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- Mission Mentions -
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Mission Blessings

There are many days of special blessings in our mission lands. In January, some parishes bless and distribute calendars for the New Year. On February 2, candles and seeds for spring planting are blessed. Also on this day, the Feast of the Presentation, the families bring their image of the Christ Child, dressed in new clothes, to the church to be blessed. May 3, is celebrated in Mexico as the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, although this feast is celebrated on September 14 in other parts of the world. In Mexico, this is a special day to celebrate construction workers. Each family brings a decorated cross to church to be blessed and put on top of their house or over their door. May 15 is the feast of St. Isidore, and a special day to bless work animals. Goats, oxen, and cattle are decorated with flowers and taken to church to be blessed by the priest. And so on throughout the liturgical cycle the days of blessing abound. One blessing which our missionary priests particularly keep in mind through all the days of the year is the blessing our co-missionaries confer on them by their prayers and alms. Without these sturdy friends of the missions, no missionary priest could complete the work God asks of him.

Father Seguin reports that construction on the church in barrio Olaya is going well. The tile floor in the church has just been laid. Easter was celebrated in the Church and six boys who are preparing for first communion were baptized. The church lends itself for celebrations. The people in the parish are raising money to buy plastic chairs for seating. They still do not have funds for putting up the bell tower which will include the confessional and badly needed storage space. But more important there are no funds for the rectory and formation house for receiving candidates to the community.

The parish center now includes a dining room for 120 children who have breakfast and lunch in the center, a room equipped with industrial sewing machines where 80 women are studying each week. A group of women use the same space for making school uniforms for the local schools. There is also a community store where the poor can buy basic foods at cost. There is also a room which includes the community library which will include very soon space for an internet service.

New Basilian Ordained in Colombia

This January brought with it a beautiful start to the New Year and a new priest for the Basilian Congregation – Father Juan Carlos Rojas Ramos was ordained at La Parroquia de Nuestra Señora de La Asunción, Cali (Valle), Colombia.

Nuestra Señora de La Asunción is the home parish for Juan Carlos. He attended the Basilian school there.

Juan Carlos was an Altar Boy in the Parish of Neustra Señora de la Asunción and knew the Basilians from the time they arrived in the Parish. His parents are very active in the Parish. His father is a lector and his mother is a member of the choir.

After ordination, Juan Carlos proceeded to celebrate a whirlwind series of first Masses in Barrio Andres Sanin and barrio August the Seventh in Cali, then in Huila, the home town of his father Pitalito, then in Bogotá and in Medellín, at Blanquizal, Olaya, Porvenir, Fuente Clara, and finally in Colinas de Calasanz. He is very much at home at the altar and preaches well. Now stationed in Medellín, he is in charge of the Ministers of Communion and with them he visits and anoints the sick. He is also in charge of the preparation for Confirmation and the preparation of the weekly reflection for the small base communities.

Juan Carlos is shown below standing with Father Frank Amico. In the back, left to right, are Father Raphael Lopera, one of the General Counselors of the Congregation, Father Vince Thompson, and Father Pedro Mora.

Fellow Basilian, Archbishop Michael Miller, now serving in Rome as the Secretary of the Congregation for Catholic Education, flew in to perform the ordination.

It was a very happy day for Juan Carlos and his proud parents.

Father Ken Decker, Basilian Superior General, poses with the three new scholastics. Father Decker flew in for the ordination from Canada, and a number of other Basilians came from other countries to welcome their new Priest.