Assembly week!
The province assembly kicks off this evening with the jubilee celebration at Sacred Heart Monastery / Sacred Heart Seminary and School of Theology.
Eighteen SCJ priests and brothers, representing 690 years of religious life will be honored. They include Fr. Jan de Jong, Fr. Richard MacDonald, Fr. Anthony Russo and Fr. Frank Wittouck (60 years); Fr. Nick Brown, Fr. Leonard Elder, Fr. Tim Gray, Fr. Paul Grizzelle-Reid, Fr. Wayne Jenkins and Fr. Dominic Peluse (50 years); Fr. Robert Naglich (40 years); Br. Duane Lemke, Fr. Vien Nguyen, Fr. David Szatkowski and Fr. Chuck Wonch (20 years); and Br. Clay Diaz, Br. Long Nguyen and Br. Brian Tompkins (10 years).
Fr. Ed Kilianski, provincial superior, will preside; Fr. Bill Pitcavage will give the homily. Be sure to check the province Facebook page for photos of the evening.
The first full day of the province assembly begins tomorrow (June 6) at 8:30 a.m. with morning prayer. Speakers will include a few new and a few familiar faces. Young Hoang, Ph.D., will talk about “personality exploration,” appreciating God’s gifts, as well as social media and professional boundaries, and the joy of community through multiculturalism. Sr. Norma Pimentel, MJ, and Barbara Graham (both of whom work with immigrants) will give presentations on migrant issues. Sr. Norma runs a welcome center at Sacred Heart Church in McAllen, Texas, which has helped over 20,000 immigrants. Click here to learn more about her in a feature done by ABC News.
Grant Silva, Ph.D., who was well received at the assembly last year, will return to speak on “The Role of Community in the Immigration Debate: The Positive and Negative Connotations of Community.”
The assembly continues until noon on Friday. Photos and updates will be on the province Facebook page throughout the week.
Letter for the feast of the Sacred Heart
“Give drink to those who are thirsty, food to those who are hungry” is how Fr. Heiner Wilmer’s letter for the feast of the Sacred Heart begins.
“If we open our eyes, we see people who are hungry and thirsty in the physical, intellectual and spiritual sense,” wrote the superior general. “We see people starving in the hidden battlefields of our civilization: children growing up without regular nourishment, victims of sexual abuse… Others are the old people, abandoned … whole villages are constantly at risk of being made extinct, the infant mortality rate is high. They have no chance of escaping death, as there is no drinking water, or the wells are contaminated. They thirst for water, for life, for a future…
“Some are grieving because of the loss of a partner; they become sick with grief or fall into depression. Their solitude crushes them; no one sees their hidden tears. They are hungry for somebody who has time to listen to them. They are thirsty for hope and faith. They tend towards God. They yearn for a Savior, to Him whose love is never exhausted, whose heart never tires to take care of another.
“Following in the footsteps of Fr. Leo Dehon, we already have an answer, that is, many of our collaborators, men and women, friends and benefactors, and we Dehonians. Together we have already decided to be near to those who are hungry and to assist those who are thirsty. Some we know are on their way to becoming part of the hungry and the thirsty; others are hidden and silent. For the Feast of our God, who has a Heart for the world, whose mercy knows no boundaries, we would like to say: What you live and do fills us with deep gratitude. Your solidarity with the thirsty and the hungry is for us an inner stimulus and a cause for joy.”
Click here read the superior general’s letter in full. It is available in English, Italian, French, Spanish, Portuguese, German and Polish.
Sacred Heart novena
For nine consecutive days before the feast of the Sacred Heart on June 23 you are invited to join in praying an intercessory novena inspired by the writings of Fr. Leo John Dehon.
Starting June 14 and running continually until June 22, an email reflection will be sent from the Dehonian Associates Office. Each email will contain a short reflection and two invocations by Fr. Dehon that accompany a prayer seeking the intercession of the Heart of Jesus.
EVERYONE who receives the weekly Dehonian Spirituality mailing will be added to the Sacred Heart Novena mailing list.
Click here to sign up others for the mailing.
Feast-day celebration
Sacred Heart Monastery will once again host a celebration for feast of the Sacred Heart. At 10:00 a.m. David Schimmel, director of Dehonian Associates, will present “Friends of the Heart of Jesus, Mentors of the Dehonian Family.” The feast-day Mass will be in the Sacred Heart Chapel at 11:00 a.m. SCJs will be invited to renew their vows during the celebration. A luncheon will follow.
Please call the Province Development Office at 866-268-0157 if you plan to attend so that they can get a head-count for the luncheon.
Lakota children connect with their roots
Every spring since 2009, four vehicles have set out from St Joseph’s Indian School in Chamberlain, and split into two groups of about a dozen seventh graders on a six-day field trip to visit the roots of their Lakota heritage, to stand in legendary places where their ancestors stood and to learn about them and their significance to the Lakota people.
Click here to read an article about this year’s trip published in the Native Sun News Today.
Latest newsletter from the Dehon Study Center
Click here to view the lastest newsletter from the Centro Studi Dehoniani (Dehon Study Center) in Rome. Topics include information about the July Theological Conference in Indonesia, structural perspectives on the Dehonian Family, the release of a new website for archived issues of the Dehoniana magazine, three recently completed theses with a Dehonian focus, and the release of a new issue of Dehoniana.
Please remember…
Sr. Mary James “Gus” Griffin, OP, 75, died May 29. After serving for many years as a teacher and pastoral minister in Wisconsin, Iowa and Illinois she was hired in 1990 by Sacred Heart Southern Missions to work with Catholic Social Services in Tunica, MS. Among other things, she initiated a housing program for low-income people to educate them and to build and own their own homes.
Insurance cards
The new auto insurance cards for the 2017-2018 calendar year will be distributed to members of the US Province this week. Most cards will be sent to local superiors for distribution. Those not living in a community will receive their cards by mail.
Please do not destroy the old insurance cards until after June 15, 2017, when the new cards take effect.
If you have questions, contact Kevin Stanke at 414-427-4270 or provtreas3@usprovince.org.
Construction underway
Construction of the Fr. Gregory Bezy Volunteer House in Holly Springs, MS, is well underway, despite Mississippi’s wet spring. Above is an aerial photo of the site. The structure will house volunteers for Sacred Heart Southern Missions.
In Wisconsin, work begins today on the construction of a chapel for the new novitiate property. Located in the Town of Raymond (about a 15-minute drive from Sacred Heart Monastery), the remodeling will also create more bedroom space.
It is hoped that most of the work will be done when the next novitiate class arrives in August. Fr. Byron Haaland is novice master.
Closing shots
Both of our closing shots involve St. Martin of Tours parish in Franklin. The first is of the parish’s 2017 confirmation class. Once again our own Bishop Joseph Potocnak administered the sacrament. Fr. Yvon Sheehy is pastor of St. Martin of Tours and Fr. Joseph Thien Dinh is associate pastor. Former pastor Fr. Tony Russo was also present for the confirmations. They are pictured with the confirmands in the top photo.
In the second photo, Fr. Wayne Jenkins, province archivist, is pictured with students from St. Martin of Tours school who were recently on a day of reflection at Sacred Heart Seminary and School of Theology. Fr. Joseph Dinh accompanied the group of fifth, sixth and seventh graders. The students asked questions about artifacts from the missions and from the earliest days of the SCJs’ presence in North America.
