Serra Club of Grand Rapids Newsletter July, 2010

Calendar of Events.


July 1, 2010. Feast day of Blessed Junipero Serra. Fellow Serran Hon. Dennis Leiber passes along this message he received from another fellow Serran: Thanks be to God for today's feast remembering Blessed Junipero Serra! May God's blessings be with you today and every day as always! Mary, Mother of Vocations, pray for us. Darryl Ross
July 12, 2010. Luncheon Meeting, 12:00 Noon at the University Club. Mark Thomson of St. John's Home is tentatively slated as our speaker.
July 19, 2010. Board Meeting, 12:00 Noon at the University Club.
July 26, 2010. Prayer Service and Luncheon Meeting, 12:00 Noon at Sacred Heart.
September 2-5, 2010. Serra International Convention, Anchorage, Alaska. Please note our board nominated and approved John Osterhart as our club's delegate to the International Convention and Dennis Leiber as alternate. So far Grand Rapids Serrans planning to attend are Dennis Leiber (and Margaret), John Osterhart (and Ellen), and Dan Grady, who serves on the International Board.
October 8-10, 2010. Regional Convention, Cincinnati, Ohio. Archbishop Dennis M. Schnurr invites us to join the Serra Club for a weekend of prayer, worship, education, recreation, and socialization with Serrans and friends to grow in our ability to promote vocations. The convention will feature Brian Patrick, host of the SonRise Morning Show on Cincinnati's Sacred Heart Radio and anchors the EWTN series, "Crossing the Goal; inspirational speaker Matthew Kelly, and Fr. Jay Scott Newman, passionate priest and pastor of St. Mary Church in Greenville, S. C. Call 1-800-445-8867 for hotel reservations. Remember to mention the UCS code for the special rate of $115 per night for Friday and Saturday nights.
Extra-Serra Events. The Consolata Missionary Sisters invite us to a Liturgy of Thanksgiving celebrating the 100 anniversary of their Foundation on Saturday, July 17 at 11:00 a.m. at Assumption BVM Church, Belmont. Celebrant will be The Most Reverend Walter A. Hurley. Reception will follow. Please note the article on the Consolata Missionaries following the Priests' Anniversaries column.

July Anniversaries.
Reverend Raymond Bruck 7-20-1958
Reverend Peter Chukwu 7-3-1993
Reverend Lawrence King 7-8-1989
Reverend Lam Le 7-10-2004
Deacons: Manuel Herrera, 7-3-1977 and David Kasprzyk, 7-12-1981.
Lee Sullivan, our Serran in charge of sending the anniversary cards, received the following note from Father Fred Hoesli of Holland: Dear Friends in Christ, Thank you for your greetings and those of the Serra Club. Please continue to pray for vocations. God Bless, Fr. Fred

Laborers for the Harvest. (The Gospel for the weekend of July 4) tells the story of sending out the seventy-two, some of the first disciples in the burgeoning church. They must have been full of idealism and excitement as they went from town to town healing the sick and expelling demons. Today, the Fourth of July, we remember those who founded our country and can also imagine their excitement and idealism as they worked in this newly established country. Our Church, now over two thousand years old, is still in need of men filled with idealism and excitement who are willing to answer the call to the ordained priesthood. Today is a day to pray for vocations to the priesthood: as the Lord tells his disciples, "(A)sk the master of the harvest to send out laborers for his harvest" (Luke 10:2).

