Dear Confreres:

I begin this letter with a prayer in my heart for you and those you serve for a grace-filled, joy-filled and peace-filled new year. I pray that God cares for you tenderly and grant you all the blessings of His Love the whole year through. May the year 2008 be God’s wonderful gift to you and I pray that you will make it a gracious and joyful gift to others.

New Year brings us new challenges, opportunities, possibilities and responsibilities. We face the future, not knowing what the days and months will bring us or how we will respond. Let us pray that we welcome all who come our way; that we deepen our faith to see all of life as God’s wonderful gifts; that we live and move with hope and abiding trust in “God-with-us”, in God dwelling in us amidst all our joys and sorrows; that we rise each day with desire and decision to love life, love people, love creation and love our God; that we become men of prayer and men of God; that we become “compassionate as the Father is compassionate” (Lk.6:36); that we become Fransalians in spirit and truth.

We definitely have to make our faith and our hope and our love more real for us and for the world around us. We have a life to live and a mission to fulfill. I invite you to join me in prayer for a year of grace for all of us in 2008. Let us pray and work together for the growth of our newly formed region. Let us focus on developing a greater sense of being together and giving a collective witness of our life as Fransalians and on revitalizing our community life.

Celebrating the Feast of St. Francis De Sales:

I wish you all a very happy and joyful day as we remember our patron, St. Francis De Sales. May the spirit of St. Francis De Sales continue to bless and inspire us in the way we live our life and fulfill our mission. I will specially remember all of you in my Mass and prayer on January 24^th.

We will celebrate the 10^th anniversary of Wellspring on our patron’s feast day. Please remember Wellspring community in your prayer. I am glad to inform you that nine of our confreres will be joining us for the celebrations.

Our community in Atlanta will be celebrating the feast on January 29^th to make it convenient for all the confreres and the priests in the area to participate. I will be joining the celebrations with Fr. George Puraidam, our regional bursar. We are also exploring the possibility of formally opening a “Fransalian Center for Spirituality”, similar to Wellspring, at our house in Loganville. Please pray with us as we try to make new beginnings in our region.

Regional Assembly 2008: September 22-25, 2008

Our “Regional Assembly 2008″ will be held at the retreat center in Alexandria, Louisiana from the evening of Monday, September 22, 2008 to noon on Thursday, September 25, 2008. Please mark your calendars and plan to participate in the assembly. Your presence is important.

Regional Council:

Our regional council will meet at Wellspring on January 24, 2008. Please let me know, as soon as possible, if you have any concerns, needs, doubts, questions or any other issues that need the council’s attention. We will address them at our next meeting and explore possibilities of meeting your needs. Please let us know how we, as a council, can support you in your ministry and help further the growth of our local communities and the region.

I request the local superiors to send me a brief report of your local community meetings as soon as possible, if you have not sent it yet.

New Arrival:

Fr. Benjamin Dande from the province of Visakhapatnam has arrived in Kansas for pastoral ministry. I will send you the details of his assignment when I get them. I welcome him to USA for ministry in behalf of all confreres of USA Region and request your prayers for him as he begins his ministry in new situations.

News Provincial House:

South West Province will dedicate Vinayalaya in Bangalore as the new provincial house on January 24, 2008 on the feast of St. Francis De Sales. Congratulations and best wishes to the province for its new beginnings. The address of the new provincial house from January 24, 2008 will be:

MSFS Provincial House

Vinayalaya, P.B. No. 5557

Malleswaram West P.O

Bangalore 560 055

Telephone: 080 23345594; 9448480379(Provincial)

Prayerful Wishes:

We offer our prayerful wishes to Fr. Lawrence Amalraj as he assumes office as provincial of the newly formed Chennai Province on January 24, 2008 and Fr. Francis Thadathil as he takes up the responsibility as provincial of the North East Province a few weeks later.

Dear Confreres, we will walk with you in prayer and give you whatever support we can to help you fulfill your God-given mission. God bless you and all you do for the congregation.

MSFS USA Region Website: www.msfsusaregion.org

Our region now has a website. It is still in the process of construction. Please check it out and send us your comments and suggestions. We will appreciate your feedback.

Wellspring Website: www.wellspringcommunity.net

I hope that you have found our daily reflections helpful. If you have not visited the site, try visiting and you may find it helpful. Click on the “Daily Reflection” button and the “weekend meditation” button and see what the Lord has to say to you for the day.

Important and urgent reminders:

1. Community meetings are important and they contribute to the growth of our region and the fulfillment of our mission as Fransalians. If you have not been able to meet yet, please be sure to meet before the end of January. I request the local superiors to be sensitive to the need for regular community meetings and hold the meetings at a time convenient to most of the members. Please let me know the dates of the next meeting of your community and I will plan to join you. I do have important matters to share and discuss with the community.

    

2. Our old address no longer functions. Please use the following new address. The name of the town, in which we are, is “Whitehouse” and NOT “Tyler”. Please do not add the name Tyler to the address. And please give this new address to your parish and diocesan offices. Some of you have not made the changes yet. Our new address follows:

Wellspring,

P.O. Box 440,

Whitehouse, Texas 75791

Phone: 903-839-1280; Fax: 903-839-3486

Email: frgus@suddenlink.net

Conclusion:

Dear confreres, thank you for your ongoing support. Be courageous and learn to walk faithfully! We are Fransalian Missionaries. We must learn to live a lifestyle that is uniquely Fransalian, different from that of the world around us. The only measure of our faith is how we live, not what we profess! Let us walk faithfully, for faithfulness is the mark of a man of God.

You are in my daily prayer. God bless you and all you do for God’s people and keep you safe in the center of Love.

Augustine Tharappel, msfs

Regional Superior, MSFS USA Region