Fr. Vincent Machozi was shamefully assassinated this past Palm Sunday. Death seems to triumph. We are all dismayed, traumatized by this event. How are we to understand this chain of massacres, of death and violence? Assumption has already paid a heavy price to the insecurity that has sown terror in North Kivu. Let us not forget our brothers, Edmond, Jean-Pierre and Anselme, who disappeared more than three years ago. Our congregation continues to demonstrate solidarity with the people of North Kivu and our brothers somehow continue their delicate mission there without giving up. It is our way of responding to the heinous attacks that have been terrorizing the Nande people, the largest ethnic group in North Kivu.
An Assumptionist is a man who demonstrates solidarity with the poor and the least among us. This solidarity is not some empty phrase. It also has a price, let us not forget. But an Assumptionist is also a man of dialogue. We are not motivated by a spirit of revenge, but one of justice. We demand that the truth about these massacres be made known and that justice prevail. There must be an end put to complicit indifference.
The final ‘Conversations at the Center,’ for this semester in Brighton, continued to address this year’s theme of evangelization by focusing specifically on the topic of “Can Artists Evangelize… or Even Communicate?”
For this session, the Center was delighted to host Fr. Richard Lamoureux, A.A. to make the connection between art and evangelization. As an Assumptionist religious, Fr. Richard is a teacher and lecturer in art history at Assumption College and beyond.
In his presentation, Fr. Richard used slides of paintings, architecture and sculptures to illustrate examples of how artists may intentionally convey a message and /or feeling by colors, shape, materials, forms or light and their possible effects on the viewer. In some cases their effects are more obvious or often their impact is unconscious. Communication is only one of the functions of art. Other pieces of art are simply an expression of the artist only.
WORCESTER – He’s 100 years old, and right with the times. And the Lord. And his people. You get that sense talking with Father Oliver Blanchette, an Augustinian of the Assumption, and those who know him. An estimated 200 people celebrated his actual birthday with him March 12, 2016, at a Mass and brunch at Assumption College.
He lives near the college with other retired and elder Assumptionists, though he’s not the retiring type. His reach has extended beyond his congregation to the diocese, civic life, and across the world. “I can hardly say, as did Jeremiah, that I am too young to speak,” Father Blanchette quipped, in prepared remarks for his birthday Mass. “Yet, I may hasten, before it’s too late, to thank God for creating and loving me as my Father all these years, and giving me his Son Jesus as my Savior and friend.” Father Blanchette also expressed thanks for his life as an Assumptionist, and for family and friends. Gratitude is a trademark of his, according to Lena Langlois, of St. Anne and St. Patrick Parish in Sturbridge, which Assumptionists staff.
When Father Vincent Machozi – a priest who served at Everett’s Immaculate Conception Church – asked those who had come to kill him on Palm Sunday in his Parish, “Why are you killing me?” it was a very simple answer.
Those who killed him killed for the same reason they had killed hundreds of others before him, people Machozi had tirelessly defended while in Everett, and later, while serving as a teaching priest in the Congo.
Father Machozi was killed for some rare rocks – rare Earth minerals to be exact.
Those items are things that most reading this article have in their pockets – likely in their cell phone or computer device, as they are the minerals used in making computer chips. Huge deposits sat underneath the village where Father Vincent served, and warring factions in the Congo wanted access to.
To do so, they killed people, lots of people in what has been called the ‘Blood Minerals’ conflict, and Father Vincent had dedicated his life to spreading the word about the slaughter through his graphically honest blog on the Internet.
Eleven members of the 2015-16 Assumption College women's soccer team traveled to Haiti over the winter break to volunteer their time working with children in the impoverished country. This marks the second year in a row that members of the women's soccer team have been involved with the project, in conjunction with the Hands Together organization.
The eleven Hounds to make the trip increased from four last year and include Paige Radomski (Kingston, Mass. / Silver Lake Regional), Meg Campbell (Springfield, Mass. / Cathedral), Katie Bealka (Freetown, Mass. / Apponequet Regional), Caroline Arnold (Foxboro, Mass. / Bishop Feehan), Nikki Callini (West Springfield, Mass. / West Springfield), Kelsey Pietruska (Durham, Conn. / Mercy), Tayla Morais (Taunton, Mass. / Taunton), Amanda Arnold (Saco, Maine / Thornton Academy), Carolyn Cook (South Hamilton, Mass. / Hamilton-Wenham Regional), Kallie Villemaire (Plattsburgh, N.Y. / Beekmantown) and Rose Lipinski (East Bridgewater, Mass. / East Bridgewater Jr-Sr).
Hands Together is a nonprofit organization devoted to educating, inspiring and encouraging people to understand the importance of responding to the needs of the poor and disadvantaged. The organization has several project locations, including Hands Together Catholic Schools.
WORCESTER – With snow swirling around the shivering crowd that came out for the occasion, Assumption College officials Monday afternoon broke ground on a new academic building on campus.
The planned 60,000-square-foot building, the college’s first major construction project since the Testa Science Center a dozen years ago, is expected to open in the fall of 2017.
Slated to go up between Fuller Hall and the Hagan Campus Center, the center is more than just a new addition at the school, Assumption’s President Francesco C. Cesareo said in his address. It's also “a visible manifestation of the centrality of the intellectual life of the campus and a manifestation of the mission of the institution,” he said.
Described by college officials as “state of the art,” the new academic center will feature seminar rooms, common study spaces, and a 400-seat performance hall equipped with high-tech acoustic systems. It will also contain 13 classrooms designed for “group-based learning” rather than traditional lecture-based instruction, said the project architect, Stephen Van Dyke of Nault Architects Inc. in Worcester.
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