The Consolata Missionaries...is a religious congregation of priests, brothers, and sisters dedicated for life to missions abroad, based in Turin, Italy where they were founded by a diocesan priest Fr. Giuseppe Allamano. Fr. Allemano was born at Castelnuovo d'Asti (near Turin) on January 21, 1851. In 1866, feeling a call to the priesthood, he entered the diocesan seminary, where he prepared himself with great dedication and intensity, in order to become not only a good priest, but a holy one.
A turning point in his life was his appointment as Rector of the main Marian Shrine of the diocese of Turin, the Consolata Shrine. The picture of Our Lady of Consolata, of Byzantine style, representing the Blessed Virgin Mary sitting with the little Jesus on her lap, is venerated since ancient times in the city of Turin. A very ancient tradition of an icon of the Consolate, hidden somewhere in the city of Turin, had been kept alive among the faithful in the city for many centuries.
In 1104, John Ravais, a blind man from Briancon, France, in a dream had a vision: buried under the ruins of an old church, he saw a painting of Our Lady. It was revealed to him that the site was in Turin, and that through him Our Blessed Lady would again be honored in that place. She also promised him that his sight would be restored. He journeyed to Turin as the vision directed. The excavation works began at the site: upon the blind man's urgings the crowds brought picks and shovels and uncovered first the remains of an old chapel and then the undamaged painting of Our Lady, the Consolata icon. It was June 20, 1104.
Deeply moved by the miracle of the recovery of the icon and the healing of the blind man, the citizens of Turin rebuilt the little chapel into a large shrine where they have continued through the centuries to venerate Our Lady of Consolata.
The devotion to the Consolata was given added impetus when Pope Leo XIII, consenting to many requests, established a proper Mass and Office of the Consolata, to be celebrated in the Diocese of Turin each year on June 20. On May 8, 1902, the first four missionaries, two priests and two lay brothers, left for Kenya, soon to be followed by others. They were helped by the Vincentian Sisters of St. Joseph Cottolengo who worked side by side with them. Later on, urged by Pope St. Pius X, on 29 January, 1910, he founded the Consolata Missionary Sisters. Father Allemano consecrated to the missions the rest of his life even though he carried on his usual ministry as a priest of the diocese of Turin...
Source: Catholic Dictionary, retrieved June 28, 2010
The International Congregation of the Consolata Missionary Sisters was founded ten years after the founding of the Consolata Fathers. Today the congregation boasts of 746 members worldwide, with 700 finally professed, 38 juniors, and 8 novices.
The Sisters carry on their missions in a number of countries throughout the world:
in the United States, the Dioceses of Grand Rapids, Saginaw, and Birmingham, Alabama; in South America in Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, and Venezuela; in Europe, in the UK, Italy, Portugal, Spain, and Switzerland; in Asia in Mongolia; and in Africa in Dubouti, Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania, Mozambique, and South Africa.
"Today," write the Sisters, "we engage in a style of mission that is rooted in the Trinity, source of transformation and communion. We pattern our style of mission on the ways of Jesus and the faithfulness of Mary Consolata, sharing God's consoling love with all people."
Source: AllAfrica.com: Kenya: Consolata Missionary Sisters Clock 100 Years, retrieved June 28, 2010.



Another Thank-you Note. Treasurer Pat Leikert received the following note from John Woodward of Serra International:
Dear Serrans: On behalf of the Board of Trustees of the Serra International Foundation, I wish to thank you for your recent contribution. Your gift of $500 is deeply appreciated, and Ralph Hauenstein will be honored at Mass by Most Rev. Timothy M. Dolan, Serra's Episcopal Advisor.
You will be pleased to know that your gift will help make possible an increase in your Foundations's annual grants to seminaries and houses of religious formation around the world. Since 1951, financial support from your Foundation has enabled many young people to discern and respond to God's call to serve the Church in priestly ministry or consecrated religious life.
By helping Serra to provide future generations with priests and consecrated religious, your gift will touch many lives and many souls.
May God bless you abundantly for your generous support of theSerra International Foundation. Mary, Mother of Vocations, pray for us!
Sincerely, John Woodward



Church Bulletins. Membership Chair Aggie Kempker-Cloyd requests bulletins from our respective parishes. If you have not already done so, please remember to bring yours to our next meeting.



A Message from our President.
My Fellow Serrans:
I was recently reviewing the web site of the Indianapolis Serra Club and they describe in their club history that:

"Fr. Richard Muller, our first chaplain, and Robert Alerding, our fourth club president, attended the 1954 Serra International Convention in Grand Rapids, Michigan, where Bob Alerding gave one of the convention talks."
I personally remember our own Dr. Matt Andrea relating how fulfilling it was for our Grand Rapids Club to host an International Convention in 1954. He inspired us to accept the challenge of hosting a Regional Convention in Grand Rapids in 1998 to celebrate our 50th anniversary of chartering our club. It was a wonderful event that brought our membership together to accomplish many good things. I now ask our board and members if we can host another Serra Regional Convention in 2013 to celebrate our 65th anniversary? I believe it would infuse energy into our club and allow us to share an informative weekend with our fellow Serra clubs. We would need to act soon to secure the 2013 Regional Convention.

I will again ask all members to consider attending theSerra International Convention in Anchorage, Alaska from September 2-5, 2010 and/or the Great Lakes Regional Convention in Cincinnati, Ohio from October 8-10. To register for the Regional, go to http://wwwcincyserravocations.org/

Finally, I hope everyone was able to recognize Blessed Junipero Serra upon his feast day of July 1. A wonderful article about Father Serra was included in the Spring 2010 edition of Serra USA, and I found the following information particularly interesting (probably because of my legal interests):
"With a keen awareness of the possible mistreatment of the Indians by the Spanish military and by others migrating among them, this Franciscan missionary studied the writings of Bishop Bartolome De Las Cassas, OP, who earned the title "Protector of the Indians." He also acquainted himself with the Laws of the Indies of the Spanish Crown so that he would be ready to take legal action in defense of the Native people should it ever be needed. Sad to say, it was! When abuse did occur, without hesitation, in 1773, Fr. Serra made a dramatic appeal to the viceroy, traveling at great personal cost to his health all the way to Mexico City to present his carefully documented "representacion." So effectively did he present his case that it resulted in a kind of "bill of rights" for California Indians, the first significant legislation ever to address the question of human rights in California.
Dan LaVille