Salesians Commission Ten Missionary Volunteers

By Fr. Mike Mendl, SDB

(New Rochelle, NY – August 20) – The Salesians of the New Rochelle Province commissioned ten lay missionaries during Evening Prayer on Thursday, August 14, in the chapel of the Don Bosco Retreat Center at Haverstraw, N.Y.

The five men and five women had completed three weeks of orientation for mission, including fellowship, prayer, paperwork, cultural preparation, introduction to St. John Bosco and the Salesian charism, recreation, and some practical experience in St. John Bosco Parish in Port Chester, N.Y. The final week was a retreat alongside two dozen Salesians at the retreat house, August 10-16.

Fr. Dominic Tran presided at the commissioning, assisted by Adam Rudin, director of the Salesian Lay Missioner program.

The ten Salesian Lay Missioners are Ambroise Curutchague, 23, of Bakersfield, Calif., who will serve as a teacher at Don Bosco Agricultural Training College in Lufubu, Zambia; Nathaniel Devlin, 20, of Moline, Ill., also sent to the school in Lufubu; Emily Durr, 22, of Cincinnati, will serve as a clinic nurse at the Palabek, Uganda, refugee camp; Edwin Feliberty Jr., 37, of Jersey City, N.J., will join the staff of the National Shrine of Mary Help of Christians in Haverstraw, N.Y.; Alexandria Foos, 25, of Westerville, Ohio, will work with young girls at the Instituto Maria Auxiliadora in San Pedro Sula, Honduras; Douglas Hinman, 30, of Littleton, Colo., will teach English at the Don Bosco Institute in Alexandria, Egypt; Jennifer Lopez, 26, of Austin, Texas, will serve first in Madrid and then in Bangkok; Angel Nuñez-Arce, 20, of Chicago, will assist with youth ministry and music at Don Bosco Prep in Ramsey, N.J.; Sueshai Perez, 27, of Austin, T.X., will serve alongside Jennifer in Madrid and Bangkok; and Eileen Ramirez Quintana, 27, of Buckeye, Ariz., will teach English in Phnom Penh, Cambodia.

Fr. Dominic took his homiletic cue from the one-verse Scripture reading of Evening Prayer, Romans 8:30. That verse, he said, suggested John Calvin’s doctrine of predestination. But, he said, St. Paul’s wider context notes that God’s plan preceded creation and leads up to God’s predestining us to belong to him through Jesus Christ. The verse highlights Mary’s role in God’s plan. Her Assumption into heaven points to the call all of us have received as God’s children.

God has a plan for each of the lay missioners, Fr. Dominic stated, wherever they may be going. The Catholic understanding of God’s plan includes human freedom. We pray that God’s plan will go to and be fulfilled in all places on earth.

God’s Word is always alive and active, he continued. He told the volunteers that God has destined them to be missionaries of the Word, and, as bearers of the Word, to bring hope and life to the poor. This is God’s plan of love. “You are to be the instruments of God’s plan and God’s love,” Fr. Dominic told the ten women and men.

Explore photos on Shutterfly of the commissioning and the SLM hike!