Category Archives: News

News, Resources

He Speaks To You

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Sr. Helena Burns, FSP, has written a book that is the perfect gift for any young woman starting out in life. But while geared to women in particular, it is a wonderful exercise in spiritual formation for anyone seeking to grow in God’s grace. The goal of everyone should be to become the person God created us to be and with the help of this gem of a book, Sr. Helena invites us to open our hearts “to let the Word Himself love you and become incarnate in you.”

The book has a series of reflections, to-do’s, suggestions and scriptures for each day of the year (even a leap year day is included!). Timeless thoughts from saints, reflections by sisters from other congregations,  recommendations for book reading both old and new, websites to visit, Church documents to pray over are just a few of the items in this content-rich book.

Each month has a theme: God’s love, His life, His Cross, His Will, His family, His majesty, His ways, In His image, In His service, His Mother, His Kingdom and In His arms (last things). Here is one sample of a day.

May 28

Do you know where you came from? From Me! But your existence is the culmination of a long chain of history!

God’s Word: Let this be recorded for a generation to come, so that a people yet unborn may praise the Lord” (Psalm 102:18) .

Words of Wisdom: It is commonly said that whoever doesn’t know history is bound to repeat it. Get to know your roots: your family history, ethnic history, and world history, but most of all get to know your spiritual history by reading and studying salvation history: the Bible and Church history.

To Do:  Read the Acts of the Apostles and watch A.D. or Peter and Paul. Read Church history like A Compact History of the Catholic Church by Alan Schreck. Get a good Bible commentary to help you verse by verse like The New Jerome Biblical Commentary or Collegeville Bible Commentary.

To Journal: How would you describe your little place in the universe? Read Max Ehrmann’s famous poem, “Desiderata” for inspiration.

Prayer: Dear Jesus, no one is an outsider, unplanned, or an accident. Each of us was loved by You from all eternity. I rejoice in my little place in Your creation and kingdom!

I plan to give this book to a young women who is considering religious life. But it is a book that will speak to everyone. I have made a New Year’s resolution (a little early) to faithfully read this book every day starting January 1.

News

The Tyburn Tree of Life

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A thriving community of cloistered Benedictine women religious in London, England, is situated near the site where 100 Catholic  men and women were executed during the Protestant Reformation. Located just yards from the site of the infamous Tyburn Tree or King’s Gallows, their crypt honors the more than 350  Catholics who died for their Faith. As their website says, the martyr’s blood turned a tree of death into a Tree of Life.

The first Tyburn martyr was a Carthusian who refused to accept the  supremacy of King Henry VIII over the Church of England. The last martyr was St. Oliver Plunkett,  Archbishop and Primate of Ireland, who was drawn to  the gallows on a hurdle (sled) in his pontifical robes. Margaret Ward was hung by her hands and flogged for smuggling a rope to a priest in prison and ultimately hanged. Relics to be seen include straw and linens stained with the blood of 5 Jesuit martyrs and a bone from the finger of St. John Roberts, OSB, who was hanged, drawn and quartered for being a Catholic priest.

The community at Tyburn, The Adorers of the Sacred Heart of Jesus of Montmartre, was founded by Marie-Adele Garnier, OSB, in 1898 who desired to offer to the Sacred Heart of Jesus a continual homage of love and reparation. Forced to flee France because of religious persecution, they came to London in 1901 and were encouraged by a Cardinal to set up a “shrine at the English field of martyrs.” In 1585, a priest told the court who had sentenced St. Edmund Campion to death, “One day there, where you have put him to death, a religious house will arise, thanks to an important offering.”

After the convent was established, Catholics came forward with the relics that they had kept hidden away for generations. But God’s light is not kept under a bushel basket. From the London convent, that light has resulted in new foundations in New Zealand, Ireland, Scotland, Ecuador, Peru, Colombia and Australia. In 2005, at the invitation of Pope John Paul II, they established a house in Rome.

A DVD on their life can be purchased on their website. Their apostolate is to pray for the Holy Father, the Church, their country and the world. As the article in Contact magazine (which is published by the Confraternity of Christ the Priest) says, “The Tyburn nuns are called to serve God and Holy Church by the hidden ministry of prayer. A deep prayer union with God is the beginning of Heaven; death merely opens the door.”

