Casa Guadalupe

Courtyard with fountain in Casa Guadalupe.

Casa Guadalupe is a community/missionary center located beside St. Seraphin Friary in Comayagua. It opened in 2006 with the purpose of fulfilling the two desires which Our Lady of Guadalupe expressed to St. Juan Diego during her apparitions in Mexico City in 1531. Namely, to have a place where the True God could be made known and given to the people, and a refuge where the poor could bring their sorrows and suffering and find relief. These correspond with the two apostolic thrusts of our community, the Franciscan Friars of the Renewal: evangelization and direct care of the poor.

Soccer/basketball court with missionary family residence in background.

Casa Guadalupe is really an open-air, pavilion-style multi-purpose center. It has several dormitories to house patients for surgical brigades at the St. Benedict Joseph Medical Center, youth and adults on retreat and visiting mission teams from outside the country. There are classrooms and activity rooms, larger areas for meetings and talks, an ample kitchen with two separate dining areas, a day care center, laundry and bathing facilities with clean water also available for free distribution open to the public, a sports court, storage areas and offices.

One of the atria in Casa Guadalupe.

The heart of Casa Guadalupe is a large, open chapel in the center of the complex, where Mass is celebrated and Eucharistic adoration takes place during youth retreats and other large gatherings..

The main chapel at Casa Guadalupe (above and below).

And that's exactly what happened during the last weekend of my visit in Honduras. We had a reunion retreat for about 30 young adults who have participated in Youth Evangelization Team formation and outreach. The theme for the retreat was: Extraordinary Witness: Martyrs and Missionaries. Since Saturday was the feast of St. Maximilian Kolbe, we discussed the need for making a definitive choice for Christ in our lives against the backdrop of what took place during World War II in Nazi Germany, highlighting the examples of St. Maximilian and St. Theresa Benedict of the Cross (Edith Stein - whose feast occured earlier that week). The youth then viewed the film Sophie Scholl, which documents the heroic opposition of this young woman and a group of friends. That evening there was a Eucharistic Prayer vigil followed by all night adoration.

Eucharistic prayer vigil during the EJE reunion retreat at Casa Guadalupe.

The next day we turned our attention to Africa and talked about the explosive growth taking place in the Church there, as well as some of the serious challenges being faced on that continent in general, and in Sudan in particular. We then watched the harrowing film Beyond the Gates, which focuses on what took place at a Catholic school in Rwanda during the Tutsi genocide in 1994 and the contrasting responses of an extraordinary priest and a young European volunteer. I was very happy to see the bridge between the Church in Honduras and Sudan/Africa become even stronger.

Panoramic view of the neibhborhood from the water tower/ laundry deck (click to enlarge).

To donate online, please CLICK HERE.