Assumption to Host Ecumenical Prayer for Christian Unity
Collection of Personal Goods to Benefit Area Refugees

WORCESTER, MA (February 3, 2016)—Church leaders from several Christian faith communities in Worcester will join together for the College’s annual Ecumenical Prayer for Christian Unity. Recognizing the many challenges faced by refugees throughout the world, this year’s Ecumenical Prayer will include a collection of personal care items to support the work of a local organization that assists refugees resettling in the Worcester area. The prayer service will be held on Friday, Feb. 12 at 7 p.m. in the Chapel of the Holy Spirit, located at 500 Salisbury Street.

Prior to the service, a reception will take place in the Lauring Community Room of the Tinsley Campus Ministry Center at 6 p.m. followed by a candlelight procession to the Chapel.

Worcester’s Ecumenical Prayer for Christian Unity is an annual event based on the World Council of Church’s service for the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity that is held to bring Catholics, Protestants, and Orthodox Christians together to celebrate their common baptism. Assumption College President Francesco Cesareo, Ph.D., established this annual campus event shortly after his arrival at the College in 2007. This year’s Ecumenical Prayer will address the tremendous challenges of the world’s refugees, and a collection will be held in support of Ascentria Care Alliance, an organization dedicated to assisting refugees resettling in Worcester. Attendees are asked to donate personal care items such as shampoo, soap, deodorant, toothbrushes, toothpaste, etc.

 The souvenir program of the 10th Foundation of the Assumptionists in the Philippines

EVEN before the Apostolic Visit of Pope Francis was announced in August 2014, the liturgical team behind the IEC 2016 liturgy book, headed by Rev. Fr. Mhar Vincent Balili (Cebu), was already burning the proverbial midnight oil with the editorial team of Bayard Assumption Media Foundation, publishers of Living with Christ.

The partnership was forged sometime in June 2014 between Cebu Archbishop Jose Palma and Living with Christ General Manager Fr. Bernard Holzer of the Augustinians of the Assumption. Bayard Presse and the Augustinians of the Assumption (Assumptionist Fathers) donated and became the liturgy publication partner of the 51^st International Eucharistic Congress. The donation was made possible through Bayard’s International Solidarity Fund. Two months later, Living with Christ was also invited to partner with the Philippine organizers of the Apostolic Visit of Pope Francis to produce the papal liturgy books.

Why this passion for supporting liturgy books? Fr. Bernard explains that Bayard, specifically through Living with Christ, is committed to helping Filipinos pray and actively participate through these liturgy books. “We want Filipinos to go deeper in the mystery of the Eucharist. This was echoed in the invitation of the papal legate, Cardinal Charles Bo during his message at the Opening Mass. The mission of Living with Christ is to help us discover and live the power of the Eucharist as a transforming force in our personal lives and in society.”

On Sunday, January 17, 2016, of this year what seemed once to be only a dream became a reality: the towering shrine of Our Lady of Lourdes in the Santos Lugares neighborhood of Buenos Aires welcomed pilgrims for the first time into the newly finished upper church.  Very Rev. Benoît  Grière, superior general of the congregation, accompanied by one of his general assistants, Fr. Marcelo Marciel, and the provincial of the Andean Province, Fr. Juan Carlos Cisterna, joyfully celebrated a Mass of Re-dedication, officially inaugurating a new era for this treasured shrine.

Originally opened in the 1930s, the shrine, the first stone of which had been laid in 1922, was never completed for lack of funds. The upper church remained empty and unused, falling into greater and greater disrepair over the years.

In addition to the outdoor grotto, thousands of pilgrims visited the basilica’s crypt where Mass and religious ceremonies have been held for the past 85 years.

My name is Jovic Kouepou Kouepou. 

I am a young Cameroonian. I first learned about the Assumptionists at a vocation camp from a friend when he was back home on vacation. For four years, as I earned my college degree, I kept his words in my heart. Afterward I went for a visit and eventually was able to do a year of pre-postulancy and postulancy in Sokode, Togo, during which time I was able to discern my vocation with the Assumptionists. The novitiate year is an opportunity to take that discernment one step further.

By Fr. Michel Kubler, A.A., director of the Center

I am not going to overwhelm you with the long list of conferences  and other activities held at the Center this year, but I would like to highlight one that happened this past autumn to mark the Year of the Consecrated Life. The evening featured the presence of an Orthodox nun and a Catholic sister (the superior general of our Oblate Sisters of the Assumption, who happens to be Romanian). As hard as you might find this to believe, for the Catholics in attendance it was the first time that most of them had ever heard an Orthodox nun speak and vice versa for the Orthodox in attendance for a Catholic sister!… This is just to give you an example of the role that our Center can and must play, not just to resolve the contentious theological issues that exist between the churches, but also simply to allow their members to get to know each other so that they might respect and perhaps one day love one another and eventually move closer to a day of communion!

It was just before 9 AM on November 26 at Laval University in Quebec City that an auditorium began to fill with friends, acquaintances, fellow students, and, of course, the members of Assumptionist religious community at the Montmartre canadien to attend Fr. Ai’s defense of his doctoral dissertation, “The Narrative Voice in the Story of Joseph (Genesis 37-50).” How might one summarize this work that the academic jury considered scholarly enough to merit him the title ‘doctor’? Utilizing a narrative approach developed by André Wénin and other scholars, Fr. Ai applied it to the narrative voice of the Joseph cycle. His basic question was: how does the narrator speak in his account?

In the weeks ahead Fr. Ai will be moving to Worcester, Massachusetts where he will begin preparing to offer courses at Assumption College. He will be residing in the Emmanuel House community on campus.

It’s been a busy year for Fr. Ai since this native of Vietnam was ordained a priest just this past summer in Quebec.

Congratulations are all fronts, Fr. Ai!