News

Five Women Lay Their Lives Down for Christ

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On June 2, 2012, 5 Franciscan Sisters of the Renewal pronounced final vows in the presence of Timothy Cardinal Dolan and their founder, Fr. Andrew Apostoli, CFR.

In poverty, they accept the loving care of the Father Who will provide for them for the rest of their lives. In chastity, they will possess Jesus as Spouse. In obedience, their will and the will of God become one.

Cardinal Dolan received the vows and said, “If you observe them, I promise you everlasting life.”

Sr. Lucille Cutrone, Community Servant and founding member, was a New York City Public School teacher who had as her spiritual director the Servant of God, Fr. Walter Ciszek, SJ. From the wilderness of Siberia to the soup kitchens of East Harlem, nothing is beyond the reach of God and no meeting is impossible to orchestrate!

Congratulations to Sr. Francesca, Sr. Monica, Sr. Mary Pieta, Sr. Joseph, and Sr. Maria Teresa.

News

New Brides of Christ

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August 15th, 2012, was a momentous day for the Sisters of St. Francis of the Martyr St. George located in Alton, Illinois. Thirteen women made their final profession as religious sisters, 3 pronounced first vows and 2 were received into the novitiate. And here is the other amazing sidebar to the story, 7 of the sisters who made their final vows attended or graduated from Benedictine College in Atchison, Kansas. What a powerhouse of vocations!

Since the year 2000, 90 Benedictine Alumni have pursued vocations to the priesthood or religious life. Graduates are also serving in other ministries such as Fellowship of Catholic University Students (FOCUS), LifeTeen and Christ in the City. What a model for other Catholic universities!

Benedictine College and the Sisters of St. Francis of the Martyr St. George are IRL Affiliates. Check out their websites for more information.

 

News

The Life That Beckons

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In his regular column in our local Catholic Newspaper the Catholic New World, Francis Cardinal George, O.M.I., told us about his recurrence of cancer and his thoughts about what is to come. He reflects that people like to be in control or at least think they are in control but in actual fact, “we are never in control….Eventually, it is this immediately tangible world that becomes the ‘strange land’ and it is the next that beckons us as our true home.'”

On the Feast of the Assumption as he was undergoing tests the Cardinal read the homily preached by the Holy Father on that day. Here is an excerpt:

One thing, one hope is certain: God awaits us, He attends to us, we are not headed for a void, we are expected. God awaits us and, passing to the other world, we will find the Mother’s goodness, we will find our loved ones, we will find Eternal Love. God awaits us: this is our great joy and our great hope that is born precisely on this feast.”

The Cardinal prays that “I and all those God has given me to know and love here might live in such a way that God’s will for the salvation of the world might be realized. God bless you.”

 

 

News

A Visible Sign of Witness

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According to the Catholic News Agency, the Augustinians of Conversion,  a Catholic order of nuns in Spain, is abounding in vocations. Located on the Way of St. James, they were founded in 1999 by Mother Prado who left her Augustinian convent to lead a more contemplative life. They welcome pilgrims on the way to Santiago de Compostela with a bed, dinner, mass and a special blessing. These one-on-one encounters have borne fruit. The order started with 4 sisters and it is now up to 26 with 8 more in discernment.

The best vocation program is a face to face encounter with real live people. The Sisters of Life often walk the streets in their habits and talk to the people who approach them. (See them praying (right) at an abortion clinic.)  Four religious in habits got a rousing round of applause as they came up to a Chick-Fi-A in Illinois. Every priest can tell the story of being stopped by someone in an airport terminal for confession.

It just points out the power of a visible sign of witness. Of pointing to Whom you belong. It’s an irresistible draw.

Liturgical Year, News

Carrying Mary Across the Finish Line

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When Meseret Defar won the gold medal in the 5000m race at the 2012 Olympic Games, she pulled out of her jersey an image of the Blessed Virgin Mary holdingthe baby Jesus.

I am reminded that when we cross our own finish  lines from this life into the next, I hope that we will have the Blessed Mother with us on the journey. I saw this prayer at the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception and jotted it down so I could think of it often.

There is no hound as fleet of foot,

nor young soul so quick to win the race,

nor horse to finish the course,

as the Mother of God to the death bed of one who needs her intercession.

Happy Feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary!

