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Month: November 2015

Comfort and Joy: Witnessing Hope during Suffering

Editor’s Note: As part of our “Comfort and Joy” Advent/Christmas blog series, Mark LaBelle, a seminarian and friend of FMS, shares how an experience during hospital ministry deeply affected him and allowed him the opportunity to be a witness to hope. “You are one of the most amazing people I’ve ever met.” Sure, we had only been acquainted…

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Advent 2015: Comfort and Joy

All the preparation and waiting of the Advent season leads up the moment when Christ enters the world. In the hustle and bustle of it all, we see in the quiet stillness the image of a mother and child which brings to mind something we see so little of in our world today: tenderness. This…

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Eleven

Editor’s Note: Missioner Maeve Gallagher describes what it was like to see the first graduating class at Valley of the Angels school in Guatemala.  My high school graduation was fairly unremarkable.  I walked across the stage alongside 500 other students feeling relief that I soon would be leaving the Midwest.  For me, graduating high school…

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Chopped Week

Editor’s Note: After going over budget on groceries one week, the Casa San Salvador community decided to take a creative approach to meal planning.  Living in a house with 12 people has been quite a unique experience, particularly in the realm of cooking. One week, the community tried a different approach to meal planning: Chopped week.…

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Class 31 Commissioning

At the end of August, our missioners-in-training all arrived at the Casa San Salvador mission house in Washington, DC to begin formation training with Franciscan Mission Service. During the next three months, they would attend classes on scripture, Franciscan spirituality, and cultural sensitivity together. Through all of this, in the classroom and out, a group of acquaintances…

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Peace Within, Peace Without

Editor’s Note: Missioner-in-training Janice Smullen shares her experience of volunteering with Little Friends for Peace during her time of formation in Washington, DC. “If peace is what every government says it seeks, and peace is the yearning of every heart, why aren’t we studying it and teaching it in schools?” Coleman McCarthy The mission of…

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A Unique Approach to Mission

Editor’s Note: Missioner-in-training Erin McHugh looks back on the past three months of formation in Washington, DC and looks ahead to how she will apply her experiences to her time on mission. Wow, it is hard to believe our formation in DC is coming to an end, but I will never be completely formed. While…

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Dancing in the Dining Room

Editor’s Note: Missioner-in-training Catherine Sullivan shares her experiences of community life and how living with 12 other people has impacted her.  The two most talked-about aspects of our Formation are classes and volunteering. But what has been most formative for me during this process is living in intentional community. As many people know, Saint Francis…

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Celebrating St. John Paul II

Editor’s Note: Missioner-in-training Aubrey Kimble shares her experience celebrating the October 22 Feast of John Paul II at the Saint John Paul II National Shrine in Washington, DC I hate to say that I didn’t know very much about JPII before Formation. I heard that he was a great pope, but I never really thought to go…

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St. Martin de Porres

Editor’s Note: On the feast day of St. Martin de Porres, missioner Patrick Montine shares more about the saint and how St. Martin’s life still challenges us today to live more intentionally and more deeply.  On the 3rd of November we celebrate the feast day of St. Martin de Porres, one of my favorite saints.…

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God of Fall Colors and Torrential Downpours

Editor’s Note: Missioner-in-training Allison Dethlefs reflects on the week she and her classmates spent in Ossining, NY, for the annual Collaborative Formation Gathering (CFG), a joint training with Maryknoll Lay Missioners and the Society of African Missions. The scenery in Ossining was absolutely breathtaking. While I loved meeting the missioners from other programs and growing…

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