Monthly Archives: April 2016

News, Women's Communities

St. Catherine of Siena: Messenger of Mercy

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Siena Today the Church celebrates the feast of St. Catherine of Siena which is particularly significant during this Year of Mercy and 800th Jubilee of the Foundation of the Dominican Order. St. Catherine led an extraordinary life as an advisor to the Holy See, Dominican tertiary, and witness to God’s merciful love.

Catherine Benincasa was born on the feast of the Annunciation in 1347 and quickly grew to have a deep spiritual life first having an apparition of Christ at the young age of 6. After some hesitation from her family, St. Catherine obtained permission to become a Dominican tertiary and experienced a “mystical marriage” with Christ at the age of 21. Following the momentous occasion, she performed works of mercy including visiting the imprisoned whom she hoped would turn to God and nursing the sick even volunteering to care for those afflicted with the most terrible diseases.

St. Catherine soon became renowned throughout Italy for her sanctity and wisdom. During her life, she strove to maintain peace throughout Italy by negotiating peace terms between cities and preaching a crusade in hopes of unifying the Christendom to retake the Holy Land. St. Catherine’s wisdom caused popes to take her counsel as she was influential in convincing Pope Gregory XI to return to Rome and even moved to Rome herself at the request of Pope Urban VI during the Great Schism that occurred in 1378. Her wisdom and profound spiritual insights are also apparent in her writings which led her to be proclaimed a Doctor of the Church by Pope Paul VI.

8900060944_b1782bb7c7_oThe feast of the renowned Dominican saint corresponds this year with the 8th Triennial General Assembly of the Dominican Sisters International who are currently meeting in Rome to pray, reflect and discuss the future of their preaching mission. The IRL has many Dominican affiliates including the Dominican Sisters of Hawthorne who were founded by the youngest child of author Nathaniel Hawthorne, Rose. For more information on affiliate Dominican communities please visit the IRL website.

General interest

The Extraordinary Life of St. Maximilian Kolbe’s Spiritual Son

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ST.Max
Father Krolikowski with St. Maxymillian Kolbe in 1939.

Many have been inspired to imitate the life of St. Maximilian Kolbe, however, Father Lucjan Krolikowski OFM Conv. is unique because he lived in community with the saint for several years as a Conventual Franciscan. The 96 year old priest has led an extraordinary life having lived in community with St. Maximilian, struggled to survive a Soviet gulag in Siberia during World War II, saved and became the foster father to 150 Polish orphans and broadcasted a Catholic radio program for 32 years in the United States.

Fr. Krolikowski entered the Conventual Franciscan friary of Niepokalanow in 1934 at the age of 15 due to his desire to become a priest like St. Maximilian Kolbe. At the time, Niepokalanow was the largest monastery in the world and St. Maximilian was the heart and soul of the community’s apostolate according to Fr. Krolikowski. In an interview with the National Catholic Register, he said, “I’ve met a few saintly people in my life, but Father Maximilian Kolbe was the most saintly, in my estimation. He had an impact on you; you wanted to imitate him.” The friars deeply loved St. Maximilian and many even volunteered their own lives for his release following his arrest.

Soviet troops arrested Fr. Krolikowski in 1940 and sent him to a labor camp in Siberia. At the camp, he cut down trees for 13 or 14 hours each day only occasionally receiving a piece of bread for sustenance. With the war incurring many causalities, soldiers were needed. As a result, Fr. Krolikowski entered training and went to the Middle East eventually becoming a priest in Beirut and spending time in East Africa.

5913110  In East Africa, Fr. Krolikowski met Polish children who had become orphaned after their parents had died in Soviet gulags. When the Communist government of Poland demanded their repatriation, Fr. Krolikowski heroically sought to aid them by emigrating with them to Canada. He recounted this trial in Stolen Children: A Saga of Polish War Children which he wrote with the hope that the book would, “draw attention to the parallel fate of the children of other races and nationalities who are ravaged by the uncontrolled passion for power, wealth, success and ill-understood independence.”

Once in the United States, Fr. Krolikowski continued to lead a life fashioned in imitation of St. Maximilian. He did this by broadcasting a Catholic radio program for 32 years and writing several books including his memoir, A Franciscan Odyssey. When reflecting on his life, Fr. Krolikowski says he would do it all over again because he chose the life of his spiritual father, St. Maximilian Kolbe.

