Monthly Archives: December 2014

News, Women's Communities

Mercedarian FREE Seven Day Course

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merc logoThe Mercedarian Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament are offering a free 7-day course in Mercedarian Spirituality. Participants in this email course will learn how to discern their vocation and discover more about the Eucharistic-Marian charism of the Mercedarian Sisters.

What are the spiritual values of the Mercedarian sisters?

  • The constant giving of our lives as Jesus does in the Eucharist.
  • Example and model of Christ the Redeemer
  • A life centered on the Eucharist and our Blessed Mother
  • Daily Mass, Liturgy of the Hours, Meditation, and Rosary
  • Eucharistic Exposition and Benediction
  • Faithful to the Magisterium of the Church

The course which is open to everyone consists of an email delivered to your inbox each day for seven days. Catholic women open to religious life may find this course particularly helpful, as it offers valuable insights into religious discernment. The emails will focus on both the specific charisms of the Mercedarian Sisters as well as religious life in general. The purpose of this free course is to promote the beautiful calling to religious life, to foster vocations, and to provide a glimpse into the Mercedarian Spirituality.

Sign up today!!

Liturgical Year, News

Shakespeare and the Blessed Virgin Mary

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shakespeareOne of the most interesting news items from last week was the announcement that a First Folio of William Shakespeare’s plays had been discovered in a library in Saint-Omer, in northern France. It was missing its frontispiece and a portrait of Shakespeare, hence it was thought to be an 18th century edition not one from 1623.

The First Folio was compiled by Shakespeare’s friends seven years after his death and is the only source of a number of his plays including Macbeth, Twelfth Night, Julius Caesar and As You Like It. Only 233 copies are known to exist.

Saint-Omer was a place of refuge for English Catholics escaping persecution in England. A Jesuit school, founded in 1593 after Catholic schools were outlawed in England, thrived there until it was expelled from France in 1762. In 1794, it moved to Stonyhurst in England, where it remains today. Stonyhurst has become a warehouse of precious Catholic artifacts including the rope that bound St. Edmund Campion at the time of his execution and a crucifix belonging to St. Thomas More. The First Folio was left behind when other books were sent to Stonyhurst because it was not recognized for what it was.

What does this have to do with the Immaculate Conception? During Mass this morning, the priest said that a First Folio is the most important edition of an author’s works. It is an authentic and true representation. The Blessed Mother is like a First Folio, a perfect example of what God wants us to be. We should all strive to be like First Folios, loving the Blessed Mother’s Son with our whole hearts and allowing that love to infuse all that we do and all that we are.

A blessed Feast of the Immaculate Conception to all.

Men's communities, Women's Communities

Norbertines Break Ground!

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Wilmington Sisters
Wilmington Sisters

Last July, earth moving equipment began to level the ground in Silverado Canyon in preparation for the construction of the new abbey for the Norbertines, replacing the old one which is really bursting at the seams with students and vocations.

This past August, the California abbey welcomed six young men who are studying to become Norbertine canons. Three young women as well became the first Americans to enter the Nobertine sisters from Slovakia (Sr. Adriana, Sr. Roberta & Sr. Benedicta)  who reside in a convent nearby Wilmington.

The new abbey will include a church, convent, welcome area/meeting rooms, monastery and cemetery chapel. These buildings will comprise only a small portion of the hundreds of acres of the original Holtz ranch thus preserving an important part of the rural California landscape.

The Norbertine also have a cloistered community of Norbertine Canonesses that is growing rapidly in Tehachapi. The Norbertine Sisters of Wilmington are one of the newest branches on the family tree of the Norbertine Order founded by St. Norbert (1080-1134). They were founded in 1902 in the Czech Republic by Fr. Vojtech Frejka, a Norbertine Father from the abbey of Strahov in Prague. The Slovakian Norbertines reside in SS. Peter and Paul Convent in Wilmington, CA, which was established in 2011.

“Our congregation of Norbertine sisters in Slovakia received an invitation from the Norbertine fathers in California to help them establish a new community of Norbertine sisters in the United States,” said Sr. Benedicta.

In Wilmington, they minister to needy families, teach religious education, and work in the Catholic book & gift store, and in the parish office. Like St. Norbert, they live a common life, “prepared for every good work,” centered daily on the Mass and chanting of the Divine Office.

News, Vocations, Women's Communities

Wake Up the World!

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wake up!Pope Francis has called upon consecrated women and men to “wake up the world!” And last weekend the 2015 Year of Consecrated Life officially began.

