The report below is an annual update about the summer assignments of the Province’s student friars.
SILVER SPRING, Md. — The school year is finishing, which means the population of Holy Name College will soon change. Within the coming weeks, most of the student friars stationed at the Province’s house of studies will be dispersing for their summer assignments.
As part of the Order’s ratio for formation, there is opportunity for summer mission experiences. Paul O’Keeffe, OFM, secretary for missionary evangelization, has developed several experiences that have attracted the participation of some of the friars in post-novitiate formation.
John Aherne, OFM, and Dennis Bennett, OFM, will be going to Subukia, Kenya, where several Holy Name Province friars — including Michael Joyce, OFM, and the late Roy Corrigan, OFM, and Conrad Schomske, OFM — have worked in the past. The sites in Subukia are staffed by Franciscan friars, religious sisters and laypeople, and include opportunities to work in a secondary school, health center, parish and displaced persons camp.
Another location is South Africa, where George Camacho, OFM, will be working with friars from Our Lady Queen of Peace Province. Sites there include education, health care and community development centers.
Both experiences will be for six weeks and will start at the end of May or the beginning of June.
In the United States, Ramon Razon, OFM, will do a unit of clinical pastoral education training at Georgetown University Medical Hospital in Washington, D.C. Casey Cole, OFM, will be working at St. Francis of Assisi Parish in Triangle, Va., and Abraham Joseph, OFM, will serve at St. Anthony of Padua Parish in Camden, N.J.
From July 25 to Aug. 2, John, Dennis, Casey and George will join a group of St. Camillus parishioners in their Build Nicaragua program that has been sponsored by the parish for several years. The program assists communities in Nicaragua with building housing, schools and other projects.
Holy Name College held an end-of-the-academic year celebration on May 8 to relax and to recognize the achievements of its community members. Among them are the upcoming graduations of two friars – George and Ramon – from Loyola University, Baltimore. Their commencements are on the same day as that of Edgardo Jara, OFM, who will graduate from the Franciscan School of Theology in California.
— Br. Tony has served as the Province’s director of post-novitiate formation and guardian of Holy Name College since June 2014.
