La Salette The Americas

Open Door, Open Hearts in Montreal’s La Salette Church

Editor: The following are two articles concerning our Parish Church of Notre-Dame de La Salette in Montreal, Canada, in its city center. It was established in 1953 and has been serving the area Catholics. It is now planning to rent its Parish Hall on weekdays to Open Door, a drop-in center for the homeless. This article joins two different articles on the same subject.

A church basement on Parc Ave. will soon become the new home for the Open Door, a drop-in centre for the homeless that has been operating out of a former Anglican church in Westmount since 1988.

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In Tough Times, The Tough Get Going

No parish expects to be the site of a natural disaster. This was true for Mary Queen in Friendswood, Texas, located about 20 minutes south of Houston. Although a number of creeks run through the city, parishioners never anticipated what happened in August 2017, when Friendswood received 56 inches of rain during Hurricane Harvey.

Stepping in to Help

In response, Mary Queen became one of the many churches that worked to address the immense challenges presented by the floods. Though the community maintained electricity, and the water supply was not contaminated, thousands of homes were flooded, and the streets were only accessible to boats for many days.

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An Artistic Eye to Draw People to La Salette Retreats

Just mention the name “La Salette Shrine” to anyone who grew up within a stone’s throw of the iconic Attleboro, Massachusetts site, and they’ll most likely identify it with Christmas and the Annual Christmas Festival of Lights.

But one of the best-known pilgrimage destinations within the Fall River Diocese offers events and programs year-round and is “much more than just the lights at Christmas,” according to Father Bernard Baris, M.S., director of the La Salette Retreat Center.

“There’s a lot of potential here and a lot of things people can participate in,” Father Baris said. “Some people don’t know what goes on behind the scenes. During Lent we heard over 3,000 Confessions. Some people, for whatever reason, don’t want to go to their own parish priests, but they come here. I think it’s the anonymity.”

Since becoming director last year after serving at the actual apparition site in France for two years, Father Baris has made it his mission to get more people to come to La Salette between January and November. And so he turned to his old friend and associate director, Father Flavio Gillio, M.S. for help.

In his capacity as associate director, Father Gillio has been honing his computer skills and using his natural artistic talents to create in-house promotional materials and eye-catching “digital art” to call attention to the 36 new programs they’ve launched at the retreat house this year.

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The Beginnings of the La Salette Mission Field in Argentina

Editor: (This is a reprint of an article from “Our Lady’s Missionary of May, 1939.) Fr. Michael Kolbuch, former pastor of St. Mary's, Ware, Mass., and (then) head of our Polish Province, had opened a promising mission field in the Argentine Republic. Like all other enterprises of Father Kolbuch, this pioneering venture bore witness to his indefatigable zeal.

While making his way back to the United States from Argentina on board the S.S. Uruguay, he officiated at the Memorial Mass for the late Pius XI. In March and April of 1938, after having returned to the United States, he spent time preaching several missions and renewing old acquaintances. The following account from his own pen reveals the extent and importance of the new foundation.

Having learned that very many Polish immigrants in Argentina were deprived of spiritual assistance due to the lack of priests, I undertook to make a special survey of religious conditions there in the hope of establishing a few centers of apostolate for our Fathers.

Accordingly, in April, 1936, I set out for that country, taking with me Fr. Father Sudyka who, God willing, would settle at some post awaiting reinforcements. The voyage from Poland to Argentina took twenty-six days. Two more months were spent visiting the country which is ten times the size of France.

It was a tiresome and arduous journey. We were warmly received, however, by their gracious lordships of the Archiepiscopal Sees of La Plata, Rosario, Santa Fe, and Cordoba. In each of these archbishoprics, I was invited to open mission centers as soon as the men and the means were available. Heartened by this welcome, I returned to Poland leaving Father Sudyka at Villa Dominico, a mission post confided to us by the Archbishop of La Plata.

