The following missionaries will arrive for this year’s Lenten retreat:  Fr. Marcin Szafors and Fr. Slawomir Dworek OMI.  Fr. Szafors will stay until September and will be a summer replacement in our parishes.  Fr. Dworek, on the other hand, will return to Poland after Easter.  The Lenten retreat schedules have been mailed out to all our houses.

Provincial Fr. Janusz and Fr. Wojciech Kowal made a canonical visit to Our Lady of Czestochowa parish in Wilno from January 21-22.  They met with the Parish Council and a great number of the parishioners.  Fr. Janusz also met with the dean and priests from neighbouring parishes.  Their visitation report will be presented to the Provincial Council in an effort to arrive at a definitive decision on whether our Province should work at this parish in the future.

A reminder:  The next Toronto District meeting will take place on February 17, 2006 at St. Maximilian Kolbe  Parish.  The meeting will start at 10:30 AM.  This day will mark the 180th anniversary of the approbation of our Rules and Constitutions.

From February 4-6, the Provincial will make a canonical visit to St. Casimir’s Parish in Vancouver.  Provincial Council member Fr. Andrzej Sowa OMI will accompany the Provincial.

The next Provincial Council meeting will take place from April 24-28, 2006.

A Training Manual on "Building JPIC Groups in the Parish Level" is now available at the web site of the General Service of Justice, Peace and Integrity of Creation (GS-JPIC).  The Book is very helpful for pastors and lay parish workers interested in forming JPIC Groups in their communities.  The authors of the Book are Sean O'Leary and Zukile Den and the three Sponsors of the wonderful work are the Justice & Peace Department of the Southern African Catholic Bishops Conference, The Lumko Institute and the Rural Development Support Program. (The work is being popularized by the SVD - JPIC and it will soon be published in several languages.)  Simply go to www.omigen.org/jpic and click the appropriate title at the Home Page...

The following Oblate confreres in our Province will be celebrating their birthdays in February.
We would like to wish them all the best.

v      February 5th                Fr. Stan Kowal, OMI                 

v      February 14th              Fr. Wojciech Wojtkowiak, OMI

Happy Birthday!

VOCATION SEMINARS

As was mentioned during our Provincial meeting held during Study Days, we will soon be commencing a vocations drive in our Province.  Our two young vocations directors, Fr. Mieczyslaw Burdzy and Fr. Marcin Rosinski will be traveling to all our parishes and will be delivering homilies geared towards attracting vocations.  They will also meet with the youth at least on two occasions.  The issue of vocations is one of our most important tasks.  Father Provincial outlined this issue in detail in a letter to our Province.  Below is a timetable for the vocations drive:

“Zas.” = replacement in the respective parish!

We remember the following deceased confreres:

v      February 12th            Fr. Frank Kosakiewicz, OMI

Eternal rest grant unto them O Lord.
And may perpetual light shine upon them.
May the souls of the faithfully departed through the mercy of God rest in peace.

 

We request information regarding various important events so that we can inform the rest of the Province on an ongoing basis.  Please send news to provincial@omiap.org