Fr. Rudy Nowakowski OMI was admitted to the hospital on Saturday February 18 with an irregular heartbeat.  The doctors did some procedures on him in order to put his heart back on the right track.  Fr. Rudy is now at Queen of Apostles and is resting.  Please be sure to keep him in your prayers.  Because of this, Fr. Rudy has been given leave of absence until Easter to recuperate from his illness.  The Provincial has named Fr. Sławek Obłąk OMI Acting Director of the Retreat House.  We wish Fr. Rudy a speedy recovery and we thank Fr. Sławek for accepting this new responsibility.

On the occasion of the 50^th anniversary of the founding of Assumption Province in Canada, the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate are organizing two pilgrimages this autumn to give thanks to the Lord for the gift of vocations and the many graces received by our Province, as well as to pray for its current needs.  The first pilgrimage will be to France and will take place from October 16-28 and will include a visit to the tomb of our Founder, St. Eugene de Mazenod; to Aix-en-Provence, Avignon, Toulouse, Lourdes and also Santiago de Compostella, Spain, and Coimbra and Fatima in Portugal. The second pilgrimage will be to the Holy Land from November 14-23. Fathers who have not yet visited these places will be chosen to lead the pilgrimages.  I ask each of you to please promote these pilgrimages in your respective parish bulletins over the upcoming months. 

We ask for your prayers for Hubert Hartman, who is gravely ill with leukemia.  He is the brother-in-law of Fr. Antoni Mendrela.

In October of last year the Provincial sent a letter to the Province in which he touched upon many issues relating to the 50th anniversary celebrations in our Province.  At the same time he asked all our Oblate houses to select candidates who through exceptional personal dedication to our Congregation could possibly have the title of Honorary Oblate bestowed upon them.  The selection of candidates would have to be done in accordance with our Administrative Directives.  We received many nominations which were then passed on with the candidates’ biographies to our Superior General for approval. Today we wish to inform you that Father General has given his approval to the naming of the following candidates as Honorary Oblates:

Bozena Adamiec, Brampton

Mark Garczynski, Provincial House

Bruna Gumieniak, Retreat Centre

Irena Kostecka, Edmonton, Our Lady Queen of Poland Parish

Henryk Skibinski, Toronto, St. Casimir’s Parish

Liliann Smith, Sturgis, SK

Rose Zareski, Provincial House

The ceremony during which the above individuals will receive the Oblate cross and be named Honorary Oblates will take place during our Congress.  We sincerely congratulate all those who have been selected as well as the communities to which they belong.

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

The following Oblate confreres in our Province will be celebrating his birthday in February. We would like to wish him all the best.

v      March 15th                Fr. Tuan Pham, 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      March 5th            Fr. Jozef Cieply, OMI

v      March 21st           Fr. Stanley Baderski, OMI

v      March 24th          Fr. Antoni Bagsik, 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