Interviewer - Would you share a bit about your background: family, childhood, early education, etc.?
- Br. Blair NUYDA A.A. - I grew up in a small family. I’m the only child of an engineer and a nurse. My grandaunt lived with us. She was a very religious person and she would bring me to Mass often. To keep up with the needs of the family, my mother had to work in the United States when I was in high school. As a student, I was very much involved in campus journalism and in parish liturgical ministry. Being a delegate of the historic 10th World Youth Day (1995) in Manila proved to be a life-changing experience, the initial attraction to heed the call to dedicate myself to follow and serve God as a religious.
At the request of the two superiors general of the Assumptionists and the Oblates, the members of an ad hoc committee to study the feasability of an international congress on education at the Assumption met in Paris on June 19 and 20, 2013.
The committee's work consisted in following up on a proposal for such a congress developed by Fr. Richrad Lamoureux and Sr. Claire Rabitz, former superiors general, and Br. Jean-Michel Brochec, an Assumptionist who dedicated most of his life to education and who edited the booklet entitled Teaching and Education in the Spirit of the Assumption.
The spirit of our founder impels us to embrace the great causes of God and man, and to go wherever God is threatened in Man and Man is threatened as the image of God (Rule of Life, #4b)
Assigned to the new community in Goma (Democratic Republic of the Congo/DRC) to be involved in radio communications, I find myself, instead, for the time being, in the sphere of the ‘formal’ word-of-mouth communication that takes place in refugee camps near Goma-Sake, with those who have had to flee militia violence in the area. It is a preferential option for the poorest levels of society, especially the most vulnerable displaced persons; the elderly, the handicapped, widows and widowers, unaccompanied children, and heads of households also need someone with whom to communicate in order to be healed of the loneliness they are suffering. This is my new way of ‘communicating in another way »: confidential conversations in plastic-sheeted huts or simply outside in a field. These huts for the displaced are popularly called « blindés » (« armoured shelters »). The life lived there is not very attractive at all!
(The following article appeared in the Assumptionist magazine, L’Assomption et ses oeuvres, April/May/June 2013 issue.)
I was born on a Saturday, December 15, 1984, in Adjudeni, a village located in northeast Romania, in the section of the country known as Moldavia. I was told that it was a bitter cold day, with heavy snow, typical of that time of year. Although Romania is basically a Christian Orthodox country, I grew up in a Catholic village, where the church, with its characteristic bell towers, symbolized by itself alone the pride of these peoples who were to maintain their Catholic faith in spite of fierce persecutions that lasted almost half a century. I was fortunate to be one of the first generations of “free” children, that is, those who grew up after the fall of Communism in 1989. My family never longed to return to those days even if the transition was painful.
An Interview with Fr. Vincent Leclercq, A.A., M.D.* (This interview first appeared in the online newsletter www.aisnenouvelle.fr)
Doctor, Assumptionist priest, professor at the Institut catholique of Paris, Fr. Vincent Leclercq wears many hats. But there is no contradiction among them, he insists. Versed in ethical and bioethical questions, he is preparing a book at this time, to appear on April 12, entitle Fin de vie (End of Life) (1). He was recently invited by an organization called Traversée (2) to give a presentation and engage in a Q/A session on the theme, "Medically assisted and ethical reproduction."
- You are both a doctor and an Assumptionist priest… How did that come about? - Being a doctor, that's who I am by training, my profession. Assumptionist, that's my vocation. In fact, the Assumptionists asked me to teach moral theology. I have specialized mostly in bioethics.
On Saturday, April 30th, 2013, the Chapel of the Holy Spirit at Assumption College in Worcester, MA was filled with great joy, gratitude and celebration as Bro.Ronald Sibugan, A.A. pronounced his final vows as an Augustinian of the Assumption.
Early on the morning of Saturday, February 21, 1863 the Phase entered the Bosphorus straits after a week's voyage across the Mediterranean Sea. It was snowing. From the ship's deck, Fr. d'Alzon and his travel companion, Louis Guizard, trained at the Assumptionist high school in Nîmes, discovered an enchanting landscape: "a city of marble....under a wide-open sky," in the words of Fr. Siméon Vailhé, the great biographer of Fr. d'Alzon. At the residence of the Patriarchal Apostolic Vicar, Msgr. Paolo Brunoni, Fr. d'Alzon received gracious hospitality. His first impressions of the city? He would write of them two days later in a letter to "his dear children" at Assumption high school (Collège de l'Assomption). "Constantinople is the most beautiful city in the world seen from afar and from the rooftops, but the streets!! Ah! It's unbelievable. People who are dirty; streets that are dirty; people on horseback continually splashing you; stagecoaches with drivers always on their feet; dead dogs; cobblestone streets that I can't possibly describe...."
Francesco C. Cesareo, Ph.D., president of Assumption College has been named the next chair of the National Review Board (NRB) by Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.
The NRB advises the bishops' Secretariat for Child and Youth Protection and was established by the Charter for Protection of Children and Young People, which the bishops adopted in 2002.
"It's a real privilege and great responsibility to serve in this capacity and to really help the bishops in the continued implementation of the Charter," President Cesareo told The Catholic Free Press, the diocesan newspaper of Worcester.
This part winter Cardinal Pham Minh Man did the honors of blessing the new Assumptionist scholasticate in the archdiocese of Saigon. Some 300 people crowded into the interior courtyard/patio of the house to attend the celebration which also included a Mass of Thanksgiving presided by the rector of the renowned Marian shrine, Our Lady of Fatima, where the new residence is located. Fr. Vincent Cabanac, provincial treasurer of the province of France, delivered the homily. Guests included not only members of the Assumption Family but concelebrants from other religious congregations and priests from the Diocese of Vinh.
Originals were destroyed by the 1953 tornado that ripped through Assumption’s Greendale Campus.
On June 1, Assumption College dedicated three stained-glass windows that were once part of the College and Preparatory School’s Greendale campus chapel, which was damaged 60 years ago by a tornado. One of the restored windows to be unveiled is called “The Tornado Window,” in remembrance of the three Assumption community members who perished in the June 9, 1953, storm.
