Total commitment to God through the ideal of Marcellin

The church community of Santa Isabel, Rio das Antas-SC, experienced an intensely joyful and profoundly meaningful event on the 19th November 2005 during the perpetual profession of Brother Valdir Gugiel.
The celebration was prepared by the Province?s Vocations Ministry and Animation Committee which had organised a vocation week in the schools and parishes of the region. Moreover, Brother Valdir?s parents surpassed themselves in preparing a feast for over 400 people which followed the Eucharistic celebration of the perpetual profession.
The Eucharistic celebration, solemn and well animated, was concelebrated by the local parish priest and by a Marist Father. It gathered together parents and friends, faithful from the parish, a large number of confrères, young Marists in formation and collaborators in Marist works. The church was full. Brother Valdir Gugiel pronounced his perpetual vows before the Brother Provincial who received them in the name of the Brother Superior General. The ceremony left everybody with feelings of optimism, commitment, faith sharing, generosity and confidence, all dispositions of Mary, our Good Mother and of Marcellin Champagnat, in response to the Lord who calls and sends.

Highlights of the celebration were the procession during which the parents offered their son to the Lord; the profession of vows as well as the presentation of the Constitutions, the ring and the cross by the Brother Provincial and the parents of Brother Valdir; the presentation of the symbols for the mission at the offertory; the words of the celebrants, of the Brother Provincial and of Brother Valdir himself; the review of Brother Valdir?s life, giving evidence of his jovial personality and his sense of humour, as one of his sisters remarked; the singing of the Salve Regina by the brothers and those in formation at the end of the Mass; and finally the joyous and warm welcome shown to the newly professed and to the Marist family.