News

The Assumption Family and Love of the Church, February 12, 2011

Twenty Sisters and Brothers of the five members of the Assumption Family met from February 3 - 7, 2011 at the Generalate of the Augustinians of the Assumption in Rome. Their purpose: to discuss love of the Church, to study this distinguishing characteristic which we share and to consider its practical implications for our life today.

Sr. Therese Agnes, of our Philadelphia community, was one of the representatives of the Religious of the Assumption.

Printed below is the account written by Sr. Maureen Connor (RA England) of the time in Rome, including their visits to the tomb of St. Peter and the catacombs of St. Priscilla.

From Sr. Maureen:

We were men and women religious from Congo, Ivory Coast, Kenya and Rwanda; from Brazil, Chile and the USA; from the Philippines and Vietnam; from Belgium, England, France, Ireland, Italy and Spain. So the group itself was a microcosm of the catholicity of the Church.

The unity of the Church was underlined for us by two important visits which were an integral part of the workshop. The first was to the tomb of St Peter which lies in a simple grave in the crowded necropolis which is now buried under the crypt of St Peter’s, but which began as an open air, cemetery next to the circus of Nero where Peter was crucified upside down. Here Constantine, who had the resources of the Roman army engineering corps at his command, built the first basilica of St Peter with its altar directly over the simple second century shrine – which we saw – over the body of Peter. The present basilica, of a splendour which Peter could never have imagined, has its high altar in exactly the same place – over the body of St Peter and immediately under the dome of the basilica. And, yes, the archaeologists are 99% certain that the first century bones they found of a sixty something year old male are those of St Peter. It was an overwhelming experience to be there and gave new force to the words of Jesus “Thou art Peter and upon this rock I will build my Church”.

Our second visit was to the catacombs of Priscilla to the north of Rome. It is estimated that forty thousand Christians were buried here before the peace of Constantine, many of them martyrs. Here we celebrated the Eucharist and renewed our baptismal vows in union with all the Christians who have preceded us in the vast communion of saints to which we are proud to belong.

There were of course more formal parts of the workshop. We began on the first day with presentations on the experience of love of the Church of each of our founders. We noted their unwavering loyalty despite the fact that each of them had suffered - and grievously – at the hands of Church officials.

Back to top

How You Can Become A:

Members of the five Assumption families that met in Rome

Fr. Emmanuel d'Alzon

Founder

Augustinians of the Assumption