Saturday, March 24, 2007

From a manger to a milking can

I was catching up on the New Orleans' archdiocesan paper and saw an article about a priest from the archdiocese who is spending his "retirement" ministering to farming communities in Mexico (Mission San Miguel in Saltillo, Caoahuila). Apparently, there are tiny chapels throughout the district that are so poor, the founding pastor outiftted them with tabernacles made out of old metal milking cans. He just cut a little door in them and painted them gold. The "new" pastor, Father Benjamin Piovan, dreams of providing those 40 chapels with secure and dignified tabernacles for the Bread of Eternal Life, but he needs help to do that and help feed the people the bread of this life at the same time. (The last corn crop failed, due to a freeze.)
Customs laws make it prohibitively expensive to ship new or used tabernacles into Mexico, so his old parish is maintaining a fund for donations for food or tabernacles.
Please get the word out. Contributions can be made to Ascension of Our Lord Parish, Att: "Father Benny's Mission," 799 Fairway Drive, LaPlace, LA 70068. You can also e-mail Father Piovan at bennyinmex (at) yahoo.com

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thank you for making me aware of this most worthy charity. I have sent a donation to "Father Benny's Mission". God bless his work among the poor.

Anonymous said...

Dear Sr. Anne, I wonder if you can help me find this book about Marcel Van. I dont know the english title but have seen it in French.
Hopefully you have an idea what Im talking about.

Br or Fr. Marcel Van is Redemptorist Vietnamese priest or brother in VN who was St. Therese' spritual lil brother.