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Mission
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From the very beginning, the Assumptionists have been engaged in a wide variety of apostolic works. All that advances the coming of the Reign of God has always been deemed worthy of our apostolic energy. This continues to be true to this very day. Some of us are teachers, engineers, wood-workers, journalists ; others are missionaries, pilgrimage directors, hospital chaplains, parish priests. Our activities run the gamut from theological research to foreign missions. We place particular emphasis on work for unity and relations with the Eastern churches, on fostering vocations in the Church and on the communication of the Christian message through social work, the media, preaching and teaching.
TEACHINGThe Assumption has never forgotten that its name and in a way its vocation come from the school where we were founded (Assumption College in Nîmes, France). Though the Assumption was never an exclusively teaching order, the founder wanted all of his religious to be “teachers” in at least the broad sense of that word. Early on d’Alzon concentrated on the education of the leading classes in France, but then later founded minor seminaries (that he called “alumniates”) to educate students of lesser means and even opened a number of orphanages. The Congregation continues to be involved in the world of education, at the secondary and university levels, as school administrators, teachers, chaplains, and leaders of different catechetical and youth movements. COMMUNICATIONS & MEDIAThe media are heavily criticized today, and in the 19th century the Church was hardly enthusiastic about this form of communication. The Assumptionists were among the first to dedicate themselves to the mass media and to take up the challenge of communicating a Christian position in a secular setting and to encourage genuine dialogue between the Church and the world in which a great variety of people live and work. Admittedly a major ambition! From the primitive working spaces of the “Bonne Presse” publishing house in Paris, France, to the modern, computerized services of “Bayard Presse” today, still in Paris, but in a dozen other countries of the world as well. The challenge remains the same: whether the content is religious or secular, whether it is addressed to young children or senior citizens, it is the same Gospel vision that is at stake. The Assumption wants to be present at the heart of the world, a word more and more taken up with the media. MISSION WORKHow could you possibly be an apostle of the Kingdom – Thy Kingdom Come ! – without wanting to go where Christ’s good news is hardly known? Some religious families are essentially “missionary”, but again that is not the case with the Assumption. We are “generalists” when it comes to ministry, and so from the beginning we have wanted to travel abroad to work in the “emerging Churches”: in Africa, in China, in Latin America… Now these Churches are forming their own clergy and becoming in turn missionaries. Today, many young people from the Congo, from Madagascar, and now from Russia and Eastern Europe, are committing themselves as well to the Great Mission. PRESENCE AMONG THE POORIt is thought to be virtuous not to have any preferences, but we Assumptionists do have one nonetheless. It’s a preference for poor, in response to the Gospel and to the Church calling us today to be on their side. For us too it’s a consequence of our own vow to live as poor men. Some will dedicate themselves full-time to this work: with marginalized people of every kind, in hospitals and in prisons, “worker priests” or volunteers in different organizations… But all of us try to live in union with the poor, because “the poor will always be with us”, because the poor are too often neglected even within the Church. This is a bias that the Assumption encourages. PILGRIMAGESIt took nerve 130 years ago to launch a pilgrimage movement. Popular in the Middle Ages, pilgrimages had almost faded into oblivion, but the Assumptionists brought them back to life in the 19th century. D’Alzon wanted religion to “get out of the sacristy” and to show itself in the public place. He invited the crowds to gather in Lourdes, at La Salette, in Jerusalem. They even began producing their own magazine, The Pilgrim, still going strong today. These gatherings renewed an old tradition, a form of evangelization still effective today. To be a pilgrim is not just an opportunity to visit the sites, but to move your life from one place to another, perhaps to rediscover a greater source of life. UNITYThere’s another « pilgrimage » that we easily enough neglect: the call to unity. Ecumenism is not just an old tradition for Assumptionists; it’s an essential part of who we are. From our first missionaries in Bulgaria to the recent episcopal ordination of one of our religious in Turkey, ecumenism has been a priority. How could the Kingdom come if it were proclaimed by divided Christians? At the beginning of the 20th century, a third of our religious were involved one way or another in ministries in Eastern Europe and the Near East, from Jerusalem to Athens, from Bucharest to St. Petersburg. In the West, other Assumptionists have been involved in research and dialogue in the Anglican and Protestant worlds. After many years of communist persecution, our Eastern mission is once again growing, and the new challenge of relations with the Orthodox Church will demand all of the energy and passion that we can muster. PARISHESAre Assumptionists made to be parish priests? Clearly not, if it’s just a matter of doing the work to which diocesan priests are called. But yes, for a particular mission, in a particular way, especially as religious living in apostolic community, with our doctrinal, social and ecumenical concerns. Yes, if it is to work closely with the poor, or with young people, or in “mission” territories. In parishes, our goal is not simply to maintain the structure, but to be imaginative in our methods of evangelization, to speak in a language people understand, to encourage the creation of small communities and the involvement of the laity.