News

Founder of the SOLTs Passes Away – Fr. Jim Flanagan

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Fr FlanOn Holy Thursday, March 24, 2016, Fr. James Flanagan, SOLT, founder of the Society of Our Lady of the Most Holy Trinity, peacefully died, surrounded by members of his family, both immediate and spiritual. The SOLTs were established in the Archdiocese of Santa Fe in 1958, the perfect springboard, Father Jim thought, to eventually reach out to people across the globe. Today they are in 13 countries around the world.

Father attended the University of Notre Dame, with studies interrupted by World War II, and was also a player on the football team. When he told his coach, the famous Frank Leahy, that he was leaving the team to study for the priesthood, Coach Leahy said, “That is the best possible life, Jim. You go.”

SOLT fr__jim_and_sistersAnd go he did. After an unmistakable call from God, Jim established the SOLTs, a Society within the Church that would emphasize relationships as flowing from the Holy Trinity with Mary as the Mother and Mediatrix of this communion.

Their defining characteristics are:

Trinitarian: They exist to give honor and glory to the Most Holy Trinity, to exalt His majesty, and to manifest His greatness.

Marian: They strive to imitate our Blessed Mother Mary in her relationships with the persons of the Trinity, as beloved daughter of the Father, Mother of the Son, and spouse of the Holy Spirit.

Catholic: As loyal and loving members of Christ and His Vicar on earth, the Pope, they are faithful to the Magisterium and devoted to the Holy Eucharist.

Missionary: They serve in areas of deepest apostolic need, as defined by the local bishops where they serve.

Family: They are a family composed of priests, deacons, religious brothers and sisters, single laity and families serving together in the missions and bound together in their spirituality.

soltIn his funeral homily, Fr. Peter Marsalek, General Priest of SOLT, said:

Six years after the founding of SOLT, the Vatican II document on the Church, Lumen Gentium, spoke of Mary in a Trinitarian perspective as the beloved daughter of the Father, temple of the Holy Spirit and Mother of the Son.  In my humble opinion, it was a significant and beautiful Providential confirmation of sorts of the inspiration Fr. Jim received to found a community dedicated to Our Lady of the Most Holy Trinity.  In our call to be the beloved children of the Father, the power of the Holy Spirit working interiorly within us leads us to be conformed to the Image of the Son in order to live as the family of God.  And this expression of our spirituality is manifested most beautifully when we are able to serve meaningfully with one another as a family of priests, sisters and lay people, united to Holy Mother Church through the authority of the bishops under whom we serve! 

Father Jim, may you rest in peace.

 

 

News, Women's Communities

Franciscan Handmaids of the Most Pure Heart of Mary Celebrate 100 Years

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On March 29, 2016, the Franciscan Handmaids of the Most Pure Heart of Mary celebrated 100 years since their foundation with a Centennial Gala.  In attendance, was Timothy Cardinal Dolan as well as many other dignitaries and well-known entertainers.

osf nyThe sisters were founded in 1916 in Savannah, Georgia, by Fr. Ignatius Lissner, SMA, a Frenchman, and Miss Elizabeth Williams, who became Mother Mary Theodore, FHM, the first Superior General.

Some years prior, Father Lissner had received the blessing of the Holy Father to establish missions to serve the black population in the main cities of Georgia. Father Lissner and other SMAs, in six years, established six churches and seven parochial schools in Georgia.

But in 1915, the state legislature proposed a bill that would outlaw the teaching of black children by white teachers. Alarmed, Father Lissner, a member of the Society of African Missions,  and Miss Elizabeth Williams, an African American woman, founded a new congregation, the Handmaids of the Most Pure Heart of Mary in Savannah, Georgia to minister to and evangelize the African American community. This title was chosen to inspire the members of the congregation to serve their neighbors and each other “with the same zeal and love with which Mary served her son Jesus Christ”.

osf ny2Their life is centered on the Holy Eucharist, the Sacrament of Unity and Transformation. They pray as Jesus taught His disciples for each other, for the grace of self-transformation, renewal of neighbor, the Church, our society, for victims of injustice and for peace and justice in our broken world (Luke: 11:1-13).  They focus mainly on the promotion of Catholic social justice teaching, youth evangelization and healing missions, education of the young and feeding the needy.

We have a firm belief with experience that Prayer works miracles and ardent adoration of the Blessed Sacrament has power to heal wounds.