Religious cannot shake and wake up the world unless there are actually men and women religious. One religious can make a difference! Look at the lives of Sts. Francis, Dominic, Benedict, Mother Cabrini, Don Bosco, Mother Teresa, etc…

Another great foundress was St. Jeanne Jugan, the foundress of the Little Sisters of the Poor in 19th century France. The Little Sisters have issued a new vocation video called Love Serves in celebration of the Year of Consecrated Life. It is free and viewable online here. They want our help in reaching young women who might make a great Little Sister of the Poor in serving the elderly poor.

lspIn a recent poll, more than one in four young Catholics reported that they had never been encouraged to consider becoming a religious sister, brother or priest. Those who were invited to consider a religious vocation said it was a family member, a friend, a teacher or youth minister who broached the subject with them. It could be you!

Please share the vocation video, LOVE SERVES, with a young woman you might know. It may make an everlasting difference!

Cloistered life, Women's Communities

First Profession in Marbury: A “Twin” Celebration

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Sister-Mary-Thomas-OP-and-twin-brother-Dominic-RankinWhat makes this picture unique? Well, it so happens that the two happy people pictured in it are Sr. Mary Thomas of the Holy Name of Jesus, OP, and her twin brother, a seminarian at the Pontifical North American College. I have featured twin vocation stories before but never a twin brother and sister!

Sr. Mary Thomas made her First Profession on November 22nd at the Dominican Monastery of St. Jude in Marbury, Alabama. Her brother was given permission to fly-in from Rome, Italy, for the occasion. Also in attendance were her Mother and Father and younger brother. What generosity on behalf of their parents to present two children to the Lord as a religious and priest.

The Feast Day on the 22nd celebrated the life of St. Cecilia. As Mother Mary Joseph said, the readings and chants for St. Cecilia could have been chosen just for a Profession ceremony.  “Audi filia, et vide, et inclina aurem tuam: quia concupivit rex speciem tuam: Hearken, O daughter, and see; turn thine ear: for the King desires thy beauty.”

It was also an extra-special occasion because the Mass was a Dominican Rite Missa Cantata (Sung High Mass) celebrated by Fr. Dominic Marie Langevin, O.P. Before Vatican II, the Dominicans celebrated almost exclusively their own ritual of Mass and the Divine Office. Sister’s brothers grew up serving in an FSSP parish, so they quickly picked up the slightly different rubrics for serving the Dominican Rite.

In this Year for Consecrated Life, may many blessings descend upon the Dominican nuns in Marbury. May all families be open to and welcome with joy their children’s call to religious life.

Liturgical Year, Women's Communities

Little Followers of Jesus

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c de foucauldOn this date in 1916, 98 years ago, Bl. Charles de Foucauld was dragged out of his little hermitage in southern French Algeria and killed by rebel bandits. Reading the story of the last years of his life could make you weep if it wasn’t for his strong, unwavering humble faith, in Jesus and in his mission among his Moslem brothers in North Africa.

He had good friends among the local people but no converts. He asked: “Is my presence here doing any good? If it does not, the presence of the Most Holy Sacrament certainly does it greatly. Jesus cannot be in a place without shining forth. Moreover through contact with the natives, their suspicions and prejudices are slowly abating. It is very slow and very little. Pray so that your child does more good and that better workers than him might come to clear this corner in the field of the family’s Father.”

While Bl. Charles did not found a religious order, many people have followed in his footsteps. If you see a poor community called the “Little Brothers of Jesus” or some such variation, they are probably inspired by Bl. Charles. A few years ago, I ran across a little elderly Charles de Foucauld sister in a remote area of Israel who invited me into her hermitage (though we did not speak the same language). She opened a tin which contained a few crumbly cookies and offered them to me with great ceremony. I remember that “meal” with more fondness than any 5 star dinner in a fancy restaurant.

little sisters of jesusThere are little sisters and brothers of Jesus in the US. One community is the Little Sisters of Jesus and Mary in Salisbury, Maryland. Their mission: We are sent to help people believe in Christ Jesus who reveals the goodness of the Father, giving preferential love to the poorest of the poor. In the spirit of Charles de Foucauld, united as a community in the love of Jesus, in the spirit of Mary and under the protection of St. Joseph, sharing a life of faith, love and simplicity, we strive to cry the Gospel with our lives.

Charles de Foucauld composed this prayer as he meditated on the death of Jesus on the Cross:

This was the last prayer of our Master, our Beloved. May it also be ours. And may it be not only that of our last moment, but also of our every moment:

Father,
I abandon myself into your hands; do with me what you will. Whatever you may do, I thank you: I am ready for all, I accept all. Let only your will be done in me, and in all your creatures — I wish no more than this, O Lord.

Into your hands I commend my soul; I offer it to you with all the love of my heart, for I love you Lord, and so need to give myself, to surrender myself into your hands, without reserve, and with boundless confidence, for you are my Father.