It is encouraging to see that the faith is alive and well in Canada from whence you hear so many stories about the decline of 
the Church.
On the Feast of the Annunciation, March 26th this year, 4 women professed vows and 5 women were established as members of a new community in Ottawa called the Queenship of Mary. The ceremony was held at the beautiful Notre Dame Cathedral Basilica where they received their habits and new religious names.
OK, I wrote a blog entry last week about twin brothers who were priests. Now, Our Sunday Visitor has an article about siblings who are priests and/or religious. It seems to be the tip of the iceberg of interesting family vocation stories.
Father Bill Wack and Father Neil Wack, Congregation of Holy Cross. Their great-uncle was a Holy Cross priest at the University of Notre Dame.
Sister Mary Catherine Titus, Sister Martha Ann Titus, and Sister Mary Rita Titus are all members of the Dominican Sisters of St. Cecilia. Their mother thought that their older brother Mark would be a priest, but he married and has 11 children.
Father Terrence Coonan and Father Matthew Coonan, from the Diocese of Fort Wayne-South Bend. A priest once told them that a family of 4 brothers should have one vocation. Each brother said, ” My brother will do it.”
In the Hopkins family, there is one religious sister and three priests. Father John said, “Our parents taught us at a very young age that the only important thing was to do God’s will. “They didn’t talk a lot about vocations, but they did talk about how we had to use our gifts not selfishly, but for others.”
For the complete story, visit the OSV website.
On March 10, 2012, the Poor Clares of Perpetual Adoration in Tonopah, Arizona, an IRL Affiliate Community, held their 3rd Annual Nun Run to raise funds to continue the building Our Lady of Solitude Monastery. Previous runs allowed them to complete for the most part their chapel. Current funds will be used for the monastery enclosure walls.
The run attracted 1,135 runners and walkers and “shadow” participants from around the world, including Rome and Zambia. Runners wore shirts with this year’s motto from Isaiah 40:31: “You Shall Run and Not Grow Weary.”
The nuns, the first contemplative order in the Phoenix diocese, arrived in 2005. Eucharistic Adoration is their apostolate, for as their Foundress, Mother Marie of St. Claire, once said: “We are adorers of the Most Blessed Sacrament and the purpose of our adoration is thanksgiving.” Essentially, they begin to do on earth what every blessed soul will do for all eternity: praise, adore, and offer thanksgiving to our God.
For the complete article, visit the National Catholic Register website.
On March 25, 2012, the Discalced Carmelite Nuns of Sioux City, IA celebrated the 50th anniversary of the founding of their monastery of Our Lady of the Incarnation. Mother Joseph said the seven sisters “pray for priests. We’re here for the world and for people. There are so many people needing prayers for various hardships, whether it’s unemployment or sickness, addictions, all sorts of things. We’re just here for God’s children and we offer our lives in prayer and sacrifice, but mainly it’s a thing of love.”
She also explained the significance of the religious habit: “We think this is Our Lady’s scapular. It’s a witness to the world set apart for God, I believe. We’re not following the fashions. We’re the people that are chosen as the brides of Christ.”
The cause of Rev. Walter Ciszek, S.J. has taken a “major step forward,” with the Vatican’s Congregation for the Causes of Saints issuing a declaration that the investigation is valid, the National Catholic Register reports.
Father Ciszek was born in 1904 in Shenandoah, PA, entered the Jesuit novitiate in 1928 and was ordained in 1937. Since he had a burning desire to serve the people in Communist Russia he was trained to say the Mass in the Russian Rite. After 2 years in Poland, he entered the Soviet Union so that he could minister to Christians who lived under communist persecution but was arrested as a “spy” in 1941. He endured torture, months and months of solitary confinement and years of hard labor near the Arctic Circle. His prayer to serve Catholics in Russia was answered but not in the way he expected. He found peace in knowing that he was serving where God wanted him, in his weakness and imprisonment and desolation. His parishioners became his fellow prisoners and fellow exiles in Siberia.
I highly recommend his two books: He Leadeth Me and With God in Russia. The first book is a classic that I have read many times. Two gentlemen I gave it to last year both independently said: I raced through it the first time to find out what happened and read it through the second time to savor it.
Father Ciszek died at Fordham University in New York on Dec. 8, 1984.
On March 20, 2012, Archbishop William E. Lori was appointed to be the next archbishop of Baltimore. Since 2001, he has been the bishop of Bridgeport, CT.
In a CNS News Service story Archbishop Lori said that he expects that religious vocations will be one of his priorities in Baltimore. Vocations was certainly was one of his priorities in his last assignment. During his tenure in Bridgeport from 2001 to the present, 35 priests were ordained and 39 seminarians are currently in formation. Eight orders of women religious and a new religious institute were welcomed into the Diocese including the Missionaries of Charity; the Franciscan Sisters of the Immaculate Heart of Mary; the Institute of the Servants of the Lord and Virgin of Matára; and a new religious institute, the Dominican Sisters of Our Lady of the Springs of Bridgeport.
