A monthly letter from the Glenmary Vocation Office

June 2008

Glenmary Connectedness

The Christian search of the Holy Spirit often begins with others and it can also lead one to others. Our decisions and our Christian witness are seldom, if ever, private acts. These past few weeks I have witnessed how others connect to Glenmary and how those who are becoming Glenmary missioners connect with others.

On May 23, Dennis Makokha renewed his Glenmary Oath for a third time. Students, employees, Glenmarians and friends were all present to witness this great act. A native of Kenya, Dennis is our pioneer student and hopefully will be our next ordination. He clearly presents hope to our missions, to other students and for the future of Glenmary. His act of profession was not an individual act, but a public act for the sake of the Kingdom of God.

Three men—Aaron Wessman, Craig Digmann and Crispine Ouma Adongo—professed the Glenmary Oath for the first time on May 24. Their families and an amazing number of folks from our Oklahoma, Arkansas and Kentucky missions joined them. These three men just finished their third year of formation and their apostolic year in mission. It is clear their search for the Holy Spirit was nurtured by their families and friends and has nurtured and encouraged the people they have served in the home missions. It is a long drive from Oklahoma (where Crispine spent his apostolic year in mission, to Cincinnati and yet many came. Again these are not private movements of the Spirit, but public witness to the power and generosity of God. These are moments that bless Glenmary, these men and those living in the home missions.

On May 27, six donors and friends of Glenmary met with the Vocation Department to reflect on ways to increase vocational awareness of Glenmary in the Greater Cincinnati area. Glenmary has touched each one of these folks in small or great ways. Several are daily worshipers at Our Lady of the Fields Chapel at our Cincinnati Headquarters and others have been connected with Glenmary since the 1960s. They each expressed a willingness to spread the message of Glenmary and offered to do more. Their search of the Spirit has crossed paths with Glenmary’s living out the Spirit and all are stronger because of it.

Two Glenmary aspirants, Luis Antonio Nunez Hernandez and Jose Carlos Miguel Lopez, celebrated the reception of the sotana (cassock) at Ojo de Agua seminary in Arandas, Mexico on June 1. This celebration recognizes they have completed one year of formation and have the qualities to be a priest. Both men are studying for Glenmary and will continue formation in the United States after their philosophy studies are completed.

The other students at the seminary are from the local diocese and have families that live one to two hours away. Luis Antonio is from Aguascalientes and because of his faith and desire to be a missioner, his family rented a charter bus and 40 members of his family traveled three hours to support him.

Jose Carlos is from Chiapas, a two-day trip by bus. Because of the great distance, it was impossible for Arandas' family and friends to join him. So a family from a nearby village that has siblings and children living in Glenmary missions, became his family for the day. Again, the calling of Luis Antonio and Carlos is not a private calling. It is a calling that draws others together and forms new Christian family. God is connecting the Glenmary Home Mission effort even beyond our national borders.

This is but a glimpse of how our search of the Spirit connects us to others and how others lead us to the Spirit. When we accept baptism, we no longer belong to ourselves. We are sons and daughters of God, brothers and sisters of Jesus and all we do is a public witness of our faith, even when we do not know it. The Holy Spirit and the faith we have been gifted with, especially as we search to deepen it, leads us to others and others to us—and all of us to God.