John van den Hengel was in Rome at our Generalate to participate in the meeting of the committee of the Spiritual Path, a resource for lay dehonians. This committee was established in 2011 in order to create resources to be used by leaders of groups that wish to live the dehonian spirituality. There was often the complaint that SCJ members wanted to start a group of lay dehonians but they did not have any idea how to go about this. The committee decided to put together a series of booklets called in English, Spiritual Path. Years One and Two have now been completed and translated into five languages: Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, French and English. Each booklet contains ten sessions or meetings. The four years:

Year One BECOMING ACQUAINTED WITH DEHONIAN LIFE

Second Year TO ENCOUNTER JESUS CHRIST WITH FR. DEHON

Year Three THE FAITH JOURNEY OF FR. DEHON

Year Four FOR THE LIFE OF THE WORLD

The meeting in Rome was to complete the draft version of Years Three and Four. I was responsible for Year Four. We hope that in the course of this year, certainly prior to the meeting of major superiors in Rome at the end of November that the work will be complete.

Years One and Two are available on our international website Dehon.it under Famiglia Dehoniana. Anyone interested in starting a lay dehonian group and wishing to use the resource can contact John van den Hengel for additional information.

The work was spearheaded by Fr. Claudio Weber, at the time a General Councilor from Brazil, and now working in the sanctuary of St. Jude Thaddeus in Sao Paulo. In the accompanying picture you see us hard at work in the Sala di Consiglio at the Generalate. In the background you can also see the sculpture of Herman Falke, donated by the previous council to the new Council in the month of June, 2015.