Bro. Ryan Carlsen, A.A. helps out a couple of times a week, either serving food or helping tp prepare it, at the Xavier Center, which is attached to St. John's Parish in Worcester. Some volunteers who staff the kitchen serve 6 days a week. The 400-500 daily guests come in to get some free food and leave knowing that there are people who care.

The Story of Taize:

Taize is a small village in western France about 50 miles from Geneva, Switzerland

Brother Roger, a Protestant, founded a small monastery in the village in 1940 following the defeat of France by the Nazis. He wanted to create a refuge for people who were devastated by the Nazi invasion. He also wanted to create an environment where people of different faiths and views to come together to find ways to honor their differences and to find reconciliation and unity where that was possible. It is one of the few monasteries in the world where Protestant and Catholic men live and pray together as monks. Taize is a site of pilgrimage where over 100,000 young people per year, both Christian and non-Christian, come as pilgrims for singing, silence, and devotion.

 CONVERSATIONS AT THE CENTER - OCTOBER 20, 2019 - PDF file

 NOTES FROM The President's Desk - PDF file

The Lord’s call is not an intrusion of God in our freedom; it is not a “cage” or a burden to be borne. On the contrary, it is the loving initiative whereby God encounters us and invites us to be part of a great undertaking. He opens before our eyes the horizon of a greater sea and an abundant catch.

In encountering the Lord, some may feel the attraction of a call to the consecrated life or to the ordained priesthood. It is a discovery that can excite and at the same time frighten us, since we feel called to become “fishers of men” in the barque of the Church by giving totally of ourselves in commitment to faithful service of the Gospel and our brothers and sisters. Such a decision carries the risk of leaving everything behind to follow the Lord, to devote ourselves completely to him, and to share in his work. Many kinds of interior resistance can stand in the way of making this decision, especially in highly secularized contexts where there no longer seems to be a place for God and for the Gospel. Places where it is easy to grow discouraged and fall into the “weariness of hope”.

Brother Daniele Caglioni, A.A. joined the Hispanic Community at Saint Anthony's Shrine in Downtown Boston for a day of prayer and reflection. The retreat was facilitated in Spanish by a Sister of Notre Dame de Namur, Sr. Bárbara Gutiérrez who currently serves as the director of enrollment and marketing for the Catholic Schools Office in the Archdiocese of Boston. The Retreat offered participants the opportunity to reflect on how to walk with Jesus now and throughout their lives, with a special discussion on how we can all work together towards a more just world. The day concluded with a Liturgy in Spanish celebrated by Fr. Peter Gyves, SJ, MD, founder of A Faith That Does Justice, an interfaith organization that raises consciousness about social issues affecting the most vulnerable among us and offers opportunities for people to walk in solidarity with those who our society marginalizes.

Fr. Dennis M. Gallagher, A.A., Provincial and Former Vice President for Mission at Assumption College, reflects on the enduring importance of liberal education in the Catholic tradition in his new book Liberal Education at the Crossroads.

These are challenging times for liberal education. For quite some time now, pre-professional education has been in the ascendancy in our colleges and universities. While it is not difficult to identify the reasons for this – the expense of higher education requires a “return on investment” in the form of employable skills; the humanities themselves have fallen captive, too often, to narrow, formalistic approaches – the waning of the great tradition of liberal learning is not to be celebrated. In this volume of short essays, arranged chronologically over a fifteen-year period, Fr. Dennis M. Gallagher, A.A., Provincial of the North American Province of the Assumptionists and formerly Vice President for Mission at Assumption College, makes a strong case for the present and enduring value of liberal education in the Catholic tradition. The essays cover a wide range of subjects – profiles of great teachers, education to citizenship, the place of athletics, the relation between study and prayer – all aimed at renewing our appreciation for an education that liberates students from the reigning opinions of the day and prepares them to live thoughtful and generous lives.

Check it out here.

Fr. Dennis' book is now available as an e-book through the kindle store.

We will strive to know Jesus as God, as man, and as the author of the supernatural gifts which unite us to the Father. Saint Augustine, our patriarch, will be our principal guide. Study his treatise on the Blessed Trinity - study the wonderful writings for which the Church has given him the title of "Doctor of Grace" - let these form the substance of our theology.
 

Emmanuel d'Alzon

Given by Bishop F. Eduardo Cervantes Merino

Ordinands: Rodel Cervantes Sapalo and Marciano López Solís

We gather today on the Solemnity of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, on which the Church celebrates her triumph in Christ by being raised in body and soul to heaven and exalted above the choirs of angels. We, disciples of Christ and still pilgrims on this earth, encouraged by this hope, gather together in this parish community for the priestly ordination of our brothers Rodel Cervantes Sapalo and Marciano López Solís. As we know well, these brothers are part of the Congregation of the Augustinians of the Assumption, who we lovingly call the “Assumptionists.”

It is cause for profound joy that these brothers of ours will receive sacred orders in our Diocese of Orizaba on this feast that fills us with joy in God our savior. May this celebration encourage us to imitate the missionary drive of Mary by being a Church that brings the joy of the Gospel wherever we go, that communicates and brings those we encounter closer to the Lord Jesus, especially the poor, needy and marginalized. Adopting the attitude of the Blessed Virgin is important for every Christian, and in a particular way for the Augustinians of the Assumption.