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La Salette in Enfield, New Hampshire – The First Years

Editor: This article was written with the use of “Memoirs” of Father Elméric Dubois, M.S.,
 
The following is a translation, and in some places, an adaptation of passages selected from the fascinating Memoirs of Father Elméric Dubois as well as from the notes of Father Wilfrid Boulanger, M.S., dealing with Enfield foundation. Fr. Dubois has established several events about it, but he is interested in personalities, especially that of Father Zotique Chouinard, M.S. Father Dubois does not present himself as an historian but he seems to have an historian’s talent and predisposition. With as much objectivity as possible, he describes the people, relates the facts, recalls the events, specifies the details and is able to distinguish between the essential and the secondary.

An Impressive La Salette Cross

Within his splendid memoirs, Father Dubois, at some point, cites this passage from another historian for us to enjoy life a little segment taken from life of Enfield in 1928.

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La Salette Beginnings in Brazil

Editor: This article with its initial impressions of Brazilian culture and faith was written in 1934.

As in every other frontier land, but especially in a land of chaos and murder such as this, deeds of terrible violence dogged the trail of colonization, there being no such thing in the early days as civil authority or judicial force… Marcelino has a scarlet history… and if only a part of what is said can be believed, surely the curse of Cain is marked indelibly upon it.

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La Salette in Bassfield, Mississippi

Editor: Reaching back in time, we produce the original article about the beginning of our ministry in Bassfield, Mississippi in 1936. The remarks of Fr. Bernard Reilly were startlingly poignant. In fact, in the true missionary spirit, the La Salette Missionaries did not take a stipend from this impoverished parish and its missions during our years of service in Bassfield.
On September 1, 1935, the Missionaries of Our Lady of La Salette took charge of St. Peter's Church, Bassfield, Mississippi, in the Diocese of Natchez, at the kind invitation of the Most Reverend Bishop Richard Oliver Gerow, D.D. Reverend Bernard Reilly, M. S., a native of Waterbury, Connecticut, and formerly pastor of St. Patrick's Church, Lufkin, Texas, has been appointed pastor and director of the new foundation, with Reverend Francis Lundgren, M. S., of Bristol, Connecticut, as Assistant. 

Dear Father:

In your last issue, you mentioned that the La Salette Fathers were taking charge of a new foundation at Bassfield, Mississippi. Lest you have any false impressions of this place, I would like to tell you a few experiences of our first days in Mississippi. 

To begin with, I was rather skeptical of the sort of welcome we might receive when the people should find out that both Father Lundgren and I are Connecticut Yankees. The parish, you know, is in the heart of the old South – in Jefferson Davis County, suh (that is, “sir” in southern dialect)! I had half resolved to forget the land of my birth and simply tell the people I came from Texas.

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New Retreat Center Director Comes Full Circle

When Father Bernard Baris, M.S., was named director of La Salette’s Retreat Center in Attleboro, MA., in May of 2016, he found himself back in familiar territory.

“Ever since I could remember, I wanted to become a priest,” recalled Father Baris. “My grandparents used to come every Sunday to the shrine, be part of the Liturgy processions and all that, and so I grew up hearing nothing but La Salette. When it came time for me to make a decision to follow my vocation into the priesthood, it was natural that I would be part of La Salette.”

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National Native American Parish

On July 14, 2017, Isabel and I went to the Sycuan Indian Reservation to celebrate the 35th anniversary of the founding of the Parish of St. Kateri Tekakwitha on the day when the Church in the United States celebrates the solemnity of St. Kateri.

We are inspired to put a small part of the story of this parish into the public domain of the La Salette Missionaries because it is in their hegemony that this dedication took place.

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La Salettes in Argentina

Editor: Eugenia is a committed member of the group of La Salette Associates in Attleboro, Massachusetts and speaks Spanish and English.

This following brief 50-second video is from the Diaconal Ordination of Bro. Diego Diaz, M.S. (shown below in this article), with the imposition of hands of Auxiliary Bishop Pedro Torres, on November 6, 2016 at the Regional House of the Missionaries of La Salette in Cordoba, Argentina. His mother vests him after his ordination as a deacon.



We had the wonderful experience of attending the meeting of the La Salette Missionaries and Laity in Cordoba, Argentina from January 23-31, 2017. Traveling with Fr. Ray Cadran of the Provincial Council, we had a pleasant and uneventful 15-hour journey from Attleboro.

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