 

Men's communities, News

Doctor’s Conversion Story

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A story in the Chicago Tribune on July 30th noted that a prominent reproductive endocrinologist, Dr. Anthony Caruso, has given up his lucrative practice, saying reproductive technology has gone too far. He is proposing opening the St. Anne Center for Reproductive Health, a facility that would adhere to the Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services. He is currently a doctor at Alexian Brothers Hospital in Elk Grove Village, IL.

In 2002, Dr. Caruso related in a newspaper story how he helped a lesbian couple conceive a baby through IVF. Later, his courageous parish priest asked him to resign from the parish council saying his words and actions had violated Church teaching. This did not make the doctor angry, rather it caused him to think. His wife meanwhile was growing in her faith and attending as a family St. John Cantius Church which offers the Ordinary and Extraordinary Forms of the Mass daily. He also read the Church’s document Dignitas Personae, or “The Dignity of a Person,” which explained the Church’s teachings on reproductive health. According the the reporter, Dr. Caruso “walked away from his practice and into a confessional at St. John Cantius Roman Catholic Church to repent.”

The priests and brothers of the Canons Regular of St. John Cantius are an IRL Affiliate Community who serve in parishes and help Catholics to rediscover a profound sense of the Sacred through solemn liturgies, devotions, sacred art and music, as well as instruction in the heritage of the Church, catechetics and Catholic culture.

What a testimony to the power of Truth, the heroism of a man truly seeking Truth and how the Truth sets you free.

 

 

News, Resources

Buy Local (Monastery)

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Here is a wonderful picture of Fr. Cassian Folsom, OSB, the recipient of the IRL’s 2012 Pro Fidelitate et Virtue Award, presenting Pope Benedict XVI with a bottle of his community’s newly brewed beer. Since the community’s home is at the birthplace of St. Benedict of Nursia, it is appropriately enough called Birra Nursia (Nursia Beer).

Which is a reminder. Whenever possible, I buy gifts or order cards from our monastic communities, supporting them in the work that helps them to keep their lights on. Try some of these favorites from a few of our IRL communities:

Brigittine fudge: The only community of Brigittine men in the US. Originally founded by St. Bridget of Sweden. Fudge is tops with my mother.

Seignadou Soaps from the Summnit, NJ, Dominican Nuns. Seignadou means “sign from God” and commemorates the sign received by St. Dominic confirming his work. Caribbean Coconut, Citrus Basil, and Cedarwood Sage are some of the scented varieties.

Hand drawn cards – the word “card” does not do justice to these hand-drawn and colored calligraphy cards. I simply tell the Passionist Nuns in Ellisville, MO, what I want (birthday greetings, condolence card, ordination, etc ) and they do a customized card for the recipient. For $25.00 I got a beautiful 8 1/2 x 11 folded, hand-drawn card, sent out immediately.  Smaller sizes available. Must call or write to them: 15700 Clayton Road, Ellisville, MO, 63011 or 636-527-6867. I should add that the receiver is remembered in the nuns’ prayers and masses for all time. What a gift!

The Holy Transfiguration Skete in Eagle Harbor, MI, offers homemade jams in not your usual run-of-the-mill varieties – bilberry, chokeberry, wild crabapple, red currant. They are a Catholic Monastery of the Byzantine rite.

Bon appetit!

News, Women's Communities

Crossing the Tiber

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On the PBS website, there is an article and video about Episcopalians who are converting to the Catholic Church. The PBS correspondent went to Bladensburg, MD, where the first Episcopal Church in the country was received into the Church, able to retain their ancient traditions and the Book of Common Prayer.

Fr. Mark Lewis says: “We came to the point where we realized the theology of the Episcopal Church is what was lacking. The theology of Rome, the authority of Rome, the unity in the Holy See and in the bishops: that was appealing to  us.” One of the members of the congregations said, “It is going home. It really is, and it feels good. Everyone’s been so very helpful, and I’m at peace. I’m at peace.”

The 2009 Nov/Dec issue of Religious Life magazine highlighted ten sisters from the Society of All Saints’ Sisters of the Poor in Catonsville, MD, who after 7 years of prayer and discernment were received into the Church, attracted by the orthodoxy and unity found in the Catholic Church. Their chaplain was also received into full communion. “Time and again, apostles and saints have been led by God into unexpected paths; so too with us—the All Saints’ Sisters of the Poor,” Reverend Mother Christina, Mother Superior, said. “As they responded with faith and trust, we also are responding to God’s call, and are looking forward to seeing His will for us unfold as we enter the Roman Catholic Church.”