Providential meeting, friendship connected to conference

By Renée St. Martin Wizeman

On the eve of Pope John Paul II’s funeral in Rome, in “an amazing act of providence,” then-seminarian Marc Lenneman met Mother Adela Galindo in a street outside of St. Peter’s Square.
Father Lenneman, director of Carroll College’s Campus Ministry, recounted his meeting with Mother Adela and the profound effect she’s had in his life during a recent interview.
Mother Adela, the foundress of the Religious Institute, Servants of the Pierced Hearts of Jesus and Mary and of the Family of the Two Hearts, will be the keynote speaker at the diocesan Holy Spirit Conference, May 2-4, in Helena. Father Lenneman is also a speaker.
Thinking back to their first encounter three years ago, he said “It was like she had access to my heart.” He and several other seminarians had gathered, with over 1 million people, the night before Pope John Paul II’s funeral.
“We were so joyful to be with one another, it was like John Paul II was so great at gathering the family, he gathered it one last time, and our hearts were so open, so people were talking and connecting in an amazing way,” he recalled.
One of those connections was fostered between him and Mother Adela. As he and a fellow seminarian wandered about the streets, he handed out Miraculous Medals. Father Lenneman gave one to a little girl seated on the curb with her mother and two women religious – Mother Adela and Sister Ana. Through conversation, they determined that they were all from the U.S.
During their first conversation, he and Mother Adela spoke about the Blessed Mother, as well as the spiritual paternity of priests and spiritual maternity of women religious.
“We talked about how for too long the paternity and maternity had been separated from one another, sometimes even at odds with one another, just like in a natural family – mom and dad are fighting. Mother Adela said the Church is a family, that fathers and mothers need to be united, be one together, so the whole family is lifted up,” he said.
Mother Adela gave him her card, and after some time, he e-mailed her.
“I finally e-mailed her, and wrote “Don’t know if you remember me…” And she responded with a page and half email; she was naming things in my heart that were good things that were growing, and other things that I was afraid of,” he said. That began their e-mail correspondence, and he later spent four days with Mother Adela and the sisters in their motherhouse in Miami in the summer of 2005, en route to El Salvador for an immersion experience with his fellow seminarians.
“I felt like I was going home; that was a profound feeling, I should have perhaps felt awkward, but I felt like I was at home. We’re in a spiritual family, and I consider myself part of that family,” he said. Mother Adela and several sisters participated in Father Lenneman’s ordination in 2006.
The vision and shape of the order’s charism “has given profound shape to my priesthood,” Father Lenneman said. “The charism of the pierced hearts of Jesus and Mary is the charism of love, to allow the redeeming love of the pierced hearts to become present and transformative in my own heart and then through my heart, to let that same love be communicated to others. Love is concrete - wherever love is needed, that's where the charism will be present,” he said.
As for the Holy Spirit Conference, Father Lenneman said it is a profoundly good thing for the diocese. “As people pray and have these gifts of the Spirit released, they take them back to their parishes and work. It’s how they fill their vocation as essential lay members of the Church and become salt and light in the world.”
For more on the Holy Spirit Conference, visit www.diocesehelena.org/chars.

Published in The Montana Catholic, Vol. 24, No. 4, April 18, 2008.