Season of Creation Resources
Here is the link to the website with all the resources for the preparation and implementation of the Season of Creation activities: promotional, liturgical, etc… Deepen your Season of Creation experience by taking advantage of these free resources. Your event will have a bigger impact if the community is engaged and inspired. We invite you to use these resources to share the word with your church, invite the bishop or other regional authority to join the celebration, and even take the word to audiences outside your church by reaching local news outlets. Please feel free to use and adapt these materials any way that suits you. Resources
Message for the care of Creation
MESSAGE OF HIS HOLINESS POPE FRANCIS FOR THE WORLD DAY OF PRAYER FOR THE CARE OF CREATION 1st September 2024 Hope and Act with Creation Dear Brothers and Sisters! “Hope and Act with Creation” is the theme of the World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation, to be held on 1 September 2024. The theme is drawn from Saint Paul’s Letter to the Romans (8:19-25), where the Apostle explains what it means for us to live according to the Spirit and focuses on the sure hope of salvation that is born of faith, namely, newness of life in Christ. 1. Let us begin with a question, one perhaps without an immediately obvious answer. If we are truly believers, how did we come to have faith? It is not simply because we believe in something transcendent, beyond the power of reason, the unattainable mystery of a distant and…
The art of collaboration
From Sr. Maite Oiartzun – Nshimirimana, Burundi Based on my experience, collaboration is an art. In the Trinity, source of inspiration and creativity, we are invited to contemplate the collaboration between the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. The bond that unites them is Love: “As the Father has loved me, I also have loved you. Abide in my Love… so that you bear fruit and your fruit endures.” John 15:9-16 Collaboration solely focused on human strengths is faced with fatigue, discouragement and sometimes the temptation to resign because collaboration can become a difficult mission. To persevere, I need to be rooted in the collaboration that Jesus of Nazareth developed with the disciples and with all of Creation. I note that three conditions are important for good collaboration: having a common objective, personal and group motivation and the deep desire to engage in a dynamic of giving…
Perpetual vows of Iwona Cholewińska
« All that I have and call my own You have given it all to me. To you, Lord, I return it. Everything is yours » St Ignatius of Loyola Missionary Sisters of Our Lady of Africa together with the Cholewinscy family joyfully invite you to the perpetual vows of Iwona Cholewińska which she will pronounce solemnly on Sunday 8 September 2024 during the Eucharist at 12.00 noon in the parish church of the Sacred Heart of Jesus in Boby, Poland
The opening of a new foundation: The Ouarzazate community in Morocco
Sr. Maria Carmen Ocón Moreno, Sr. Rehema Toiwoki Kimesera, Sr Angela Kapitingana and Sr Maria Julia Alonso Martinez From Sr. Rehema Toiwoki Kimesera and Sr. Maria Carmen Ocón Moreno We are delighted to share with you that the official opening of the Ouarzazate community took place on Sunday 14 July. The ceremony took place in the only church that exists, St. Therese which is attached to the sister’s house. The Eucharistic celebration was presided over by Cardinal Cristóbal López Romero and, curiously, it was the only time since we have been here that there were no people other than the sisters, in this case our Congregational Leader, Sr Angela Kapitingana and Sr Maria Julia Alonso Martinez representing the NOUA leadership team and ourselves. It was probably a sign of how we are called to live our missionary presence in this place, with discretion and simplicity, but with great…
Collaboration with other Congregations
Ms. Marina van Dalen, coordinator of The Netherlands sisters, reports on the collaboration in the “Worldhouse” in Boxtel Since a few years we have several Medical Mission Sisters (MMS) living in our care home “the Worldhouse” and in the adjoining apartments of the Molenhof. This year they are 12 MMS Sisters and thus more numerous than we are, as three Sisters passed away in 2024 and only nine MSOLA are left. From the beginning we had a good working relationship with them. Our lay workers also take care of the MMS sharing in the cost of course. This is also to our advantage; we can keep our staff because of this collaboration. We also take care of 2 Assumptionist Fathers with the same conditions. Over the years we got closer with each other and got to know one another better. The MMS are also missionaries and many…
“House of Generosity”
For Sr. Valérie Kaboré, Hydra Parmentier, Algeria, collaboration takes the form of mutual aid, solidarity, partnership… I would like to share with you my experience at a day care for people with Alzheimer’s disease and related illnesses and their family caregivers. It is a work of the Archdiocese of Algiers which began in 2015. I joined the team in June 2019 and have taken charge of its coordination since 2020. It is the only center of its kind in all of Algeria. The small team is made up of a cook, a speech therapist, a psychologist and three social care assistants. We welcome sick people, members of their families and occasional volunteers during the day. We also open our doors to interns, psychomotor therapists or speech therapists and everyone else. Finally, we have a partnership with health professionals such as doctors (geriatrician-neurologist-psychiatrist), physiotherapists, associations, professionals from other professions…
The history of the Mijikenda tribes, Kenya
“It is the study of the language that will help you to understand the people with whom you relate. We need to make ourselves similar to them, by adopting their external way of life, their clothes, their food, their nomadic life, their language; by being in a word, all things to all people to win them to Jesus Christ. Eat their food, learn their language and dress like them.” Words of Cardinal Lavigerie the founder of the Missionaries of Africa and the Missionary Sisters of Our Lady of Africa. From our Sister Xaverine Mukatabaza from the Malindi community in Kenya Dear Sisters, Brothers and Friends, Greetings of peace. It is my joy to share with you a bit of the history of Mijikenda tribes found along the coast of Kenya. This is a place of first evangelization. The Muslims are more numerous than Christians. There is also…
Meeting on trafficking in Nouakchott
On Saturday June 8, in Nouakchott, we invited some of our friends, collaborators and parishioners to our community to participate in a meeting to share and raise awareness on migration and human trafficking. We were 22 participants. There were also 17 children who were present with their parents and one of our parishioners took care of them with games and songs. We had two resource persons: Ms. Fofana Dikel, migration project manager at Caritas Mauritania, spoke to us about migration, starting by defining this word, giving the different types of migration and ending with some concrete examples of what is experienced in Mauritania and all the dangers of illegal immigration. Our Sr. Begoña Iñarra, who intervened by Zoom from Spain, highlighted the general aspects of human trafficking: how to detect possible victims of trafficking, how to act towards them, what organizations work against trafficking in the destination…
“Bare feet, bare hands” Collaboration in mission
From Sr. Mariette Macozi, Kinshasa, DR Congo Since 2001, our Kinshasa community has collaborated with the SVD Fathers (Divine Word) in the mission of supporting children living in the street. This bond was forged thanks to three of our sisters who preceded us in the work of Reclassification and Protection of Street Children (ORPER in acronym). Sister Anosiata Keneema and I continue the apostolate initiated by our Sisters in this structure which has been in existence for more than 43 years. We are welcomed and fully integrated in this. Arriving in Kinshasa in 2021, I was sent to work at ORPER where I easily integrated into social work serving street children. At the local level, collaboration takes place as a work team where each educator makes their contribution to the success of the mission which we carry out together. The center manager, who is like the eye…