History was written for the Church in Papua New Guinea as the first-ever VIVAT International Workshop was held from 14th to 18th September 2026 at the SVD Conference Centre, Madang, with the theme “Choose Life: Protect Life, Nurture and Thrive”
This novena invites us to revisit selected passages from Claude François Poullart des Places’ Choix d’un État de Vie as a spiritual pathway for life in an intercultural community. At first glance, the text appears to be a personal narrative—deeply introspective, centred on vocational discernment, and without explicit reference to the encounter between cultures. The very term interculturality did not yet exist in Poullart des Places’ time. And yet, the spiritual experience he describes touches the very core of what makes authentic intercultural community life possible: knowing oneself in order to open oneself more fully to others.
From 1 to 5 September 2026, the development team from the Spiritan Central Development Office travelled through southern Ethiopia to visit communities, missionaries and development initiatives in Yabello, Dhokolle, Dubluk, Dhadim, Dimeka and Arba Minch. The team was led by Fr Kenneth Okoli, CSSp, Director of the Central Development Office, and included Bro Baba Omari, CSSp, Regional Coordinator for Francophone countries, and Fr Joseph Mario Adah, CSSp, Regional Coordinator for Lusophone countries and Latin America.
The Spiritan community at the Generalate gathered with deep joy and gratitude to celebrate a double anniversary: the feast of Blessed Jacques Laval and the 60 years of the Generalate House at Clivo di Cinna, the heart of the Congregation’s service of communion, governance, and missionary discernment. The celebration brought together confreres, sisters, lay collaborators, and friends who joined in prayer and thanksgiving for this milestone in the Congregation’s history.
“After a very happy childhood and adolescence in the countryside on the south coast of Ireland, I entered the Spiritan novitiate in September 1966.” Thus begins a missionary story that would take John Kingston, an Irishman, to Angola, Rome, Dublin and Mozambique, the country where he now resides.
Father Jacques Désiré Laval was raised to the glory of the altars on 29 April 1979, during the first beatification of Pope Saint John Paul II’s pontificate. What is striking in that homily is that the Pope does not merely celebrate a missionary of the past; he invites us to contemplate a man entirely given to God, whose life remains a light for the Church today.
On 4 and 5 July, the Shrine of Fátima hosted the 46th National Pilgrimage of the Spiritan Family. Under the motto “Queen of Peace, Pray for Us”, the Pilgrimage brought together members of the various movements that make up this Missionary Family: Consecrated Members, Liamists, Youth Without Borders, Fraternities, Former Seminarians, Lay Spiritan Associates, Missionary Volunteers, Spiritan Sisters, as well as parishioners from the various parishes entrusted to the Spiritans.
A rich Story of growth and diversity, with renewed Hope.
The Spiritan mission in Mexico stands today as a vibrant testimony to the enduring power of the Gospel lived in simplicity, intercultural fraternity, and service to the most vulnerable. Over the past fifty‑five years, the Congregation has woven a rich missionary history across the country, from the indigenous communities of the Huasteca Potosina to the expanding urban peripheries of Tampico, Cuernavaca, and Mexico City. What began in 1971 with a handful of confreres has grown into a dynamic, international, and deeply rooted presence that continues to evolve in response to the signs of the times.
Next Saturday—the third Saturday after Pentecost, and the day following the Solemnity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus—the Church celebrates the memorial of the Holy Heart of the Blessed Virgin Mary. For us Spiritans, this memorial is far more than a date on the liturgical calendar: it touches the very core of our vocation. And this year it acquires a particularly profound resonance, as we mark the bicentenary of the baptism of François Libermann (1826–2026), that founding moment in which Mary entered his life as a decisive grace.
On Pentecost, the Church is born through the power and inspiration of the Holy Spirit. It is also the day on which, more than three centuries ago, the Congregation of the Holy Spirit was founded—our principal patronal feast. Each year, the Spiritan community at the Generalate in Rome celebrates this solemnity as an extended family.