![\"image\"](\"https:\/\/vocationsaa.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/image-620x465.jpeg\")
<\/p>\nOn January 7th and 8th, the Associate Missionaries of the Assumption, or AMAs, had their retreat, during which they \u2014 Elliot Simmons-Uvin, Maria Palacios Paz, Meaghan Hickey \u2014 reflected on their experiences over the past few months. In short, they grew, loved. They encountered God.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Throughout all of their journeys, there were\u00a0moments of uncertainty and doubt, but these were moments they managed to\u00a0overcome with graces from the Holy Spirit. Even the small things: \u00a0Elliot, while he was on break, reconnected with his friends, who had all taken jobs with decent paychecks. He wondered whether he should have done a year of service. But he did so\u00a0only briefly, because he signed up for a second year.<\/p>\n
Maria worried about leaving home. When she got to New Mexico, she wondered whether she’d fit in. But she did, and then some — especially because she helped a young man get into college. Also, the Religious of the Assumption, our sister\u00a0congregation, accepted her as family.<\/p>\n
Meaghan’s time caused her to realize that, by no choice of her own, she’d been born into a life of comfort, one that many in the world don’t get to experience. And it led her to this: \u00a0she had to give herself fully to the people she served.<\/p>\n
They also listened to Nancy Small, an author and spiritual caregiver who asked them to consider the meaning of nonviolence, emphasizing that practicing it doesn’t turn you into a doormat. Rather, it asks you to fully express Love. It is about countering and disarming, not slinking away passively. She drew on such activist-thinkers as Gandhi and Martin Luther King; she drew on scripture, asking the AMAs to dive into the story where Christ saves a woman’s life by asking the crowd to look within and see if they have sinned. If they were clear of conscience \u2014 if they were totally, truly without sin \u2014 then\u00a0they had permission to throw stones at her. None did. All turned away.<\/p>\n
What does this have to do with\u00a0a vocation to religious life and to the Assumptionists specifically? Glad you asked.<\/p>\n
Everything.<\/p>\n
Think about it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
On January 7th and 8th, the Associate Missionaries of the Assumption, or AMAs, had their retreat, during which they \u2014 Elliot Simmons-Uvin, Maria Palacios Paz, Meaghan Hickey \u2014 reflected on their experiences over the past few months. In short, they grew, loved. They encountered God. Throughout all of their journeys, there were\u00a0moments of uncertainty and… Read More »Catching up with the AMAs<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":327,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"neve_meta_sidebar":"","neve_meta_container":"","neve_meta_enable_content_width":"","neve_meta_content_width":0,"neve_meta_title_alignment":"","neve_meta_author_avatar":"","neve_post_elements_order":"","neve_meta_disable_header":"","neve_meta_disable_footer":"","neve_meta_disable_title":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vocationsaa.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/324"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vocationsaa.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vocationsaa.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vocationsaa.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vocationsaa.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=324"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/vocationsaa.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/324\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":489,"href":"https:\/\/vocationsaa.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/324\/revisions\/489"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vocationsaa.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/327"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vocationsaa.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=324"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vocationsaa.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=324"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vocationsaa.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=324"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}