Dear Brothers and friends of the Alliance,

This letter is the fruit of long reflection on vocations in the Church and particularly at the Assumption. As we know, our congregation has always had a concern to serve as intermediaries of God’s bidding to men and women. The Kingdom that is at hand needs workers, whether they be priests, lay-people, religious, or consecrated persons. Our Rule of Life reminds us that we work « to support Christian vocations, particularly religious and priestly vocations » (#16). Three other numbers (#133-135) specify the demands of vocation ministry. Emmanuel d’Alzon tirelessly urged the Assumption to awaken vocations, saying that it was an essential apostolic priority of the Institute. Alumnates, the work of Our Lady of Vocations (Notre-Dame des Vocations), residences for young people, schools, chaplaincies at universities and at other educational institutions…. all of these demonstrate our family’s concern to reach out to young people and invite them to reflect on the meaning of their lives and to help them to find the right path under the Lord’s watchful gaze.

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“My friend, I am not cheating you.
Did you not agree with me for the usual daily wage?
Take what is yours and go.
What if I wish to give this last one the same as you?
Or am I not free to do as I wish with my own money?
Are you envious because I am generous?”

The following is Fr. Dennis’ homily from Sunday Mass on September 20th.

The Gospel was the Parable of the Workers in the Vineyard.

What makes this Sunday’s parable work is that God, in the person of the landowner, precipitates a crisis. Nothing much would have happened if the landowner had followed the usual course, paying the full-day laborers first and then, in turn, the workers who came later. Having received the agreed upon wage, the first group would have left the vineyard content that they had been treated fairly. They got what was coming to them. But instead, the landowner reverses the expected order and pays the latecomers first, giving them the full daily wage. Not surprisingly, those hired in the morning cry foul that these others, who were spared the searing heat of the midday sun, not to say the weariness of a full day’s work, were given the same wages.

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Yesterday the Kenyan Ministry of Education announced that, due to low Covid-19 infection rates, schools will not wait until January 2021 to reopen, as previously scheduled, but will open next month.

At Assumption High School - Nairobi we are busy with renovations required by government regulations for a safe reopening, including the installation of additional water points for hand washing, setting up classrooms and dormitories for social distancing, and ensuring we have enough masks for all staff.

In addition, we are excited to announce that there will be five Assumptionists involved at Assumption High School this academic year:

Fr. Luc Martel – Director
Fr. Benard Odhiambo – Deputy Director
Fr. Moses Musavuli – School Chaplain and Counselor
Dn. Kennedy Sakawa – Resident advisor for male students
Br. Kizito Juma Shebella – Resident advisor for male students

Their presence is a sign of our continued commitment to the flourishing of Assumption High School and all of its hardworking students and staff. May God bless and protect us in the year ahead.

Homily for the Mass of the Holy Spirit and Celebration of Assumption University

Chapel of the Holy Spirit, September 6, 2020

Very Rev. Dennis Gallagher, A.A.

Scripture readings: Ezekiel 33:7-9; Romans 13: 8-10; Matthew 18: 15-20

“If your brother sins [against you], go and tell him his fault between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have won over your brother. If he does not listen, take one or two others along with you, so that ‘every fact may be established on the testimony of two or three witnesses.’ If he refuses to listen to them, tell the church. If he refuses to listen even to the church, then treat him as you would a Gentile or a tax collector. Amen, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. Again, [amen,] I say to you, if two of you agree on earth about anything for which they are to pray, it shall be granted to them by my heavenly Father. For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.”

I hesitate to say this, but the Gospel today is about protocols. Oh no, not that. Maybe we should agree to retire this word from the language once the pandemic has left us.

But these are protocols not for the purpose of keeping people safe from physical disease, but for keeping intact the bonds of charity that bind the members of the Christian community to one another. Those bonds have been at least temporarily weakened by one member’s sinning against another.

So how do you proceed, what are the protocols? It’s quite interesting how specific this is There are three steps: first, take up the matter, one on one with the person himself; if no reconciliation comes from that, you bring in one or two others as witnesses; and if nothing comes from that, then you bring the matter to the whole church.

A couple of thoughts on this ...

At each of these levels, an appeal must be made to something that all the parties involved understand as binding them together. This is a community that is centered in Christ, who is the measure for everything that takes place in the community.

The other thought is in the form of a question: why go to this bother for one brother who has sinned? Through this rather elaborate protocol? Because much is at stake here, there’s a great good that needs to be upheld: that’s the unity in the community and by extension the good of the offending brother whose own well-being is tied to being a full member of this community.

So, does this have anything to do with what we are celebrating today, Assumption’s becoming a university? Well, let’s see… Unity… university…. There must be something.

On June 10, 2020, Assumption College officially became Assumption University—a landmark moment in the institution's 116-year history. Here, Fr. Roland Guilmain, A.A., recalls memories as a student at Assumption Prep and Assumption College and congratulates the institution on it's recent achievement.

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.