Regional Day of recollection in the USA

The date was Thursday April 11th, 2013 in which the USA region had scheduled a day of recollection

Everyone started to show up by 8:30 am at Ascension Parish for coffee and pastries offered by Fr Bob Perelli, traffic being a daily issue in San Diego was not an obstacle and by 9:00 am, Associates and incorporated after the friendly signs of friendship and community we were assembled and ready to start.

Fr Pierre Drouin started his presentation on the Latin Rules and guided the reflection on the love St John Eudes had for the word of God and how such love had a deep impact in his writings and specially in the life of the community as he shared the Latin Rules. At the same time he gave us a chance to reflect on the situation of the people of the 1600's and how St John Eudes wanted to give as much as possible of the word of God to the people which was not widely distributed nor understood.

After two very nice presentations we then prepared ourselves to celebrate the Eucharist in which we had planned to renew promises of incorporation and Association taking advantage of the presence of the whole Region and of Father Provincial. Fr John Howard as regional presided the celebration inviting us to remain the footsteps of our founder, and Fr John also took advantage of the moment to invest Father Ricardo Chinchilla as the new superior for the san Diego community.

We then welcomed four new members into Association, they are: Sandy, Aida and Lan and also our dear friend Fr. Dickens also as priest entered association, the four of them had been sharing for a while with us in our activities and we were very honored to know their desire to enter Association. As San Diego Community, we are very happy to receive them and to share our life and ministry being a part of the Congregation of Jesus and Mary. 

After all this, it was time for some lunch, which became a nice moment to continue our sharing with a tasty Mexican food menu to complement the morning so full of activities and reflection we just had.

We had plenty of time to share after lunch about our projects, life and ministry in the region as father John Howard gave the necessary reports on the present state of the region, and we see a plethora of opportunities for ministry in our parishes and for the region in the future; in order to face those challenges and opportunities we have taken a step to make the planning easier, we instituted a new local community for those living in Chatsworth, therefore the USA region now has two local communities: Los Angeles and San Diego.

Needless to say, we can feel the hand of the Lord guiding us in the region and we see the providence as new opportunities arise in the near future in the fields of formation, mission, associates. For the time being, we work to solidify what we have, but we also open our spiritual eyes and ears to be open to the will of God and rise up to challenges in the spirit of the risen Christ.

  Let us therefore give ourselves

to God with a great desire to begin to live thus,

and beg Him to destroy in us the life of the world of sin,

and to establish His life within us.                                                     

  St John Eudes

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