We have received a number of emails from readers commending our institute and its website, The Mary Page.  Thank you all for your encouragement and support.  The following is a typical example.

Hello.  I am very interested in a list of plants that we could put in my son's Catholic school's outdoor classroom, pertaining to Mary.  Thank you very much!

Christa

Donations to our Collections

Sister Jean Frisk, Assistant for Art and Special Projects at ML/IMRI, Recently informed us of the following good news.

Don Ruhl, a very tall UD alum--and devoted basketball player--is donating most of his wood-working machines and tools to us.  Mike Foley mediated this gift to us.   Harry Mushenheim, Mike, and I went to look at the items--excellent, wonderful equipment--clean and most useful to our artisans.  In addition, when Mike asked A-1 Piano Movers for an estimate to move these items, A-1 immediately offered to do this gratis!

Please thank the Heavenly Powers that assist us.  Maybe such things will inspire others to take a bigger look at helping to solve our space issues.

Other item: Jane Dunwoodie has donated LOTS of beautiful, new textiles for--of all things--making our little gift baggies.  Believe it or not, those little items were big sellers at the Stable Store.  If you have scraps, odd items, Christmasy or not--whimsical or not--bits and pieces, lacy bits, whatever ... please don't toss them out.  Let us have a chance at making a stash for next year's Stable Store.  The sales might offset the cost to purchase supplies, at least somewhat.

Blessings for Chaminade Day and the conclusion of the Chaminade Year! Below is information about the brothers and sisters of Blessed William (Guillaume) Joseph Chaminade.  We are the continuation of Blessed William Joseph here and now.

In past years there was speculation and misinformation about the children of the Chaminade family.  It was generally thought that Blaise Chaminade and Catherine Bethon had thirteen children, the last of whom was William, the founder of the Daughters of Mary Immaculate and of the Society of Mary.  After many years of patient research in the archives of Périgueux, the record was set straight by Father Herbert Kramer, a prodigious historian of Marianist beginnings.

Father Kramer learned that William Joseph Chaminade was the fourteenth of fifteen children in his family.  The information was gathered from baptismal records which gave the names of the parents and specified the date and parish where the sacrament of baptism was celebrated.

The fifteenth child never received a name.  The records of the cathedral parish of St. Front indicate only "the burial of a little child of the Chaminade family ... a baby son ... baptized at home."

Eventually Father Kramer located the records of the burial of the fifteen Chaminade children.  It should be noted that it was not common for eighteenth century records to specify the date of death.  He was unable to find the burial records for three of the children.  What heroic sacrifice and sadness for these devoted parents to experience the deaths of six, and perhaps nine, of their children over a span of ten years!

Father Kramer constructed this table of the fifteen Chaminade children in the Chaminade family.

Children in the Chaminade Family

Date of Baptism	Church	Name	Date and Place of Burial
Dec. 4, 1743	St. Front	Gaspard	?
Feb. 7, 1745	St. Front	Jean Baptiste	1790, Mussidan
Jan. 10, 1746	St. Front	Marie	Oct. 4, 1747, Perigueux
Jan. 19, 1747	St. Front	Blaise	Nov. 2, 1822, St. Astier
Apr. 1, 1748	St. Front	Marguerite	?
May 16, 1750	St. Front	Lucrece	July 9, 1826, Bordeaux
Aug. 26, 1751	St. Silain	Louis Jean	July 5, 1753, Perigueux
Feb. 9, 1753	St. Silain	Jean Joseph	Aug. 10, 1759 Perigueux
Mar. 31, 1754	St. Front	Marie Rose	?
Oct. 13, 1755	St. Silain	Blaise Francois	Oct. 18, 1843 Perigueux
Mar. 4, 1757	St. Silain	Jeanne Rose	Aug. 9, 1759, Perigueux
Mar. 11, 1758	St. Silain	Blaise Louis	Apr. 28, 1808, Bordeaux
Oct. 24, 1759	St. Silain	Ursule Lucrece	Aug. 25, 1763, Perigueux
Apr. 8, 1761	St. Silain	Guillaume	Jan. 24, 1850, Bordeaux
Dec. 16, 1762	at home	unnamed boy	Dec. 17, 1762, Perigueux

The only one of William Joseph's six sisters to survive childhood was Lucrece. She was eleven years older than he, and always held him in deep affection. After the death of her husband in 1781, within a year of their marriage, she lived with and cared for her parents. In her mother's last years Lucrece was with her in Bordeaux. She also took care of William's domestic needs for fifteen years before her death in 1826 at the age of seventy-six.

The only surviving brother to reach an advanced age was Francois, several years older than William. Francois took over their father's cloth business. From the time when William became the business manager of the school at Mussidan, the two brothers remained in close touch, especially through correspondence. Francois assisted William with purchases for the school, and with general business advice.

