The Redemptorist Spirituality Course officially commenced on June 2, 2026, as 23 participants—Redemptorists and one lay collaborator—gathered in Rome. Representing nine countries and diverse units, they convened in a small aula at the Alphonsian Academy for their first session. The morning began with a warm welcome and an introductory conference on Christian spirituality, led by Fr. Krzysztof Dworak, CSsR, Director of the Centre for Spirituality in Rome.
At noon, the group went to St. Alphonsus Church to celebrate the opening Mass together with the members of the General Council, with Fr. General Rogério Gomes presiding.
A Call to Remember and Renew
In his homily, Fr. Gomes addressed the participants with a message of reflection and renewal:
You have begun a pilgrimage to the places marked by the life and sanctity of our Founder and the Redemptorists of our historical beginnings. Over the next three weeks, you will visit these sacred sites. As you walk in their footsteps, recall your own first call—the moment that brought you to the Congregation and continues to sustain your missionary vocation. Remember when you heard Jesus say, ‘Follow me!’
And Fr. General continued: I hope these days of the Spirituality Course will become a time of spiritual renewal for you, rooted in a personal encounter with the Redeemer. May this be a true retreat for each of you.
Study and Experience Together
The recent Communicanda 2/2025 renewed the missionary call with the words of Jesus: “Let us go over to the other side.” In this spirit, participants are invited not only to study Redemptorist spirituality, but to experience it concretely by walking through the landscapes and places where the Congregation was born. Over three weeks, they deepen their understanding of Alphonsian spirituality while sharing an intercultural experience of fraternity, prayer, and mission.
The course seeks to nourish a spirituality capable of responding to today’s pastoral and missionary challenges. Like the mustard seed and the leaven in the Gospel (Mt 13:31–33), the hope is that these days of reflection and pilgrimage may quietly bear lasting fruit in the lives and ministries of the participants — awakening once more the desire to follow Christ the Redeemer in the footsteps of Saint Alphonsus and the saints and blesseds of the Congregation.
Rome: Alphonsian Roots and the Heart of the Church
The first days of the course take place in Rome. Participants visit important Alphonsian sites in the city, the Catacombs of Saint Callistus, and take part in the Papal Audience in the Vatican. Formation rooted in place is one of the distinctive aspects of the Spirituality Course: conferences and reflections offered by Redemptorist professors are enriched by pilgrimages to the places most deeply connected to the Congregation’s origins.
Sant’Agata, Ciorani, and Scala: Walking with Alphonsus
From Rome, the group travels to Ciorani, stopping first in Sant’Agata dei Goti, where Saint Alphonsus served as bishop for thirteen years. There they visit the Museum of Saint Alphonsus and celebrate the Eucharist with the Redemptorist Sisters.
Ciorani, the Mother House of the Congregation, serves as the base for the following days. From there, participants journey to Scala — cradle of the Congregation, where Saint Alphonsus underwent his profound interior conversion and where the Congregation was founded on November 9, 1732. Holy Mass is celebrated with the Redemptorist Nuns.
In the Footsteps of Saint Gerard and Saint Alphonsus
The pilgrimage also includes Muro Lucano, birthplace of Saint Gerard Majella three hundred years ago, and Deliceto, where he lived for four formative years. In Materdomini, participants commemorate the Jubilee of the 300th anniversary of his birth. The journey leads to Marianella, where Saint Alphonsus was born, and to Naples, where he was baptized, practised law, and made the decisive turn that led him to abandon his legal career and dedicate his life entirely to the abandoned and the poor. The group also visits Pagani, where Alphonsus spent the final years of his life and died in 1787.
On the return journey to Rome, the group visits Montecassino — one of the most important centres of Benedictine spirituality in the world, marked by centuries of prayer, silence, and fidelity to the Gospel.
A Living Encounter — Open to All
In this Jubilee Year dedicated to Saint Gerard Majella, the Redemptorist Spirituality Course offers far more than historical knowledge. It seeks to provide a living encounter with the spiritual roots of the Congregation, helping Redemptorists and lay collaborators alike to renew their missionary identity and to respond with courage and hope to the challenges of today’s world.
In the footsteps of Saint Alphonsus, participants are invited once again to “cross over to the other side” — to become missionaries of hope in a wounded world, sustained by prayer, fraternity, and the abundant redemption of Christ.
The Spanish/Portuguese edition of the Redemptorist Spirituality Course takes place from September 7–27, 2026. Seats are still available. Those interested are warmly encouraged to apply without delay.