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Publicaciones
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Fundador e Historia
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Born in the Maelstrom of the Nineteenth Century  Emmanuel d'Alzon (1810-1880) The Assumptionists were born in France, founded in 1850 by the Venerable Emmanuel d'Alzon (1810-1880). The nineteenth century in which he lived was a time of great upheaval in France. The old society was giving way to a new one, and the birth was painful. Emmanuel d'Alzon was to witness a succession of French political regimes, several revolutions (those of 1830, 1848, 1870) and some bloody repressions of labor demonstrations (1848 and 1871). Violent outbreaks erupted regularly in the highly charged political atmosphere. The stakes were high and the victory of the modern secular state conclusive: liberal constitutions, universal male suffrage, abolition of slavery, laws governing the press and education, early attempts in social and labor union legislation. Yet Emmanuel d'Alzon found something missing in the midst of the modern liberal democratic regime which had proclaimed the Rights of Man - that is, the Rights of God. In the wake of the French Revolution, which defiantly declared the "Rights of Man," Father d'Alzon was an apostle of the "Rights of God" - the right of God not to be excluded from human society. Test link Emmanuel d'Alzon:
Passionately Dedicated to the Kingdom of GodEmmanuel d'Alzon was called the "Knight of God." This man of action, fiery and impetuous, was a soldier of God, totally devoted to his Master, Jesus Christ. In Southern France, his homeland, people called him the "Saint Paul of the Nineteenth Century." His faith compelled him to proclaim the Word of God. Ordained at the young age of 24, Emmanuel d'Alzon gave his life to Christ and to the Church to serve God's purposes, so that His Kingdom might come. His whole life was one of boundless activity. He seemed to take on everything at once. He was Vicar General in the Diocese of Nîmes, a preacher and confessor, and yet found time to spend hours in prayer and write thousands of letters and articles on a wide variety of subjects affecting the Church of his day.
He joined every battle involving God and the Church. As head of the school he founded (Collège de l'Assomption in Nîmes), he fought for academic freedom and still found time to train his disciples in the spirit of Assumption.
A tireless missionary, he seethed with new initiatives, and developed them with others who were attracted by his faith and dynamism. Selfless and energetic, he was at the cutting edge of every project serving God's purposes. His alert mind discerned needs and came up with original answers to meet them. He broadened his field of activity from the south to the whole of France, and from France to Europe and beyond. "May Thy Kingdom Come" - this was his motto and his passion - and the motto he gave to his young Congregation. His great passion was to see Jesus loved by every man and woman. Good Soldiers of GodIn the nineteenth century, religious problems were intertwined with political problems. Heirs of the Revolution, the leaders of social movements wanted a society founded on "Rights of God." The option of being for or against God therefore played an important role in a person's social and political stance.
Emmanuel d'Alzon could not accept a system that rejected God. He was not beholden to any particular regime or party. God alone mattered to him. He was ready to fight for him, for Jesus Christ and His Church, through prayer, the word, and action. His only party was Jesus Christ's party. He was on God's side. His great passion was the Reign of God.
The same could be said of his sons. True to the spirit of Saint Augustine, they were called Augustinians of the Assumption. Heirs to the charisma of their founder, they were men of prayer and witnesses to God, involved in their times. They accepted as their own the dual mission of their aging founder: to bring Christianity back to the masses by sweeping means such as pilgrimages and the press, and to rebuild the unity of the Christian churches around the Pope. A man of his times, which were so different from ours, Emmanuel d'Alzon vigorously confronted the adversaries of God. He was touched to the quick at any slur regarding God, Jesus Christ, or the Church. Defending the rights of God that were being violated by a government which flaunted its secular character - that was his constant struggle. His zeal was fired by the flame of God's love in his heart. Emmanuel d'Alzon was transfixed by God's love. He could not bear any attack on God's majesty or goodness.
"The Spirit of the Assumption is summed up in these few words: love of Our Lord, of Mary, His Mother, and of the Church, His Spouse."
This insight of Emmanuel d'Alzon, this "Triple Love," acts within an essentially apostolic plan: Christ is the Father's envoy for the salvation of the world, and Mary and the Church are at the service of this mission. This attachment was to be strengthened and purified by trial over the years. Emmanuel d'Alzon yielded himself more and more to Jesus Christ, giving himself to Christ so as to give Christ to others. Close to the People With the PressBorn during the lifetime of the founder, the press and pilgrimage ministries have been blessed with the faith and dynamism of men of vision, both religious and lay, in every era. The ministries are still very much alive today. Their mission has undergone some rethinking, to be sure, yet it remained on target amid highly divergent situations. The original motivation and the traditional love of the Church have been the major contributing factors. For the past 110 years, La Croix (The Cross), that great French Catholic daily newspaper, has charted a Christian course through many rough seas. Faithfulness without FaultHis total commitment to the Church helped him fathom its deepest mysteries. The divisions in the Church grieved him deeply. The unity of the Church was his call to arms. In consequence, he was careful under all circumstances to remain faithful to the Pope, the symbol of that unity. Throughout his life he remained loyal to Rome, sparing no effort to become more submissive to her authority. He wrote,
"One of the reasons for our little Association consists in the efforts of its members to bring hearts and minds closer, through teaching, to the common center that Jesus Christ has given to His Church..."
Emmanuel d'Alzon loved the Church, our spiritual homeland and our mother. He bequeathed this understanding of the Church to his Congregation, whose cornerstone is Christ and whose goal and motto are to spread the Kingdom of God. In this mission, the Assumptionist has recourse to the whole arsenal of the faith: education, preaching, publications, research, works of charity and foreign missions, in which the Oblates of the Assumption, founded by him in 1865, were also to participate. He passed on to his sons the three great passions of his last years : attempts to foster priestly vocations from among the poor, concern for urban working class which was straying from the Church, and the desire to bring back to the fold the dissidents of Eastern Europe, including the immense expanse of Russia. In the late nineteenth century, the Assumptionist Congregation began its expansion througout Europe: 1880, to Spain; 1892, to Belgium; 1900, to the Netherlands; 1901; to England; 1928, to Germany. In all these countries, the Assumptionists maintain a faithful and vibrant presence to this day.
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