It has been quite a hectic summer at the Stuart Center for Mission.
From June 9–13, 2025, the Sacred Heart Transformative Learning Planning Committee members met at a retreat house in Guadalajara, Mexico. This meeting yielded the acceptance of three new modules: Compassionate Communication, Personal Finance with a Purpose, and Systemization. Dates for the fall 2025 series featuring our new learning management system have been set to begin at the end of September. Committee members also spent a day visiting the RSCJ Mexico-sponsored ministry, Comunidad Cree A.C. located in Jalisco.
Mid-June took participants of our Pilgrimages of the Heart: Red Shirt & Oglala to the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota. Partnering with Reservation Outreach during one week, we experienced the sharing of a traditional Oglala Lakota meal, building an access ramp and two sets of steps for the new Red Shirt Community Center, painting the ramp and steps installed last
summer at the Makasan Presbyterian Church (also the site of our accommodations), cleaning an outbuilding on the church grounds to be used to house a food pantry and a small thrift store, and preparing and distributing three meals—two at the Red Shirt village, and one at the Makasan Presbyterian Church Community Center. We were also able to visit Wounded Knee Historical Site, Oglala Lakota College’s Historical Center, Mahpíya Lúta (formerly Red Cloud Indian School, at one time a ministry of the Jesuits), Crazy Horse Monument, Custer National Park, and last but in no way least, two days at the Red Shirt PowWow.
The Stuart Center for Mission’s Pilgrimages of the Heart: León, Mexico, is presently in progress. This two-week educational mission, a program of the RSCJ MEX, is being held in two communities and serving approximately 120 children ages three–eleven years old.
Details on how to participate in our 2026 Pilgrimages of the Heart events will be released September 2025.
