Brother Lino Oropeza from Caracas, Venezuela, and Brother Joseph Kwiatkowski of Albion, N.Y., will take First Vows on Sunday, Aug, 29, at the 10 a.m. Mass at the Chapel of St. Michael the Archangel at Saint Michael’s College. This celebration of the mass will bring together all members of the Society of St. Edmund, including those in Vermont and those in the Edmundite Southern Missions in Selma, Ala.

First Vows are taken after Postulancy and a year and a day of Novitiate, a spiritual education leading toward becoming a member in the Society of St. Edmund, which is the order of priests and brothers who founded Saint Michael’s College in 1904. Members of the Society of St. Edmund continue to direct the college’s Edmundite Campus Ministry program, teach at the college and serve on the college’s Board of Trustees.

Brother Lino Oropeza, a native of Venezuela, was baptized by Edmundite priests and grew up knowing the Edmundite missionaries in his home region. Brother Joe Kwiatowski, is a 2009 graduate of Saint Michael’s College, earning his degree in Latin and in music.

Both men taking First Vows spent their Novitiate studying and focusing on discernment and spiritual development in the Edmundite Formation House in South Burlington guided by the Rev. Marcel Rainville, SSE, Director of Formation, and the Rev. Stanley Deresienski, SSE, Director of Vocations.

Brothers Oropeza and Kwiatkowski will be officially Edmundites, but they are not yet priests. They will continue to study for three years with the intention of renewing the vows they will take August 29^th, perpetually, at the end of the three years. The new Edmundites will continue to carry out their training at the Society’s Formation House in South Burlington and at St. Michael’s College before going to Major Seminary.

Brother Lino is the first Edmundite priesthood candidate to come from the SSE mission in Caracas, Venezuela. He had been in a seminary in Venezuela before coming to the U.S., and “would have joined the Edmundites sooner, had the program been set up,” Father Rainville told a reporter for the Saint Michael’s College Magazine. Father Rainville previously served in the Edmundite’s Caracas mission.

Brother Kwiatkowski was active as a Saint Michael’s student with the SMC Liturgical Choir and campus ministry programs.

Learn What Matters at Saint Michael’s College, The Edmundite Catholic liberal arts college, www.smcvt.edu . Saint Michael’s provides education with a social conscience, producing graduates with the intellectual tools to lead successful, purposeful lives that will contribute to peace and justice in our world. Founded in 1904 by the Society of St. Edmund and headed by President John J. Neuhauser, Saint Michael’s College is located three miles from Burlington, Vermont, one of America’s top college towns. It is identified by the Princeton Review as one of the nations Best 371 Colleges, and will be included in the 2011 Fiske Guide to Colleges. Saint Michael’s is one of only 280 colleges and universities nationwide, one of only 20 Catholic colleges, with a Phi Beta Kappa chapter. Saint Michael’s has 1,900 undergraduate students, some 500 graduate students and 100 international students. Saint Michael’s students and professors have received Rhodes, Woodrow Wilson, Pickering, Guggenheim, Fulbright, and other grants. The college is one of the nation’s Best Liberal Arts Colleges as listed in the 2009 U.S. News & World Report rankings.

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]]> http://sse.org/blog/2010/08/18/two-men-take-first-vows-to-enter-the-society-of-st-edmund-the-founding-order-of-priests-of-saint-michael%e2%80%99s-college/feed/ http://sse.org/blog/2010/06/14/three-ways-of-making-choices-from-the-art-of-discernment/ http://sse.org/blog/2010/06/14/three-ways-of-making-choices-from-the-art-of-discernment/#comments Mon, 14 Jun 2010 17:08:46 +0000 admin http://sse.org/blog/?p=31 The ART OF DISCERNMENT by Stefan Kiechle is good book for those who have to make an important decision.   Ignatius identifies three ways of making choices.

St. Ignatius identifies direct intuition as the primary form of discernment. In a kind of calling, one experiences a direct divine inspiration that clarifies what needs to be done. Remember what happened to St. Paul on his way to Damascus. Divine lightning knocked him off his horse; the experience completely changes him and converted him. He was changed from a persecutor of Christians to a preacher of the Good News. Most people consider these events as rare and peculiar. But , perhaps, these events are more common than one would assume. If a person is looking for a relationship with God, and is open to this type of experience, God will become present in very practical ways.

