By Tanya Connor
The Catholic Free Press
STURBRIDGE – Father Stanley Rousseau came from Haiti for the annual St. Anne Novena – and presented a video of his work there for attendees.
“This is extraordinary,” exclaimed Assumptionist Father Peter R. Precourt as he welcomed Father Rousseau to last Friday’s novena Mass at St. Anne Shrine. “He flew in to be with us this evening.”
Father Precourt, pastor of St. Anne and St. Patrick, the parish connected with the shrine, said Father Rousseau came the greatest distance to the novena.
And why did he come all that way? Father Rousseau said it was because of a novena promoter who went to Haiti with him.
The pastor invited novena-goers to stay after Mass for a presentation of Father Rousseau’s work. He said they could support the work with their prayers and financial contributions.
“The Mass is ended, stay in peace,” Father Rousseau concluded, picking up on Father Precourt’s plea and the novena theme of “True Peace.”
He told the congregation the novena is important for them and for him. He also thanked parishioners Robert and Lena Langlois, who do much work for the novena, and noted that Mrs. Langlois and fellow-parishioner Pauline Sey went to Haiti with him and are involved with the school he is building up there.
Each year, people from different countries lead different nights of the novena. Father Rousseau had celebrated Mass for the novena’s Haitian Day when he was serving in the Boston area in the past few years.
He came from Haiti specifically for the novena this year, because he couldn’t come last year, he told The Catholic Free Press.
“Lena said, ‘Father, you have to be here,’” he said. “When she asks for something, I can’t say ‘no.’”
Father Rousseau said he arrived July 13 and visited family members and parishes in the Boston area. He returned to Haiti July 23.
He’s a priest of the Diocese of Jacmel, Haiti, but was recently serving at Holy Name Parish in West Roxbury and with the Haitian communities at St. John the Evangelist Parish in Cambridge and St. Ann Parish in Somerville, he said. In the past, he’d earned his master’s in education and his master’s in pastoral ministry from Boston College.
This spring he returned to Haiti, where he’s now pastor of Sacred Heart Parish in Musac.
In addition to doing parish work, and high school and university ministry for the Jacmel Diocese, he said, he’s working with others to build up Our Lady of Perpetual Help, a school for students in kindergarten through grade 6 in Savane Dubois.
Father Precourt recommended that Father Rousseau make a video to inform people here about the school, said Gail Young, a St. Anne parishioner also supporting the efforts.
Father Rousseau said he and others made the video “to show to the world what we are doing, the needs of these kids in Haiti.”
The video says the school, started in 2011, has 190 students, some of whom walk two or more hours to get there, sometimes climbing over rocks and wading through water. One student says her dream is to become a doctor and help everyone in her community.
After the video was shown Friday, someone spontaneously passed around a basket, collecting donations for the school.
Magalie Olivier, who helps with the project here and in Haiti, said $537 was collected. She gave The Catholic Free Press a brief history of the project.
Father Rousseau suffered much after his sister, Ludmilla Rousseau, a teacher in Haiti, was killed in an accident several years ago, she said.
“Father Stanley’s sister was very involved, not only for the children, but for battered women and young adults,” she said. Her friends, not wanting her work to die, but not having money to support it, gave of their time, and taught children without being paid. In her honor, Father Rousseau and others started “Fondation Ludmilla Rousseau pour Haiti” (FLURHA), which opened the school.
Ms. Olivier learned about the foundation from Father Rousseau, whom she met in 2013 when he served at her parish, St. John’s in Cambridge.
“I fell in love with the project and I took an early retirement” to do more for it, the former Somerville public school teacher said.
A Haitian native who immigrated to the United States as a teenager and returns frequently to Haiti, she went to see the project.
“I’m in love with these children,” she says. “They are my life.” She said she returned to Haiti to live, but comes to Massachusetts to see family, friends and fellow parishioners, and to raise money for the foundation.
In Haiti, she’s the manager of FLURHA, and in Massachusetts she’s the director of the Light of Education Foundation Inc. She said she was one of those helping Father Rousseau establish Light of Education, a non-profit organization to raise money for FLURHA.
Mrs. Sey said she joined a local committee which Mrs. Langlois started to raise money for Light of Education, after they returned from Haiti.
January 2-9 she and Mrs. Langlois went with Father Rousseau to Haiti, where Ms. Olivier met them.
“I would go back tomorrow if I didn’t have family responsibilities,” Mrs. Sey said. She said it was much more devastating than she expected. She saw more than poverty; she saw destitution.
“Everywhere you saw symbols of Christianity,” she said. “How can these godly people be in such a God-forsaken place? … After a few days I could start to see the beauty, because the people were so warm and welcoming.”
“We found the children so full of love,” Mrs. Langlois said. “Even though we could not communicate verbally, we understood each other through God’s universal love.”
Going to Haiti is an eye-opener, Father Rousseau said.
“We see the difference and how blessed we are here,” he said. “If we are blessed and we don’t share our blessings, there is something missing. And if we share, we make it multiply.”
Supporters here publicize the project, contribute financially, and donate goods. Father Rousseau said some things were already shipped to Haiti, including bicycles Mrs. Langlois collected, which some students can ride to school.
“To have a school there we need people from the States … to help out,” he said.
“Providing an education to impoverished kids is helping them for the future,” and helping their families, the community, Haitian society and the whole world. “If you have educated people in Haiti, they can participate in building a better world. … We are connected … and through our Christian faith we are really connected.”