The Missioners went to a Nationals Game for some group bonding!

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!

The missioners were visited by FMS returned missioner Maeve Gilheney-Gallagher who led them in a conversation about restorative justice and the practice of justice circles.

"Restorative justice is an approach to justice that emphasizes living in right relationship...crime and harm are understood in terms of the people and relationships impacted, rather than solely the law or rule that was broken."

-Catholic Mobilizing Network

The missioners learned about the importance of community building and the centrality of accountability in a restorative justice framework.

"I really connected with Maeve's presentation on "Restorative Justice". This is something that was practiced in a school I taught in, and I witnessed the positive impact of this holistic, nonpunitive approach to conflict. Accountability and justice are extremely important, but so is the recognition that conflict does not happen in a void. It is important to consider the source of aggression."

-Susan Sarkissian

The missioners this video, learning from the experience and knowledge of restorative justice advocates like Sujatha Baliga.

Eli McCarthy of DC Peace Team led an active bystander training session for the missioners. DC Peace Team is committed to cultivating skills and habits of nonviolence, and the missioners learned how to deescalate and defuse situations before they get violent. Practicing skills through roleplaying, listening to stories of how the skills are used, and discussing the importance of nonviolence to building a just society, the missioners continued to find themselves grounded in Franciscan ideals of peace and love.

Learn more about the DC Peace Team here!

Building on the conversations about privilege and the legacy of racism in the United States and across the world that the missioners engaged in last week, they went on a field trip to visit the Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History & Culture.

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.

This week, the missioners engaged with devotions particular to the sites FMS is currently serving. The missioners were invited to explore litanies and devotions in different cultures and share them with each other as they gathered for prayer each day.

The missioners learned about the Bolivian tradition of blessing cars at the Basílica de la Virgen de Copacabana.

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.

Painting by Ludovico Mazzanti (1686-1775)

This week’s saint is St. Joseph of Cupertino, who was born in 1603 in Cupertino, Italy. Joseph was ridiculed as a child for being easily distracted, sensitive, and unable to concentrate on his studies. His mother grew frustrated with his absent-minded ways, and sent him to live with Capuchin friars at a nearby monastery, but Joseph was so clumsy and forgetful in his duties that even the friars would not let him stay. Eventually, Joseph was accepted into the Conventual Franciscans, who entrusted him with manual labor on the monastery grounds. Here, Joseph flourished, and grew close to God through his difficult chores and caring for the barn animals. He remained easily distracted, and at the mere mention of God, the Blessed Mother, or anything else holy, he would have the extreme emotional reaction of rapture. His ecstatic episodes became so intense that he could often be seen levitating above the ground in prayer, especially during Mass. Unfortunately, word spread about Joseph's tendency to levitate, and he was forced into a life of seclusion to hide from crowds of curious spectators. Joseph's life was marked with trials and ridicule, but his intense love for the simplest manifestations of God contributed to his lightness of spirit. He died surrounded by his fellow brothers on September 18th, 1663. Joseph is considered the patron saint of pilots, students, and individuals with mental handicaps.

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