Colmenar Viejo, Spain. The Province of Santiago, since its birth in 2007, celebrated its usual yearly meeting of local Superiors (with the exception of the St Petersburg-Murmansk Community for reasons of austerity). On October 7th, the 37 local superiors met in Colmenar Viejo to share with the Provincial Government the life of the Province, to direct the implementation of community projects, and to offer their reflections for the animation of the local community experience of the “Forge”.
The day began with a Eucharist presided over by the Provincial Superior, Fr. Manuel A. Tamargo, who was accompanied around the altar by the superiors of the communities of Segovia (where the Congregation arrived 150 years ago in the month of November) and of Elda (Alicante), located where the Province has just taken on a parish of predominately working families and a population of gypsies, in which the Missionaries have only been for two weeks.
Within the month the superiors of Santiago will participate with all the others of Iberia in a formative encounter. After the incorporation of their two communities in Paraguay into the new Province of San Jose del Sur, the Province of Santiago now has 38 communities: those of Paris (France), Zürich (Switzerland), St. Petersburg-Murmansk (Russia), and 35 in Spain.
