reminded the recent graduates that as members of the Body of Christ, they are called to use their knowledge, wisdom and experience for the spiritual and intellectual growth of the Body of Christ.

St. Anne’s Church, Fiskdale, MA

April 23, 2008

The memory of Steve that will be fixed in my mind for as long as I live – perhaps for some of you as well – is an open door, with him sitting behind his desk in his office. The enduring power of this image has to do with the fact that he was almost always there, and he always had time for you.

When Steve said to a number of us that he did not wish to be first remembered as a finance man, he meant by this, I think, that whatever happened when a person walked into his office and sat down next to his desk was more important than whatever he was doing behind that desk. And he always made you feel that way.

This steady presence of his was due, in part at least, to the fact that he was a brother, that he wasn’t busy with the things that priests do. But more than that, it had to do with the person that he was. What you found as you entered that open door, as witnessed by so many of us, was a receptive ear and a sympathetic presence. Not that everything that transpired in those conversations was “heavy, deep, and real,” as we used to say. It was fun to waste time with Steve. (How often I took a break from my ill-fated doctoral work to talk with Steve, who deserves none of the blame for my failure to finish.)

BRIGHTON/STURBRIDGE - Brother Stephen P. Goguen, A.A., 70, died Saturday, April 19, in the Assumptionist Center, Brighton, after a long illness.

He leaves his Assumptionist brothers and nieces and nephews.

He was born in Gardner, son of the late Albert and Angeline (Roy) Goguen. He graduated from Assumption Preparatory School in Worcester and earned advanced degrees in English and Psychology from the SUNY in Buffalo, NY

He was professed as an Augustinian of the Assumption on February 28, 1960. He served in community assignments as a teacher, administrator and formator at Our Lady of Lourdes Minor Seminary in Cassadaga, NY, at Incarnation Parish in Tampa, FL, at Assumption College in Worcester, at Saint Anne’s Church and Shrine in Sturbridge and at the Assumptionist Center in Brighton. He was a trustee of Assumption College since 1982.

The funeral was held on Wednesday, April 23, at 10:00 AM in Saint Anne and Saint Patrick Church, 16 Church Street, Sturbridge. The Rev. Dennis Gallagher, A.A., Regional Superior, was the principal concelebrant. Among the concelebrants were the Very Reverend Marcel Poirier, A.A., Provincial Superior of North America. Burial was in Saint Anne’s Cemetery, Sturbridge.

New statue at shrine carries on a tradition

HUMAN CONDITION

At about 5:10 p.m. on June 9, 1953, the whirlwind that came to be known as the “Worcester Tornado” crashed into Assumption College in Worcester , shrouding it with menacing, black-ink clouds and furiously pummeling it with fist-sized hail, driving rain and train-roaring winds.

When the skies abruptly cleared, the Greendale campus lay in ruin.

A priest and two nuns were killed.

Given the damage from the storm and the cost to rebuild, it looked like the decades-old presence of the Augustinians of the Assumption Order in Worcester was over.