On Monday, October 18^th,the National Catholic Development Conference (NCDC) in collaboration with the United States Region of the Assumptionists andAssumption College hosted a workshop "What is Happening in Catholic Fundraising Today" on the Campus of Assumption College in Worcester, MA. The attendees of the conference represented development directors and staffs of religious organizations such as schools, parishes, religious communities and charities.

On Monday, October 4^th, the National Catholic Educational Association honored eight individuals with the St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Award, which recognizes those who have made significant contributions to Catholic education through philanthropy, leadership and service.

Among this year’s recipients were Donald and Michele D’Amour of Somers, CT who are major supporters of public and private education in CT, MA and of Assumption College.

On Sunday October 3rd, the "Conversations At The Center" resumed in Brighton, MA. The purpose of this series is to provide a place for the local house community and guests to participate, learn and discuss what it means to be Church.

At this first gathering of the year, which began with Mass, Joshua Johnson, a first year theology student at Boston College and who recently joined the community at the Center, spoke of his experience working at Casa Juan Diego House of Hospitality in Houston, Texas. This facility of the Catholic Worker heroically and selflessly gives life to the dream of Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin who worked tirelessly to be a social dynamic force in ministering to the poorest of the poor.

Our own two Assumptionist brothers have joined the Jesuit, Capuchin, and Redemptorist orders whose members are studying at the School of Theology and Ministry at Boston College this year. Eddy Gonzalez (left) and Ronald Sibugan, A.A., are pursuing Master of Divinity degrees and preparing for ordination.
Brother Eddy is in the process of becoming a postulant. Brother Ronald, who has completed his novitiate year (and hence wears the habit), has taken his temporary vows.

On Wednesday evening, September 29, 2010, at around 7 p.m. local time, the Reverend Father Augustine SIRIMIRWA, Assumptionist, Superior and Pastor of Our Lady of the Poor Parish of Mbau, in the Diocese of Butembo-Beni, in North-Kivu Province in Eastern D.R.Congo, escaped death.

After the evening prayer, Fr. Augustine took his lamp torch to go around the church building checking whether all the doors were well locked for the night. In the recent past, the parish has had breaks in where valuable items from money to musical instruments were stolen. Half way through his routine checking, he saw a gunman in the Congolese military uniform emerging from the dark with a machine gun that he pointed to his head. As Father Augustine tried to ask what the gunman was looking for, another gunman in civilian clothes emerged from the dark with threatening words. The first thing the gunmen did was to take his lamp torch away. With the gun pointing to his head, the gunmen asked Fr Augustine to give money, a lot of money to save his life. Reaching for his wallet, Father Augustine had only 2200 Congolese Francs, that is a little more than 2 US $. He had nothing else. Dissatisfied, with the $2 , the gunmen became more angry, checking Fr Augustine’s pockets to see whether he was not withholding more cash. At this point, the gunmen were threatening to kill him, as he was unable to give more cash.

Today, September 30^, 2010, we are commemorating the 100^th anniversary of the establishment of the Augustinians of the Assumption in Argentina. For this reason, the wide Assumptionist Family in this country is filled with joy as celebrations take place all week. There have been one hundred years of the hard and fruitful work of evangelization and the development of Catholic education.

It was on September 30, 1910 that Father Roman Heitmann, an Assumptionist born in Fr. d’Alzon’s homeland of France, arrived in Argentina to establish and develop the congregation here. As part of his legacy, the city of Buenos Aires now enjoys the shrine and school of Our Lady of Lourdes as well San Román Institute (named after him), where today, one hundred years later, the process of the evangelization begun by Father Roman continues to grow.

San Donato in Polverosa (Florence, ITALY)

It is an act of trust in themselves and in the future that the religious of the community in Florence (Italy) made in accepting this request of the Archdiocese. Florentin Halandut gives us an overview of the work an the spirit in which the community is approaching it.

(In 1995 a young Romanian student by the name of Lucian Dinca who had been attracted by Assumptionist religious life left his native land to continue his formation in France. Having earned a licentiate in theology, he was sent to Canada where he pursued a doctorate in patristics at Laval University in Quebec City. In 2008, after he successfully defended his doctoral work on St. Athanasius, he was assigned to the Assumptionist community in Florence, Italy, as a way of preparing for his eventual nomination to the new community which just opened in Bucharest, Romania. Here are some excerpts of a recent letter he wrote.)

Dear Readers,
 
A few days ago we told you about the opening of a new center sponsored by the Assumptionists in Togo, called the D'Alzon Center (Espace D'Alzon), which aims at organizing meetings and discussions in three areas: current events and the media, Assumptionist spirituality, and Christian formation. Now we have the joy of announcing that for the first time in its history, the congregation has opened a novitiate in West Africa, also in Sokodé, Togo. It will train the first generation of young men attracted to the Assumptionists in this part of the world.