Fr. Krzysztof Dworak, CSsR
Director of the Center for Spirituality – Rome
Homily on the Occasion of the Redemptorist Spirituality Course – English Group
Ninth Week in Ordinary Time
2 Pt 3:11-15, 17-18 · Ps 89 · Mk 12:13-17
Dear confreres participating in the Redemptorist Spirituality Course,
- It is with great joy that I welcome you to this celebration, especially in this place so meaningful for our Redemptorist family: the Church of St. Alphonsus and Our Mother of Perpetual Help, home of the venerated icon of Our Mother of Perpetual Help.
- Here, where so many pilgrims come seeking consolation, hope, and spiritual renewal, each one of us is invited to experience more deeply the love of the Redeemer, allowing ourselves to be enlightened by Alphonsian spirituality.
- Today’s Gospel (cf. Mk 12:13-17) presents a profound and challenging dialogue between Jesus and His opponents in the Temple of Jerusalem. Some Pharisees and Herodians approach Him with an apparently simple question: “Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar or not?” In reality, they want to trap Him.
- If Jesus had said that the tax should not be paid, He would have been accused of rebellion against Rome. If He had said that it should be paid, He would have lost credibility before the oppressed people. Jesus, however, does not enter into the logic of provocation or polarization. He goes deeper.
- He asks for a coin and says: “Whose image and inscription is this?” They answer: “Caesar’s.” Then Jesus declares: “Render to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to God what belongs to God.”
- The coin bears the image of Caesar. Therefore, it can be returned to Caesar. But the human person bears within himself the image of God (cf. Gen 1:26-27). We were created in His image and likeness. And so the question becomes much deeper: if the coin belongs to Caesar because it bears his image, to whom do we belong, we who carry the image of God? Jesus is inviting us to discern what truly belongs to God.
- The Gospel reminds us that we can easily become prisoners of other “Caesars”: power, money, prestige, appearances, individualism, and the desire for recognition. Almost without noticing it, we risk giving to these idols what belongs only to God: our inner freedom, our conscience, and our hearts.
- Jesus invites us today to rediscover the center. We live in the world and have responsibilities and pastoral commitments, but nothing can take the place of God. When God loses the center, the human person also loses his dignity.
- Saint Peter invites us to live “in holiness and devotion” (2 Pt 3:11), waiting for the day of the Lord. With this celebration, you begin the Redemptorist Spirituality Course, a pilgrimage through the places marked by the life, prayer, and mission of St. Alphonsus. You will not visit only historical places, but places where Alphonsus lived, prayed, preached the Gospel, and founded the Congregation. You will walk through environments filled with spiritual memory, where a man profoundly united to Christ the Redeemer consecrated all his life and intelligence to the proclamation of Copious Redemption to the poorest and most abandoned (cf. Lk 4:18).
- As you pass through these places, may each one of you remember your first love (cf. Rev 2:4), the love that brought you to the Congregation and still sustains you today in missionary perseverance. May these days become a time of deep spiritual renewal and strengthen in each of you your Redemptorist identity and charismatic dimension, born from a personal encounter with the Redeemer (cf. Mk 3:13-14). I hope this time may be lived as a true spiritual retreat, in which each one of you may hear resonating in your own heart the words of Jesus in the synagogue of Galilee: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because He has anointed me to bring Good News to the poor” (Lk 4:18).
- Dear confreres, during this pilgrimage through the Alphonsian places, you are invited not only to admire memories of the past, but to enter into a deeply Christ-centered spirituality. It was from this living experience with Christ the Redeemer that St. Alphonsus drew the strength for his missionary life, nourished by prayer and by contemplation of the great mysteries of faith: the Incarnation, the Cross, the Eucharist, and the maternal presence of Mary.
- For Alphonsus, holiness was not something extraordinary or reserved to a privileged few. It was a concrete and daily path, lived in fidelity to God, perseverance in prayer, fraternity, and missionary dedication to the most abandoned.
- May, during these days, Mary, Mother of Perpetual Help and Mother of Hope, together with all the saints, blesseds, and martyrs of our Congregation, accompany each one of you on this pilgrimage and help you to walk as missionaries of hope in the footsteps of the Redeemer. Amen.
I wish you all a blessed pilgrimage!
Fr. Rogério Gomes, C.Ss.R.
Superior General
Rome, 2nd June 2026
