‘”My daughter’s in bad shape,’ Carmen said. … Those few words were all it took to bring back to my mind her story which I was painfully aware of – about a daughter who vacillated between hope and failure in what seemed a life-long battle against a drug addiction, and now once again had fallen,” writes Fr. Don Fetters, C.S.C. “I think I gave a decent homily that morning, but she was the teacher that day. She knew so much about the Cross and the hope it carries.” Read More

“When I tell my US friends that I live in Peru, most of them will quickly ask if I had seen Machu Picchu. Now I can say I have!” writes Fr. Don Fetters, C.S.C. “There’s a whole controversy over Machu Picchu that’s been brewing for the last century, and a book published last year … sums it up in two questions:  who discovered Machu Picchu and who owns it. After giving those questions their due, the authors bring a nice insight to the discussion:  possessing something has nothing to do with treasuring it.” Read More

“It was much more than youthful energy let loose on a project that I saw in these young missionaries. It was really zeal, simply defined as great energy or enthusiasm for a cause or objective,” writes Fr. Don Fetters, C.S.C., about Summer Mission 2012 in our Holy Cross parish in Peru. “Blessed Moreau chose the word “zeal” to insist with his brothers on the urgent intensity of the mission and the intentionality of the energy dedicated to it.” Read More

“These folks don’t make this sacrifice in order to get a better job or increase their salary,” writes Fr. Don Fetters, C.S.C., about the adults enrolled in our Peruvian parish’s School for Pastoral Leadership. “For them the School for Pastoral Leadership opens the door to serving the parish and chapel communities as volunteer chapel coordinators, directors of liturgy and social action, Bible teachers, leaders in the ministry to the sick, etc. They become the ones who make the parish work—guaranteeing the essential services that are needed to get the gospel message around and to put it into practice.”

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“This nurse was there to wait on whoever might need her amazing attentiveness,” writes Fr. Don Fetters, C.S.C., “imitating the extreme sensitivity of Jesus who, in the midst of the noisy, pressing throng, stopped everything He was doing to turn the power of His attentiveness toward a poor sick woman who just happened to brush past the fringe of His garment.” Read More

“What Señora Rut has taught me is how the poor eke out a living in the midst of this inhospitable rocky terrain,” writes Fr. Don Fetters, C.S.C., about our mission in Lima, Peru. “Jesus said that his Church was to be built on rock, and here we can’t help but be aware of the fragmented rock upon which our local Church is built; it’s all around us.” Read More

This month over two million Peruvians, including parishioners from our Holy Cross parish, will take to the streets in Lima to march in procession with their beloved Señor de los Milagros.  As Fr. Don Fetters, C.S.C., shares in his monthly post, “The simple lesson of this tremendous devotion is that a miracle isn’t an event to be observed by spectators, nor is it limited to a moment.  In the case of El Señor de los Milagros, the miracle continues on …” Read More

After sharing with us last month how he was drawn by God to be a missionary, Fr. Don Fetters, C.S.C., our correspondent in Peru, has checked in with his second post. It is a beautiful reflection that gets at one of the cores of our charism as Holy Cross priests and brothers. Read More

This year, we are blessed to accompany a veteran missionary to Latin America, Fr. Don Fetters, C.S.C., who after spending many years working in Chile is now serving in Peru. As you will find right from his first post in which he recounts the call that led him to missionary work, Fr. Don is one of the best spiritual writers in our community. It will be our treat to fall into step with him this year. Read More

I´m writing this from the Centro Patricio Peyton, CSC, in Lima, Peru, where I am leading a group of Yale students on an Alternative Spring Break trip. The Peyton Center is an extraordinarily beautiful and comfortable building for weary students to stay after spending the day unloading wheel chairs donated from the United States or teaching English and Math to students at a local Fe y Alegria school. The dusty brown hills of Lima where the Peyton Center is located seem far from the moist, green Mayo that gave birth to Fr. Peyton, but his vision of strengthening family life through prayer and education in the faith is very much present in the work of this place. Read More