Wednesday, 20 April 2011 08:53

HOLY WEEK MSC MISSION STORY, SOUTH AMERICA

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HOLY WEEK MISSIONS


Tuesday, 19 April 2011 (MSC-USA website)

 

Bogota, Colombia

On Friday night and Saturday morning, Father Eduard Riascos and Father Luis Alfonso Segura, together with professed students and seminarians, left the MSC community in Bogota, Colombia for missions in different parts of Colombia. Each year, members of the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart in Colombia go on these missions to accompany Catholic communities as they celebrate Holy Week and prepare to celebrate Easter. Some of these communities are very remote and are only visited by a priest a few times a year. This year the MSC are accompanying communities in Cajibio, Cauca, Aguazul and Villa Nueva and Yopal in Casanare, Aipe and Elías in Huila, Fusagasugá and Alto de Tequendama in Cundinamarca. Our priests and students spend time visiting families and getting to know people’s life situations and also prepare religious education classes for couples, children, young adults and adults. Please pray with us that this week especially, God may bless our missionaries and the communities they serve.

 

 

About the MSC Mission in Colombia

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In 1969, MSC from the USA began working in the parish of Santa Margarita Maria, which is located in a poor, working class section of Bogotá. Because the families in the area were very poor and schoolbooks were expensive, one of the MSC's first projects at the parish was establishing a library with all the textbooks children needed for school and where students could come to study. Since then, the MSC in Colombia have been involved in a variety of pastoral activities such as youth programs, teaching, family enrichment programs and social services. For instance, the MSC have a long history of volunteering at Fundación Vida Nueva (New Life Foundation), which works with prostitutes and their children to help them break the cycle of prostitution. MSC seminarians teach catechism classes to the children there.

Today, in addition to Santa Margarita Maria Parish, MSC in Colombia are also involved in formation and provide direct assistance to the poor. The formation program (Casa Chevalier) is flourishing and 6 young men recently took their first vows  in August 2008. As part of their formation, the seminarians studying at Casa Chevalier go on mission experiences to very remote areas in Colombia during their Christmas and Easter vacations. Seminarians also help manage the MSC farm, thereby helping to provide the food they eat.

At the MSC community house, which is located in a poor section of Bogotá, the MSC provide meals 2-3 times a day, every day, to everyone who comes to the door asking for food. A couple of years ago, the MSC also founded the Fundación Justicia en la Verdad (Truth and Justice Foundation) which builds houses and provides educational assistance for poor families in Bogotá and other regions of Colombia. Last year, through the Truth and Justice Foundation, the MSC were able to provide 43 families in Bogotá with the very first place they could call "home".