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NORTH AMERICAN COMMISSION ON REDEMPTORIST
SPIRITUALITY
Minutes of the Meeting of Feb 3-4, 2004
New Smyrna Beach, FL
Present at the meeting in New Smyrna Beach, FL were: Ray Corriveau, Tom
Santa, Ray Tremblay, Peter Bui, Sam Maranto, Jack Smyth and John Murray.
The meeting opened at 9:30 on February 3, 2004.
We began by discussing the connection between the members of the commission
and the committees in the individual Provinces.
The Provincials suggest a single calendar for the entire North American
Region as to what is going on and what is available and open to other
Provinces. The calendar would help avoid conflicts. John Murray will oversee
the calendar, to be put on our Internet site. It will be a calendar for many
years, and also include the events planned by the Roman Spirituality
Institute. The calendar would basically be an Information Clearinghouse. We
will put on the calendar "Prayer and Spirituality" Retreat out of Picture
Rocks Retreat House. A second Session is scheduled, but the entire program
will be restructured.
Picture Rocks is establishing a Redemptorist library and is looking for
resources. They have the ability to transfer audio files and video files to
CD and to the Internet site for the North American Spirituality Commission.
Picture Rocks is also hosting a "Preaching Plentiful Redemption" workshop
with Dennis Billy. They will also host an "Institute of Contemplative
Ethics" with Dennis Billy, Steve Rehrauer and Brian Johnstone from September
19 - October 1, 2004 and January 3 - 14, 2005.
Ivel Mendanha will preach the retreat at New Smyrna from May 10 - 12 on
Plentiful Redemption.
The Extra Patriam Vietnamese Vice-Province will have their annual retreat
in Vietnamese from October 18-22 in Picture Rocks. They will also host their
annual pilgrimage to Mary in Houston from June 4 - 6, 2004.
George Darlix will preach a retreat at Ste Anne de Beaupre Province from
February 16 - 20, 2004. The Ste Anne de Beaupre Province also had some
Provincial Days in November in French. They have a taped copy of Terry
Moran's retreat at Cap Rouge.
John Murray and Ray Corriveau will send their audio tapes to Tom Santa in
Picture Rocks in the spring, so that he may transfer them to CD for the
Internet.
Kevin O'Neil will preach a retreat on Redemption for the Toronto Province
from October 18 - 22, 2004. We will try to schedule the same retreat for the
Baltimore Province in the spring of 2005 and in the Denver Province in the
Fall of 2005. Then we can promote the retreat as one package coming out of
the North American Spirituality Commission.
The North American Spirituality Commission will sponsor a Pilgrimage to
Italy and Redemptorist shrines from August 31 to September 8, 2004. The
brochure should be mailed out within a few weeks. This pilgrimage is in
connection with the centenary of the canonization of St. Gerard. It will
involve tours of Marianella and Pagani, Materdomini and Rome. We should make
sure that this retreat is announced in Redemptorist in Action through Vic
Ottenlips, Director of Development for the Denver Province.
Jon Hansen, C.Ss.R., has agreed to set up The North American Spirituality
Commission Web Site. The site will be a link on the Redemptorist Site for
North America. It will have capacity for audio, video and text files. A
single Web Master with someone to manage the site and possibly people
contracted to input files onto the site. Tom Santa volunteered to put many
of these tapes on an audio file that could be accessed through our Internet
Site.
We will also write to Felix Catala telling him how helpful Charism 2000
and Charism 2001 were. We will ask him to send us the unfinished third
edition of the Charism booklets, so that we may rework it for our Region. We
should ask help from someone who was involved in the writing of the first
two Charism Booklets. Mike Brehl helped in writing it.
Tom Santa is planning to put together a Reflection Book on the theme of
the General Chapter, "Living Plentiful Redemption."
We hope to clarify the relationship between our Regional commission and
the Institute for Spirituality in Rome. What are they doing this year? Can
they supply us with material? What is their mandate? We should make known to
them our needs. Perhaps the Regional Coordinators should come to Rome to
coordinate their efforts.
