The following was emailed to me. It is a letter from the Redemptoris Mater Seminary in Galilee and addressed to friends of the seminary. The RMS in Galilee is producing many fruits.
Nowadays, Satan wants priests to stay home and to be comfortable inside the parish. But Pope Francis, the Vicar of Christ, says this is not the way of the Lord. The way of Jesus Christ is to go outside of the parish. It is to GO, not stay comfortable in your parish, in your homeland, evangelizing through the Internet in the comforts of your living room. The way of Jesus is to go outside and meet the people face to face.
The RMS in Galilee sends out itinerants and priests in the surrounding areas of the Middle East. This is what the devil hates. The goal of Satan is to destroy seminaries that produces many priests. Our brothers in Galilee face more violence and persecution that we do in Guam, but God is faithful. Satan has not prevailed in closing the RMS in Galilee so he attacks the Christian seminarians and priests in the Middle East. It was beautiful to see the entire NCW in the Middle East stand together as one at the 50th anniversary in Rome.
The RMS in Guam was also supposed to send out itinerants and priests to the Pacific region.....a region sorely lacking in priests. Guam had experienced the same pain as our brothers in the Pacific as they look for priests. Previously, Guam had to borrow priests mainly from the Philippines. After RMS was erected in Guam, it produced 17 priests and many more could have been ordained. Satan is angry at seminaries that produces priests, which is why he attacked the RMS in Guam. However, God is faithful. The death of RMS in Guam only produced more life elsewhere. The first community of Palau was born and a new community in Saipan was also born. Satan cannot stop God's will in evangelizing the Pacific region. Our Guam seminarians are also being ordain as deacons and priests in the United States. May God bless them as they GO out, bringing the love of God to all people.
Prot. n.216.2018 Korazym,nMay, 24, 2018
Dear friends of the Seminary,
in this period in which, as the liturgy proclaims, we have lived a day of immense joy in the city of God (Hymn of the lauds of Pentecost), we could not forget all of you that have accompanied us, supporting our mission in the Holy Land through the comfort of your prayers and the solicitude of the help, which the Providence, through your generosity, has never failed us. In fact, celebrating the descent of the Holy Spirit on the apostles, we live in the joy of the fulfillment of the paschal promises, which the Lord gives us to transmit in our mission in the Middle East, in times more than ever marked by violence and painful conflicts.
On May 5, we had the joy of meeting Pope Francis in Rome, together with 500
brothers and sisters from the Holy Land and from the Persian Gulf countries along with 150,000 brothers and sisters from all over the world, on the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of the birth of the Neocatechumenal Way in Rome. The Holy Father confirmed us in the faith and among with many other things he told us in the mission, spoke to us these wonderful words: “The mission asks to leave. But in life there is a strong temptation to stay, not to take risks, to be content with having the situation under control. It is easier to stay home, surrounded by those who love us, but it is not the way of Jesus. He sends: «Go!». He does not use half-measures. He does not authorize reduced transfers or reimbursed travel fare, but he tells his disciples, to all his disciples, one sole word: «Go!»”.
Pope Francis thus concluded: “Dear brothers and sisters, your charism is a great gift of God for the Church of our time. We thank the Lord for these fifty years: a round of applause to these fifty years! And, looking at his paternal, fraternal, and loving fidelity, do not ever lose trust: He will guard you, urging you at the same time to go, as beloved disciples, to all peoples, with humble simplicity. I accompany you and encourage you: go forward!”. It is truly wonderful to see how a small seed planted in 1968 by the initiators of the Way has become today, by the power of God, a lush tree that extends its own branches throughout the entire world. The Holy Father has then sent 34 new missio ad gentes and 25 communities on mission in the suburbs of Rome.
During Easter time, we continued our work of sustaining the churches of the Middle East, by helping the parishes and celebrating with them throughout the different rites, not only here in Galilee and in the rest of Israel, but also in Palestine, Cyprus, Jordan, Kuwait and Bahrain. This is in fact, where some of our seminarians are living their time of itinerancy, announcing the Gospel to the Arab and other Christian minorities, often made up of immigrants having gone there to look for work and who live in difficult conditions, by which it is essential for them to live the faith in a community.
In these days our seminarians, apart from completing the last exams session of the present academic year, they are also preparing the event of the priestly ordination of three brothers, Sliman from Israel (the first Arab-Israeli to be ordained), Miguel from Spain and Marek from Poland; an ordination that we will have the joy of celebrating on June 16th. The presbyters formed in our seminary will thus reach thirteen. Among them, Paolo our vice-rector in the seminary, Carlos and Leandro who are in mission respectively in Kuwait and in Jordan; while Cristian, Juan David and Rodi are parish priests, Matheus and Giovanni are parish vicars, and Juan Manuel is secretary of the auxiliary bishop of Jordan, meanwhile Davide is finishing his studies for a license in Theology in Rome.
As you can understand from the news we send you, the work that the Lord is
accomplishing through this seminary is extending more and more. While we are amazed that despite our unworthiness, the miracle of evangelization is renewed before our eyes, just as it occurred the first time on this mountain: “The eleven disciples, in the meantime, went to Galilee, on the mountain that Jesus had indicated to them. Go therefore and make disciples of all peoples, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you every day, until the end of the world”. (Mt 28, 16.19-20). We ask the Spirit that you can rejoice and taste a little these “first fruits” through our letters of the Seminary, to the glory of God and to the service of the Church, which you also have helped to sow. May the Lord give you a hundredfold for your generosity and may He bless you together with your families! We are praying for you!
The formators of the Seminary,
Fr. Francesco Giosuè Voltaggio
Fr. Paolo Alfieri
Fr. Germano Lori
Fr. Antonio Martin Carrasco
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