Recently, our candidate, Armando, visited Harvard University in Cambridge.

They say that if you rub the foot of John Harvard's statue, you will study at the university some day!

The Harvard College Project on Purpose And Values in Education (PAVE) has partnered with Assumption College to promote opportunities like the SOPHIA Initiative, a co-curricular program at Assumption that asks its students to consider “big questions” of meaning, value, and purpose.

Harvard’s Project on Purpose and Values in Education (PAVE) chose to link with Assumption’s SOPHIA (SOPHomore Initiative at Assumption) program because of SOPHIA’s focus on liberal education for traditional-age college students; commitment to the education of the whole person; and its nurturing of a thoughtful and reflective stance toward the problems and challenges faced by individuals and society.

Through its website, the PAVE Project highlights 24 colleges and universities committed to providing students with opportunities for vocational reflection and the pursuit of purpose in one’s life. Its focus is on identifying and promoting promising programs that encourage reflection of meaning, purpose, and values and that have demonstrated influence on students’ moral growth.

Assumption is the only central Massachusetts-based institution featured by PAVE.

For 5 days during the Octave of Easter, a group of professed Assumptionists in the Philippines (priests and brothers), with 2 Oblates Sisters of the Assumption, had a retreat on "Brotherhood (Sisterhood)" with our Assistant General John Franck in Baguio City. Father John preached on the salient features and implications of "Brotherhood" as contained in the Letter of our Father General, Benoit Griere.

The retreat, thanks to Father John, gave new light to our understanding of "Brotherhood (Sisterhood)" in the Assumption putting emphasis on "community" as our "1st apostolate."

I'd like to express my deep gratitude to my brothers and sisters in the Assumption and to God for all these grace-filled days in Baguio City. And I'd like to express this especially through these impressions I got during this Easter Week!

“Never having to deal with bureaucracy alone”

(The following article by Paul de Theux first appeared in the April 2015 issue of L’Appel, pp. 12-13).  In 2001 a team of volunteers from the Brussels neighborhood of Koekelberg, under the leadership of the Assumptionists, launched an innovative initiative: accompanying individuals in need as they went through required administrative hoops to receive social services. The idea, simple though it may have been, answered a real need. In 15 years this non-profit organization, called “Accompagner” (“Accompany”), has lent a hand to more than 5,000 people. At the 2011 general chapter of the Assumptionists it was named one of 7 'mobilizing works' of the institute, works that, by virtue of the nature and quality of their work, serve as flagship ministries deserving of widespread support and imitation throughout the Congregation.)

Interviewer – Would you share a bit about your background: family childhood, early education etc.?

Bro. Ryan – I was born in Colorado but later our family moved to Chicagoland where I attended a Lutheran primary school. After high school I attended the University of Illinois and studied Economics and German. Following this experience, I enrolled as a seminarian at Concordia Lutheran Seminary in St. Louis. However, after a deeper study of Luther’s teachings, I realized that I had a different view of theology. However, it was several years later while teaching English in Ukraine, I encountered the Catholic Church through a friend. I immediately began reading about the Church and started meeting with a priest in Kyiv. Shortly thereafter, I was received into the Church on Easter 2009. Several months after that, I moved to Worcester from Kyiv in order to spend a year living with the Assumptionists.

– Where and how did you meet the Assumptionists?

– My relationship with the Assumptionists began in 2009 when I did volunteer work in Worcester while living with them. It also gave me the opportunity to experience religious life and learn to love chanting the Divine Office. I also profited from living with members of the congregation who influenced me significantly. In particular, Fr. Richard Lamoureux, A.A. our novice master, has been an inspiring example for me.

Dear Friends,

Here is the latest piece of news that we received about our kidnapped brothers who have been missing for more than 2 1/2 years. The following item originally appeared in French not long ago on the website of a radio station in Bukavu, a large city in the eastern Congo, south of Goma.

"http://www.radiokivu1.org/index.php?action=emissiondetail&emission=Actus%20du%20Kivu&tokene=14&token=1430718459#

It would appear that the three Assumptionist priests kidnapped in Mbau are dead!!!

Abducted the evening of October 19 between 9-10 PM from the parish of Our Lady of the Poor in Mbau in the district of Beni, Fathers Jean-Pierre NDULANI, Edmond KISUGHU and Anselme WASUKUNDI had refused to convert to the Islam of the terrorist forces of the ADF/NALU (Allied Democratic Forces/National Army for the Liberation of Uganda, two Muslim-inspired rebel groups opposed to the current government in Uganda).

According to an ex-ADF woman rebel who spent 18 years in the bush with Jamil MUKULU (the main figure of this rebel group, a former Catholic who converted to Islam), these priests were kept in an underground prison in the Medina area (eastern Congo near Beni) where their heads were beaten with hammers and died three days after being taken into captivity."

On Sunday, April 12, 2015, His Eminence Luis Antonio Cardinal Tagle, archbishop of Manila, celebrated Mass at Assumption College in Manila, an institution run by the Religious Sisters of the Assumption, on the occasion of the golden jubilee of religious life of three of the sisters in the community.

Before the Mass he greeted some of the Assumptionists present (left to right --- Fr. Bernard Holzer, the superior general's delegate for Asia, Fr. Gilles Blouin, vocation director, and Fr. John Franck, assistant general).

He took this opportunity to thank Fr. Gilles for his many years of service to the Filipino Church. Fr. Gilles has been given a new assignment in Nairobi, Kenya, where he will be leaving shortly to join the formation staff at the Assumptionist international house of theology in the Kenyan capital. In the past, Fr. Gilles has worked at the Assumptionist community at St. Peter-in- Gallicantu in Jerusalem and in various assignment in his native Quebec, including shrine director, vice-provincial, campus ministry, and ecumenical work.

On May 2, 2015 — a day of great joy — Brother Ronald Sibugan, A.A., was ordained to the priesthood by Bishop Robert McManus in front of a standing room-only crowd at the Assumption College Chapel of the Holy Spirit.

An Assumptionist for ten years, Father Ronald — a campus minister at the College and vocation director for the Congregation — was joined by his parents, who visited the United States from Manila for the first time in their lives to be with their son on this special occasion.

On Saturday, March 21, 2015, the bishop of Rancagua, Chile, Most Rev. Alejandro Goic, ordained two Assumptionists brothers, Jorge Rojas and Alejandro Godoy, to the diaconate in the basilica of Our Lady of Lourdes in Santiago. Many fellow religious and a large crowd of lay friends and parishioners attended the ceremony to pray for these young men and show their support.

Br. Manuel Alejandro Godoy Vásquez, born on April 28, 1980, in the city of Santiago itself, is the son of Manuel Fernando and Ana Magdalena. Alejandro has one brother, Pedro, and two sisters, Ana María and Claudia. Alejandro began his Assumptionist formation as a candidate in 2006 in the Chilean capital, completed his novitiate in 2009-2010, and started theology studies in 2010 at the Universidad Católica de Chile. He was then asked to join the Assumptionist mission in Riobamba, Ecuador, the community of Nuestra Señora del Chimborazo, where he has worked ever since in two Assumptionist parishes, especially involved in youth and vocation ministry. He recently completed his theological studies at the Franciscan seminary in Quito.