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A New La Salette Deacon - Bro. Joseph Lamartine Eliscar, M.S.
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| Bishop Holly with Bro. Lamartine , family & guests |
The Diaconate Ordination was celebrated on January 9th, 2010 at the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, DC with seven other religious order candidates for deaconate.
Fr. Joseph Bachand, M.S., La Salette Provincial, was a principal concelebrant. The ordaining prelate and homilist was Most Rev. Martin D. Holley, Auxiliary Bishop of Washington, DC. Some 60 priests and 20 deacons participated in the celebration.
Read more A New La Salette Deacon - Bro. Joseph Lamartine Eliscar, M.S.
La Salette's call to Youth: a Vital Youth Ministry at the National Shrine
by Peg Ormond
La Salette's Call To Youth:
A Vital Youth Ministry at the National Shrine
“Come Near, My Children”
During her apparitions at La Salette, Lourdes and Fatima, Our Lady chose to meet with children. Their innocence and guile were very convincing in communicating her message and, as she commissioned them at La Salette, in making her message known. The attention the Beautiful Lady gave to her two witnesses at La Salette was extraordinary. From her opening words, “Come near, my children, do not be afraid”, to her great respect during the apparition, she allowed the children to be children. Fr. Normand Theroux, MS, in his article on The Essential Qualities of a Reconciler, mentioned that “Maximin was so much at ease in the presence of the Mother of God that he played with pebbles with his shepherd’s stick. She never reprimanded him or asked why, in this solemn moment, he
was not paying attention. Also Maximin did not remember the incident at the field of Coin, so she gently
prodded his memory and spelled it out for him at length.”
Read more La Salette's call to Youth: a Vital Youth Ministry at the National Shrine
The La Salette Charism and Today's Laity
La Salette Challenges Us…
From her solitary mountaintop the Mother of Christ summons the whole church in the person of two young unsuspecting, unchurched and unschooled representatives. Her conversation there with fourteen-year-old Mélanie Calvat and elen- year-old Maximin Giraud is a teaching moment for all the Lord’s faithful. It offers an in-depth critique of our way of looking at our world. It challenges us to give up the comfortable security of the noncommittal observer and would break our habit of going with the ebb and flow of a runaway history.
Maximin and Mélanie were invited to look at their world, at the reality around them: drought, famine, rotten potatoes, wormeaten grapes and walnuts, blighted crops — and the resultant death of little children, disdain for God, religious indifference.
Facing an insecure future, many inhabitants of those mountains blamed God. Their vision of God was a vengeful God, not a God of love. Mary invites the young herders to purify their notion of God by taking another look at the events in their world. “Don’t you understand, my children? Let me find another way to say it. . . . Have you never seen blighted wheat? Do you say your prayers well? If the harvest is ruined, it is only on account of yourselves.”
These words show, more than ever in the long span of human history, that we need to ask ourselves where humanity is headed. Where are we going? How are we preparing for what the future might hold? She shows us a God who, like her, walks beside us, involved in the many details and dimensions of our daily lives – like Maximin’s father faced with an uncertain tomorrow, concerned that he might soon be unable to feed his children.
La Salette News: Making It Known
La Salette News: Making It Known
(PDF file)
Topics include Attleboro Shrine blesses Welcome Center, La Salettes in Myanmar assist with results of Cyclone Casualties, Hartford Seminary Chapel celebration, Come and See weekend
The Miraculous Letter: What One Parishioner Can Do
No one was cured on the spot because of the “Miraculous Letter.” However, it is quite likely that many will reap the benefits in the future because this tiny mustard seed, this “moment of grace,” fell on fertile ground. Divine inspiration probably stimulated Kate Maloney, an ordinary parishioner of St. Ann’s Parish in Marietta, Georgia, to write a simple, two-page letter of gratitude for the help she had received from her parish priests during the event of the untimely death of a family friend. And, as they say, the rest is history.
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William Kaliyadan: with roots and wings
“Good parents give their children roots and wings,” observed Jonas Salk, thediscoverer of the polio vaccine, “roots to know where their home is and wings, so they can fly away and exercise what’s been taught them.” Dr. Salk apparently knew a lot, not only about diseases, but about families. And if he were to meet Father William Kaliyadan, a La Salette Missionary and the Pastor of Sacred Heart Parish in Lebanon, Salk would recognize a bright example of his wisdom.
by Cathy Chesley, Photography by Sarah Jane von Haack
Our Light Must Shine
We morn the loss of Father John “Mike” Blumm, MS who died on Friday, January 16, 2009 in Sulphur, LA. He was born in Buffalo, NY in 1919. While still young his father, seeking employment, moved the family to Detroit, MI. The family moved into the parish of Our Lady of La Salette in Berkley on the outskirts of Detroit. Here John learned the significance of his birth date – he was born on the feast of Our Lady of La Salette, and it was easy to remember the date – 9/19/1919. He attended the parish school, and was the first La Salette vocation from that area.
During his years in Hartford, CT as a La Salette seminarian, he got the nickname “Mike.” Living in New England, where almost everyone was either a Red Sox or Yankee fan, he was an anomaly because he was an avid Detroit Tigers’ fan. So the guys began calling him “Mike” after one of his idols, Mickey Cochrane, manager of the Tigers.
He made his profession on February 2, 1940, and was ordained on May 26, 1945.
From Infantry to Seminary
From Infantry to Seminary By Barbara R. Bodengraven
According to Philip Salois, M.S.,
it began with a prayer in the jungles of Vietnam 6 years ago
One La Salette’s story of spiritual healing and ministry following the battlefield
A Cast of Thousands
If the truth be told, the 4,300 teens and their chaperones who came to the La Salette Shrine for either of the two weekends in July 2007 had great fun—while praying, sharing, listening and learning. Is it another La Salette miracle? Some would agree.