A New Year’s Intention
Dear Friends,
Happy New Year! Though this is the time when people make resolutions, I would invite us to make not a resolution but a New Year’s intention. It is adapted from a spiritual exercise suggested by Sister Joan Chittester. The intention is: “I pray you hope now and in the future.”
We say it first to ourselves, silently, to remind ourselves of the hope that is kindled in our own hearts. Then, we remember a person who could use a dose of hope, who may be dangling at the end of their rope; or a situation or event that has left some scar tissue around our souls and say, “I pray you hope now and in the future.”
Then, we make it our intention for each person we encounter. Whether at work or school or on the street or at those meetings where eye contact with certain people is difficult because we don’t see eye-to-eye, say silently, “I pray you hope now and in the future.” This New Year’s intention invites us to make a conscious decision each day to be people of hope.
2019 promises to be a year of historic possibilities for our community. Some of these dates are already marked on the 2019 Calendar you received in the mail. They include the 2019 Electoral Assembly April 29-May 2 at the Hilton Hotel at the Kansas City International Airport. We have several important decisions to make at this year’s Assembly, including an official vote on the New Creation to become one province of Missionaries of the Precious Blood in the United States. We will also elect a new Leadership Team for the province who will shepherd the process of the New Creation into the future. In addition, we will elect one delegate who along with the newly-elected Provincial Director will attend the XXI General Assembly that will be held September 1-21 in Czestochowa, Poland.
As I mentioned in my November 28, 2018 letter, the theme for the XXI General Assembly, Becoming New Wine, will discern the vision and priorities for the next six years and elect a Moderator General and Council who will lead us in implementing the vision. At the conclusion of this letter, I have once again included the Prayer for the XXI General Assembly and invite all of us to pray it each day as we prepare our hearts for the important decisions we face as a province and as a Congregation in 2019.
The Installation of the new Leadership Team of the Kansas City Province will be Monday, June 10, 2019 at Savior of the World Center in Kansas City, KS. Following the banquet and Installation Ceremony, the incorporated members will enter a time of retreat with Father Robert Schreiter, C.PP.S., that will focus on the Biblical Foundations for the New Creation. We will be inviting the members from the Cincinnati Province to join us for this retreat.
Later this month, the provincial councils from the Cincinnati and Kansas City Province will be meeting at Precious Blood Renewal Center in Liberty January 28-30. We count on your prayers for this important meeting.
On behalf of the Leadership Team, a Healthy, Happy and Holy New Year! We pray you hope now and in the future!
With peace in the blood of Christ,
Fr. Joe Nassal, C.PP.S.
Provincial Director
Prayer for the XXI General Assembly
September 1 – 21, 2019
Czestochowa, Poland
Becoming New Wine
Come, Holy Spirit, Come!
Embrace and enflame us
in your heart of fire.
Soften our hardness—transform us.
Give us the courage to accept
into our open hearts
the grace of your vision for us.
Bring life to our dryness—drench us.
May our lives be chalices of compassion
that satisfies those that thirst for justice.
Send us to proclaim a time of blessing
and welcome to those that are far off.
You who are over and within us,
who heals and sustains us,
anoint us to discover together
the passionate commitments and leaders
that will create the Congregation of the future.
Come, Holy Spirit, Come!
Make us new wine for the Church and the world!
+ Amen.