Because of the need to hold a Regional Chapter the celebration of the Feast of the Sacred Heart took on a special significance this year. Outside of the two confreres who are prevented from attending because of illness twenty-one members gathered. With the chapter held on Wednesday morning, the community gathered for a Holy Hour at 3 p.m. The Regional Superior, John van den Hengel gave a presentation on the Sacred Heart today, making use of the book Giustizia della misericordia of Marcello Neri.

Neri is proposing a new approach to the devotion in our time insisting that the devotion is a way of counteracting the forces of globalization and technological culture that are severely affecting the spiritual well-being of western people. Neri believes that it is the task of the congregation to be at the vanguard of people who can live faith as agape and mercy in our time. Neri believes that some of the central Dehonian terms such as oblation, expiation, reparation and victimhood ought to be re-interpreted by the Congregation as modes of being with wounded and excluded members of humanity. The text of the presentation is found in the following:

link: https://dehoncanada.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/a-symbol-in-decline.pdf