Some of the Casa community taking a field trip to Georgetown as they continue to explore DC

Welcome to the FMS e-newsletter! Each week, our newsletter will be highlighting what our missioners are learning through their mission preparation at Casa San Salvador, the FMS missioner house. Enjoy these stories from the missioners' fourth week!

Pictured above is the Franciscan Social Center in Bolivia, which is home to the FMS international missioners during their two-year stay.

Learning about the international mission sites is an exciting but somewhat daunting step for missioners in formation. Last week, the missioners learned more about the invitational process that FMS uses to assign them to their mission sites in the coming weeks. Taking into account each missioner's personalities, gifts, and experience, the FMS staff will invite the missioners to the countries that suit them best. It can be intimidating for the missioners in formation not to know where they will be sent in a few months, but during a series of sessions last week, they were able to learn more about the sites where international missioners are currently serving in Bolivia, Jamaica, and the US-Mexico border. The missioners in formation were also "visited" via zoom by current international missioners living abroad. Missioners Joleen Johnson, Victor Artaiz, Mari Snyder, Julia Pinto, and Domonique Thompson gave overviews of their lives at the international sites and each gave a personal account of their ministry work. These sessions provided the missioners in formation with a vivid illustration of their future lives abroad with FMS.

FMS OLM Class 28 alumna and lifelong missioner, Annemarie Barrett led a discussion about the difficult topic of white supremacy and systems of power and privilege in the context of mission. Annemarie served in Bolivia for four years, from January 2013 to December 2016. After her time as an FMS missioner, Annemarie answered “yes” to a call to remain in Cochabamba, Bolivia where she lives and farms with her partner and child and creates her original art which explores themes of marginalization, social justice, healing, and love. 



Check out Annemarie's AEB Art here.

Each of the three countries and ministry sites have their own unique histories that have and continue to shape the present context of where the missioners will serve. Just as the missioners have a responsibility to learn about the new cultures and environment they will enter into, it is important to learn how structural inequities and oppression have and continue to make an impact on communities.

The goal of the Power and Privilege sessions in FMS Formation is to practice unpacking how white supremacy is embodied and how we might practice dismantling the violence of white supremacy in the context of mission and beyond. Entering into uncomfortable conversations about racism, privilege, and inequity during Formation prepares the missioners how to stand in solidarity with marginalized groups and to better live out the ministry of presence.  

Each week the missioners will learn about different styles of prayer as part of their faith formation. We encourage you to enter into this journey; hopefully it can assist in your own spiritual life as well.

The missioners stayed with St. Ignatius in their prayers this week, turning to the Examen and Ignatian discernment. St. Ignatius told his followers that if they did nothing else in a day, they should pray the Examen – not once, but twice. The Examen is a way of looking back on one’s day and asking God to be present in looking at the “gift of the beautiful yesterday.” There are different ways of praying the Examen, but there is a basic format that is present throughout.

1. Become aware of God's presence: Ask God to be with you and to help you see the day as God sees it.
2. Review the day with gratitude: Thank God for the gifts of the day. Ignatius believed that one of the worst sins was ingratitude. Ingratitude can lead to pride, and pride can lead us to forget that God is God. We are not God.
3. Pay attention to your emotions: God is active in the world, and speaks to us through our feelings and desires, so it's important to pay attention to them.
4. Failings: Without being too hard on oneself, are there any points in the day where you missed an opportunity to be your best self? Or to live as God desires?
5. Looking toward tomorrow: What are your desires for the next day? What grace do you want to ask God for?

The Franciscan tradition is brimming with Saints, Blesseds, and Venerables included in the Roman Canon. Each week, we will highlight a different Franciscan who lived a notable life of holiness.

Bl. Solanus Casey was born in Oak Grove, Wisconsin in 1870. During his childhood, a bad case of diphtheria caused his voice to become quiet and raspy for the rest of his life, a trait that he was known for in his ministry. He joined the Capuchin friars in Detroit in 1897, and much like St. Joseph of Cupertino, struggled with the academic portion of his priestly studies and was thus ordained a "simplex" priest. This meant that he could celebrate Mass, but would not take on the usual pastoral duties of a priest.

Instead, he was appointed as the porter of the monastery in Detroit, where he greeted visitors at the door with a kind and gentle approach. His prayerful, soft-spoken demeanor was a comfort to his neighbors in Detroit, and soon word of Fr. Solanus spread among local Catholics and non-Catholics alike. People would flock to him for spiritual counseling and to ask him for prayers. Fr. Solanus never turned anyone away, especially the sick. He would pray with and for the sick members of his community, and offered frequent Masses for their healing and comfort.

Fr. Solanus himself suffered with severe eczema towards the end of his life, which eventually caused his death on July 31st, 1957. Miraculously, his body was discovered incorrupt years after his death, without any signs of his severe eczema. You can purchase a collection of Fr. Solanus's letters to his friends and relatives, God Bless You and Yours: Letters from Solanus Casey here.

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