Tom Santa also talked about the importance of contact between the
Formation Secretariat and this Spirituality Commission. Sam Maranto
suggested an intense, two month program in Rome before Final Vows, perhaps
by language groups.
We broke for lunch, and reconvened at 2 PM.
Kevin O'Neil has been contacted, and is willing to preach his retreat on
Redemption for the Baltimore Province, probably in May, 2005, and for the
Denver Province, probably in Fall, 2005.
During the break we also e-mailed Ivel and Felix asking for a copy of
Charism 2003. We would rework it for possible use by the North American
region. We would also resubmit it to Felix Catalα and Ivel Mendanha. Ivel
responded that Felix is in Rome and will have to send us a copy of the third
edition of the Charism booklets.
Jon Hansen said that he can have the Internet site up within a few weeks,
but it would not be able to handle audio files. Tom Santa may be able to set
up a link to his server in Tucson to transfer cassettes to CD and the put
audio files on the link.
We then had an animated discussion on the Vows, which was also an
important discussion at the General Chapter. Sam felt that we should
concentrate on poverty, while Tom Santa felt that obedience and corporate
responsibility was the bigger issue. We also talked about the importance of
an ongoing conversation on this issue.
Charism 2000 and Charism 2001 took us to a deeper level and more important
questions. If we are able to rework the next Charism booklet, we should look
to discussing on a deeper level the importance of the vows.
Sam felt that we need to rethink the vision of the Redemptorists. A new
spirit of collaboration in the Congregation. We need more specific focus on
who we are. We are becoming One Redemptorist Congregation, but still with
huge differences between the bodies.
Tom Santa talked about the "Learning Committee" that meets at Picture
Rocks after reading some Redemptorist document and then discusses it.
What have we as a commission accomplished thus far. Four items:
1. Pilgrimage to Rome
2. Kevin O'Neil's retreat
3. The Internet site
4. A calendar as clearing House
With regard to budget, we talked about the cost of constructing the site and
loading the files onto the server. We decided to ask the Provincials for
$3000 to cover expenses having to do with the Internet. We will use the
servers in Sudbury and Tucson.
We then talked about criteria for files that would be put on our Internet
Site. The piece should contribute to Redemptorist Spirituality or examine an
aspect of Redemptorist Spirituality. It would mainly be a resource site from
official or government resources. We would not accept contributed articles,
but only pieces that we choose and are sponsored by Rome or one of our
Provinces.
We met again on Wednesday morning at 9:30.
We talked about text files that we want on our Internet site. We begin with
these items:
Lasso's talks on Spirituality (Tom Santa will see to this.)
Instrumentum Laboris (Jon Hansen will see to this.)
Mike Brehl's talks on Redemption in Scripture (Ray Corriveau will see to
this.)
Electronic files of Charism 2000 and Charism 2001 (John Murray will see to
this.)
Durwell's Purpose of the Congregation (John Murray will see to this.)
Recent Circular Letters (Sam Maranto will see to this.)
Sean Wales retreat at the General Chapter (Jon Hansen will see to this.)
Minutes of the meetings of the North American Spirituality Commission (Jon
Hansen will see to this.)
Recent Prayer Services (John Murray and Tom Santa will see to this.)
We should send our articles to jon.hansen@redemptorists.ca
A further question is who will maintain the site and keep it up to date. We
will talk about that in October. We also prepared a sample Internet Page for
Jan Hansen, with a menu bar on the left hand side of the page.
Everyone should come with a complete bibliography of their Redemptorist
Resources on a computer disc for the October meeting.
Next meeting of the North American Spirituality Commission will be October
26-27, 2004 in West End. Please fly into Newark Airport and take New Jersey
Transit to Long Branch and take a taxi to the Retreat House or call John
Murray at 917-364-9244.
The agenda will include
Report on Pilgrimage to Italy
Report on Charism 2003
Report on Internet
Kevin O'Neil's retreat on Redemption.
Formation issue
Conversation on the Vows today.
We also scheduled a meeting at Picture Rocks Retreat House on February 7 -
8, 2005.
Father John Murray, CSsR |