P. Nélio PEREIRA CM Assistente General visits the Vice-Province of Costa Rica

With a look full of enthusiasm and hope for the future of the small Vice-Province of Costa Rica, on 11 December we began a day of visits to our Vice-Province of Costa Rica by Fr. Nélio Pereira, CM, who is General Assistant to Fr Tomaž Mavrič, CM Superior General of the Congregation of the Mission. Nélio shared this first day with the formation community of St. Vincent de Paul Seminary in an atmosphere of dialogue and closeness between seminarians and missionary formators. He also visited the community of Bajo Zamora, in Purral de Guadalupe, where the Casita de Misión is located, a centre of apostolate of our formation house and Vincentian laity.

During the second day of the visit of Fr. Nélio Pereira, CM, a meeting was held with the administrative and economic team of the Seminary College where they discussed the improvements in infrastructure, academic offerings and the sports program of the institution, as well as the challenges and future projects of this educational centre that has 130 years of history in Costa Rica. In addition, during the afternoon, a visit was made to the Casa la Milagrosa of the Company of the Daughters of Charity in Alajuelita, in San José Costa Rica, where Fr. Nélio presided the Holy Eucharist, and then shared in an atmosphere of familiarity and dialogue with our sisters the Daughters of Charity, as if they were old acquaintances.

Nélio Pereira, CM presented in greater detail the projects of the Congregation of the Mission in Costa Rica as part of the process of consolidation of our works and apostolates.

In addition, last Thursday 14th December, the First Meeting of Seminarians of Costa Rica-Mexico-Panama was held at the San Vicente de Paul Seminary, San José, Costa Rica. Daniel Blanco, Auxiliary Bishop of the Archdiocese of San José, who presided the prayer of Lauds and the Holy Eucharist. Nélio Pereira CM, confreres of the Vice-Province, representatives of the Board of Directors of AIC and people affiliated to the Congregation of the Mission.

As part of the agenda of visits, the Assistant General visited the missionary work of Talamanca in the indigenous area of Costa Rica, where there is a local community made up of two confreres and a student admitted to the CM. During this visit, Fr. Nélio Pereira CM presided the sending Mass for the Costa Rican, Panamanian and Mexican seminarians, as well as for the group of young missionaries who accompanied this year’s Advent Mission, animating fourteen indigenous communities with the traditional Christmas “posadas”. The mission began on 15 December and ended on Friday 23 December with the celebration of the Eucharist of thanksgiving for the experience of faith.

The last of the visits made by Fr. Nélio Pereira CM was to the local community in the Parish of San Judas Tadeo de Chomes in the Diocese of Puntarenas, a coastal area bathed by the waters of the Pacific Ocean, where many of its inhabitants are engaged in artisanal fishing in the Gulf of Nicoya, but at the same time an area marked by unemployment. In this mission community the Assistant General held interviews where the confreres expressed some of the needs and social realities affecting the community.

We emphasise that this meeting with Fr. Nélio Periera CM in the framework of the Advent Mission and in the Meeting of Seminarians of the Provinces of Costa Rica-Mexico-Panama has enriched the dynamics of the life of the Vice-Province in many of its dimensions, from the administrative-organisational to the community life, the apostolate of the mission and the raison d’être of our vocation, the following of Jesus Christ, Evangeliser of the poor, which is the common factor that unites us all, confreres, seminarians and lay Vincentians in the same feeling and which makes us definitely see ourselves as the family of Christ and St. Vincent de Paul.

Deacon Luis R. SUÁREZ CORDERO, CM;
Head of Communications Office Viceprovicnia of Costa Rica