USA, Stockbridge<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div> Aug.\u00a016, 2015<\/p>\n<\/div> “There is no solitary or independent mission,” the Very Rev.\u00a0Fr.\u00a0Kaz Chwalek,\u00a0MIC, told Br.\u00a0Joe Lappe,\u00a0MIC. “This is Christ’s mission, and he sends you into the world as a sign that the Father’s love is real.”<\/p>\n The next step in Christ’s mission for Br.\u00a0Joe commenced on Aug.\u00a016, at the National Shrine of The Divine Mercy in Stockbridge, Massachusetts. Before God, the Marians, and friends and family, he professed his perpetual vows of chastity, poverty, and obedience, thereby becoming a full member of the Marian Fathers of the Immaculate Conception. He is pursuing the priesthood.<\/p>\n During the ceremony, Fr.\u00a0Kaz, the Marians’ provincial superior, emphasized that Br.\u00a0Joe, like all of the Marians, is an essential part of God’s plan for the community. Looking around the Shrine during his homily, Fr.\u00a0Kaz said:<\/p>\n I was thinking of the imagery of the human body, and I was thinking of the Shrine, and I said, what would the Shrine be without windows? They’re non-essential. Or what would the Shrine look like without the statue of Our Lady, without her visible manifestation? And what would the Shrine be like without the image of Divine Mercy? It would not be the same. As such, each person in the community is an element of the structure, a manifest of some dimension of God’s voice, God’s grace, God’s love.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n View Fr. Kaz’s homily:<\/p>\n<\/div>USA, Stockbridge, Mass.: Br. Joe Lappe, MIC, Professes Perpetual Vows at the National Shrine<\/h1><\/div>
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