May God bless the new Archbishop and may vocations continue to flourish under his guiding hand with the help of the Holy Spirit and the prayers of the faithful.
The Holy Father, Pope Benedict XVI, will visit Mexico and Cuba from March 23-29, 2012. In an interesting article in the National Catholic Register, Mary Hansen describes some of the lesser known but incredibly beautiful Catholic images that the Holy Father will see in Mexico.
Included on the itinerary is a visit to site of the huge statue, Cristo Rey (Christ the King), described by their former President as a “rebuke to the repressors of religious freedom.” Another one of his stops will be the city of Guanajuato where he will see a statue of Our Lady that is believed to date from the 7th century.
The Apostolic Nuncio to Mexico, Archbishop Christophe Pierre said, “I think the visit of Pope Benedict XVI in Mexico is seen by the great majority of people in this country as a profound sign of hope,” he told Vatican Radio. “The Mexican people are a very religious people, with a deep experience of God, a deep experience of Mary, the Mother of Jesus, a deep experience also of what it means to be members of the Church.”
Let us pray for a safe journey for our Holy Father and for all who will pray with him, in person and in spirit. May he strengthen the faith of the people and encourage young men and women to heed the call of the Lord to: “Follow me!”
The Institute on Religious Life will hold its 2012 National Meeting on April 13-15, 2012, at The University of St. Mary of the Lake in Mundelein, Illinois. The theme of the meeting is: Holy, Holy, Holy Lord, God of Hosts: The Sacred Liturgy as a Foretaste of Heaven.
The banquet honoree is Very Rev. Cassian Folsom, O.S.B. who established a new Benedictine Community (founded in 1998) at the birthplace of St. Benedict and his twin sister, Saint Scholastica. As of the Autumn of 2011, the community had eight monks in Solemn Vows, four in Simple Vows, four novices, one postulant and one observer.
Other speakers are: Francis Cardinal George, O.M.I., Dr. Scott Hahn, Fr. James Kubicki, S.J., Msgr. R. Michael Schmitz, Rt. Rev. Marcel Rooney, O.S.B., Rev. Douglas Martis, Dr. Denis McNamara, and Sr. Maria Stella Whittier, C.J.D.
Details on registration can be found at our website or call 847-573-8975. The IRL 2012 National Meeting is open to all clergy, religious and laity! Check out the free Saturday program for young people ages 13-25. Advance registration required. Hope to meet you there!
How many brothers do you know who priests today? There are probably quite a few but how many of them are twins!?! Fr. Joel and Fr. Benjamin who studied next door to the IRL at Mundelein Seminary and are converts to the faith, are at least one example!
On their blog, brotherpriests.com, they have an interesting commentary on the disappearance of religious sisters and cloistered nuns from the landscape of our country. They describe the exodus as driven by the need for self-fulfillment versus self-sacrificing. I also look at it as filling myself up with me as opposed to letting myself be emptied so as to fill up with God.
It’s well worth a read because the same tendency that has negatively impacted religious life is one that they astutely point out is affecting marriage. People leaving a good, faithful spouse to “find themselves.”
“He who has found his life will lose it, and he who has lost his life for My sake will find it. (Mt 10:39)
The Carmelite Nuns of Traverse City, Michigan, will soon have a renovated chapel, one that will be “more beautiful so the mind is lifted up to heaven.” For almost 50 years, the nuns have lived on their 60-acres of property worshiping and praying in a chapel that “has some very beautiful elements, but we thought it would be difficult if not impossible to give it a more traditional and transcendent look due to its structure and small size.”
Then they were introduced to the work of architect Duncan Stroik whose recent commissions have included the Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe in La Crosse, WI, and the Chapel of St. Thomas Aquinas College in Santa Paula, CA. A professor of architecture at the University of Notre Dame, he authored the book Reconquering Sacred Space and is editor of the professional journal Sacred Architecture.
The Carmeltes small chapel would seem to be small potatoes for a man of his renown but he is excited about the project. “The sisters have a great love of beauty, of the liturgy and of tradition, and want to do something worthy of Christ. The fascinating part of the project is the sisters’ desire that the sanctuary be designed to be beautiful and inspiring from the nave as well as from their cloister chapel.”
Bishop Bernard Hebda of the Diocese of Gaylord is an enthusiastic supporter of the project. “My deepest hope is that these sisters may soon offer their praise and prayers in a setting that reflects the best of Catholic theology and the deep reverence and beauty of their personal faith,” he wrote. “At a moment when Pope Benedict has invited the Church in the English-speaking world to renew its appreciation for the Mass, and as we actively embrace a new Roman Missal which restores some of the richness of our traditions, the timing is perfect for construction of a new sanctuary within the Carmelite monastery chapel.”
For more information about the renovation project, contact chapelrenovation@charter.net
To be WOWed and I mean WOW by Duncan Stroik’s other works, visit his website.