Brother Eduardo Navarro replaces Brother Javier Espinosa

The General Council has appointed Brother Eduardo Navarro from the Mexico Occidental Province as Director of on-going, Spanish/Portuguese formation programs at the Escorial Center. Brother Eduardo assumes the position held by Brother Javier Espinosa of Central America Province who has come to the end of his second, three-year term this month, June 2009. Because no sessions will be held at Escorial for the remainder of 2009, Brother Eduardo will take up his new position in January 2010.

He will be able to count on Brother Afonso Levis as his right hand man during the year 2010. Brother Afonso, from the Province of Brasil Centro Sur, has agreed to extend his assignment in order to facilitate the transition. We are grateful to the above named Brothers for their willingness to lead the on-going formation pro-grams at Escorial, programs set up in accordance with the wishes of the General Administration.

Brother Eduardo Navarro will bring to his new apostolate wide experience in initial formation, particularly at the juniorate and novitiate levels. He has also been involved in the guidance of young Brothers as well as in many Marist edu-cational institutions. With many years as community superior and Provincial Councilor under his belt, Brother Eduardo has a good grasp of Marist Brother?s life today. In fact, he has been chosen by his Province to be delegate to the upcoming General Chapter.

To Brother Javier Espinosa, we wish to express our thanks for the extraor-dinary contribution he has made to the vitality of the Escorial courses and for the introduction of new courses. This is especially the case for the two programs intro-duced for special age groups: ?Horizons? and ?Transition?. As Brother Javier explains in his Report: ?Our vocation is a vocation to life and happiness. All the present-day forces of renewal and of institutional growth move in step with the quality of the Brothers? lives and according to their human and spiritual authenticity.?