The second manner of making a decision is to notice inclinations and to distinguish among them. What in life attracts you? One observes them and then deduces from them what the proper path is. This is what Ignatius calls, Discernment of Spirits. Pay attention to the feeling that surface during the course of honest and calm meditation.

The third manner of making a decision is used when the discernment of spirits reveals very little. This is the rational approach to making decisions; listing the pros and cons of the choices available. You then take the sum total and this will point you towards the solution.

Do you have a decision to make? Why not try the methods listed above. Is God calling you to religious life or priesthood?   If so write me a note.   I’d be happy to walk with you as you look for your answer.

As an affiliate you would be expected to: pray Morning Prayer; attend Sunday liturgy; contribute Time and Talent to your local parish in some kind of ministry; have a spiritual director; have a regular confessor; go on an annual retreat; attend certain Community celebrations (St. Edmund’s Day, the two Formation House Days of Recollection); and live the Gospel values. You would be encouraged to include daily liturgy in your schedule.

As an affiliate you would receive the prayers of the Community to bless your ongoing discernment and you would grow in your personal experience/knowledge of what it means to be an Edmundite. If you are a student at St. Michael’s College in Burlington, Vermont, you would be invited to share in the SSE Community’s Common Prayer; you would be invited to share in Common Meals (perhaps, one a week at St. Michael’s and/or the Formation House). You would also share in the Spiritual Benefits of the SSE Community.

If you are interested in this program, please contact me at sderesienski@smcvt.edu.

Let your Word touch my life (pause)

How am I invited to follow the Lord today?

How have I denied myself?

How do I take up my cross?

How do I follow the Lord?

Share your responses, reflections, reactions with me if you wish.

Whenever God summons one, He sends him/her. A call is a direct summons in which God makes clear to man that he is chosen and destined man for a particular work in His plan of salvation and in the destiny of His people. A Divine choice is the basis of a call. Its purpose is to accomplish the divine will. The idea of calling, however, adds something to that of choice and the individual’s sense of moral responsibility. The call upsets the man’s existence, not merely in external fashion, but the inmost area of his beiing, for it makes him a different man.

A better indication of the fact that God is taking possession of and altering a man’s existence, God gives His chosen a new name. And God awaits a response to His appeal, a voluntary consent given in faith and obedience. Sometimes acceptance is instantaneous. But often man is gripped with fear and tries to shun the call which normally puts the one called apart from other men and makes him appear to be strange to his friends.

Thoughts from Fr. Stan,s.s.e.

Pretty heavy stuff, but it is true. We are all called to listen to God. To listen to God’s Word, we turn toward Him in the spirit of complete openness and receptivity, of complete love and trust. The active commitment to the person of Jesus is what gives us life. Coming to life through believing is the very reason the Father sent Jesus and why Jesus came: that everyone who believes in Him may have eternal life.

God calls some of us to lead and help the family of God to listen to Jesus by becoming Edmundites. Some are called to dedicate themselves wholly to the Kingdom. Some are called to be priests and religious so that the Eucharist, the source of our unity, may continue to transform us into the Kingdom of God.

Priests and religious gather the family of God together as a brotherhood and sisterhood enlivened by the one spirit. We need priests and religious to help keep alive the obligation of fraternity as a form of witness to the Trinity, the life of love between the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

I challenge you today to put yourself at the service of the gospel. Live the Eucharist and make progress in love of God and neighbor. Do this as married couples. Do this as families. Do this as a single person. And as a young person ask the question, is God calling me to be an Edmundite religious or priest.

As a young person I ask you to consider becoming consecrated persons who go against the current, living poverty, chastity and obedience and give witness as a prophet to Christ and his message of salvation.

Its only when we answer our call from God to be actively committed to Jesus that we will discover the grace and peace of the Resurrection. Drop me a note at sderesienski@smcvt.edu and let’s look at what the next step is in your journey of faith. Shalom.