The four other surviving Chaminade sons became priests.

Born	Died
Jean Baptiste, 1745, Jesuit [until the suppression of the order]	1790, Mussidan, age 45
Blaise, 1747, Recollect	1822, St. Astier, age 75
Louis, 1758, Diocesan priest	1808, Bordeaux, age 50
Guillaume, 1761, Founder of F.M.I. and of S.M.	1850, Bordeaux, age 89

Here is the text of the address Benedict XVI gave today to the bishops of Washington, D.C., and surrounding regions, who are at the Vatican for their ad limina visit.

Dear Brother Bishops,

I greet all of you with fraternal affection and I pray that this pilgrimage of spiritual renewal and deepened communion will confirm you in faith and commitment to your task as Pastors of the Church in the United States of America.  As you know, it is my intention in the course of this year to reflect with you on some of the spiritual and cultural challenges of the new evangelization....

It is imperative that the entire Catholic community in the United States come to realize the grave threats to the Church's public moral witness presented by a radical secularism which finds increasing expression in the political and cultural spheres.  The seriousness of these threats needs to be clearly appreciated at every level of ecclesial life.  Of particular concern are certain attempts being made to limit that most cherished of American freedoms, the freedom of religion.  Many of you have pointed out that concerted efforts have been made to deny the right of conscientious objection on the part of Catholic individuals and institutions with regard to cooperation in intrinsically evil practices.  Others have spoken to me of a worrying tendency to reduce religious freedom to mere freedom of worship without guarantees of respect for freedom of conscience....

Dear Brother Bishops, in these brief remarks I have wished to touch upon some of the pressing issues which you face in your service to the Gospel and their significance for the evangelization of American culture.  No one who looks at these issues realistically can ignore the genuine difficulties which the Church encounters at the present moment.  Yet in faith we can take heart from the growing awareness of the need to preserve a civil order clearly rooted in the Judeo-Christian tradition, as well as from the promise offered by a new generation of Catholics whose experience and convictions will have a decisive role in renewing the Church's presence and witness in American society.  The hope which these signs of the times give us is itself a reason to renew our efforts to mobilize the intellectual and moral resources of the entire Catholic community in the service of the evangelization of American culture and the building of the civilization of love.  With great affection I commend all of you, and the flock entrusted to your care, to the prayers of Mary, Mother of Hope, and cordially impart my Apostolic Blessing as a pledge of grace and peace in Jesus Christ our Lord.

Welcome to our Second Update!

Patrons of the arts, donors, contributors, angels - whatever adjective fits the description, Chris, Sven and I want to thank all of you who have pledged to fund our project and to those who have already made your financial commitment a big thank you.

Whether you can contribute $1 or $10,000 we also hope you will recommend our project to your circle of family, friends and colleagues, Facebook friends and Twitter Crowd - it will all help us reach our goal! And we have a wonderful 'Rewards Program.'  Click here for details.

Remaining independent is never easy and we are creating a motion picture rich with imagery, dance, music, and originality.

Meet our directorial and design consultant, Armondo Linus Acosta:

Film director, designer and visual consultant, the eldest of three children to theatrical parents, Armondo grew up in the world of music, art, and entertainment.  While studying, he established himself as a consultant and designer, clients and assignments included Chanel, Ford, GM, Chrysler, NASA, Paramount, MGM, ABC, CBS, NBC, Columbia Pictures and Kodak.  He directed over 250 award winning commercials.

Moving into the world of film making, Amondo was an apprentice to Roger Corman.  Armondo was a Hollywood maverick, nicknamed 'the monk' among his peers.  He worked with Jack Nicholson, Steve McQueen, Clint Eastwood, Francis Ford Coppola.  Armondo's elegant style can be seen in the films of Vincent Minnelli, Orson Welles, Stanley Kramer, David Lean, Alfred Hitchcock, Vittorio De Sica, Joseph E Levine, and Pandro Berman.

In the early 1960s, the Vatican commissioned Armondo to create, write land design a series of short feature films illustrating the Psalms.  The films were produced by his good friend and colleague, Father Patrick Peyton of Family Theater Productions.  The collection of films was screened at the Vatican Pavilion during the 1964 New York World's Fair.  Among the films was the award-winning The Solder featuring the then-young William Shatner.

You may find Armondo's complete bio on the Internet Movie Database (IMDB).

Our sincere thanks and deep gratitude,

Judith Lungen
Executive Director
Piccolo Productions

Chris Houston
Choreographer
Workshop Artistic Director

Sven Alexanders
Producer
Ballet Consultant

For more information on this project, click into piccolo-productions.com.

• Chaminade Year Celebration [ends January 22, 2012]