Canandaigua Partners in Mission Create Redemptorist Mission
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March 1, 2023The Canandaigua PIM has developed in a different way. In the beginning we thought that it would be a “Hybrid” circle with local members and others who would join by Zoom. Now it is a small circle of 12 to 15 members who join us mostly by Zoom but we are still reaching out to those who live nearby.
Some are Redemptorists, former Redemptorists, former Redemptorist students, and laity who are interested in maintaining a closer relationship with the Alphonsian Charism. We have been meeting once a month for the last eight months and these meetings have been blessed with inputs from Fr. Dennis Billy on many occasions, and Fr. Francis Gargani, Anne Walsh, Visitation, Lucy Burich-McNamara, and others.
Skip Doyle prepared the following “mission” for Advent, and we hope to present more in the coming months. We welcome all of you to join us.
When you think about it, one purpose of life is to appreciate beauty with all our senses and our mind, and to create beauty, whether tangible or intangible, either for ourselves or another. Thus, for this Advent past, the Canandaigua circle of Partners in Mission, formed in May of 2022, after months of formation and community- building, undertook our first mission.
Rather than the Redemptorist themes of old – “death, judgment, heaven and hell” – we created a beautiful, Christmas-oriented prayer service centered on the first of the four Redemptorist pillars – The Nativity – with an eye towards 2023 to give missions on the Cross, Mary, and the Eucharist.
Our Redemptorist mission has three parts: sacred scripture, a sermon, and social sharing. Using sacred text from The Jerusalem Bible, we interwove the Nativity stories of the four Gospels into one cohesive narrative.
Researching classical art, we chose a painting representative of each of the ten scenes. Seven of the passages were read by active members of the Canandaigua PIM circle; we then reached out to PIM coordinators from other circles to build relationships with those communities.
In true Partners-in-Mission fashion, three of the readers were professed Redemptorists; of the seven others, two were former Redemptorists. It is worthy to note the gender balance: two women, eight men. The Mission was delivered via the Internet. As each of the ten passages were read portraying the Nativity, classical art for each scene was displayed starting with the Annunciation painting by Henry Tanner (African American artist from Philadelphia of the 1800’s) and ending with The Journey of the Magi by Stefano di Giovanni (Italy, 1435). As a prayer service, the readings were bookended with music, commencing with O Come, O Come Emmanuel and concluding with O Holy Night.
The sermon was delivered by Michael Brehl, recent Superior General of the Redemptorist congregation. Father Brehl began his reflections, “I find it impossible to think of the Redemptorists without thinking of Partners in Mission. I think this was very much in the mind of Saint Alphonsus from the very beginning. Those that know his story know that before he gathered a group of priests and brothers to be missionaries in the formal sense, Saint Alphonsus found and called forth lay men and women as missionaries who would bring the word of God and the word of hope to their sisters and brothers.” His full sermon can be found at https://youtu.be/sJLV2sT5SXM.
For shared discussion – the final segment of our mission – Bob Graf, who presided over this Advent prayer service, posed the question “During this preparation season of Advent, what are you doing to get ready for Christmas?”
As we in the Canandaigua PIM circle commence 2023 and continue with our formation, we look forward to sponsoring a Holy Week mission honoring the sacrifice and redemption of the Cross. As a Redemptorist, Partners in Mission, and Christian community, please join us for that mission on Spy Wednesday, April 5 at 7 p.m. EST. The Zoom link is below:
