Category Archives: News

Cloistered life, News

Sioux City Carmelites Celebrate 50 years

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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.”

Click here for the full story. May they be blessed with plentiful vocations to continue their mission in the Church.

News

Father Ciszek’s Cause moves Forward

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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.

News

Archbishop Lori and Vocations

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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.

News

Highlights of the Holy Father’s Mexico Trip

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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!”

General interest, News

IRL 2012 National Meeting – Enroll Now!

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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!

News, Women's Communities

Visitation Nuns 400th Anniversary Pilgrimage

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Revolutions come and go, and today’s social milieu will change with the wind, but for four hundred years a group of nuns have born witness to the merciful heart of Jesus through their lives of gentleness and humility.

The Order of the Visitation of Holy Mary, founded in 1610 in France, has grown to a worldwide congregation of active and cloistered sisters, and today they can be found in nearly every country. The cloistered Visitation nuns from Toledo, Ohio, recently made a pilgrimage to Annecy, France, where the congregation was founded, to celebrate the 400th anniversary of their founding.

A new video made for the occasion captures the spirit of the Visitation and chronicles the happy excursions of the sisters in the areas once walked by their founders, St. Francis de Sales and St. Jane de Chantal. The video opens with a beautiful panorama of the valley surrounding Annecy.

Delighted to See the Nuns

“We walked everywhere,” the sisters said. “Going to the basilica was always ‘up’ and a steep climb. It allowed us to meet the people who seem delighted to see this large group of nuns, and were all smiles.”

Join the sisters as they journey the next 400 years as they walk in the footsteps of St. Francis de Sales and St. Jane Frances de Chantal. The video capturing the spirit of the pilgrimage was released on January 2, 2012, and has received more than 2,500 views.

News, Women's Communities

Polish Sister Becomes US Citizen

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The fight to maintain religious liberty in our country is not something a Polish immigrant sister takes for granted. On February 10, 2012, Sr. Joachim Celinska, OP, became a US citizen.  Born in Communist Poland, her parents nonetheless raised their children in the Catholic faith. Not surprisingly, Sister loved Pope John Paul II and prayed his vocation prayer every day not realizing that God was personally calling her to a life dedicated in His service.

She entered the Dominican Sisters of the Immaculate Conception in 1987 and came to America in 2000. Not knowing the language made it difficult for her at first but she found the people friendly and the land beautiful. She and another sister care for the sick, teach religion classes and help families in Mountain Home, Arkansas, which by Sister’s description sounds like a little bit of heaven on earth.

In the Arkansas Catholic newspaper, Sister Joachim said, “This year, I’m going to vote for the first time. America is a beautiful country. God really loves this country because he’s given freedom. We know what it’s like to live under oppression. I wish and pray for all American people to take advantage of that freedom and thank God for freedom of religion, so they can express their faith freely.”

The Order to which she belongs, the Dominican Sisters of the Immaculate Conception,  is an IRL Affiliate founded in by Mother Maria Kolumba in 19th century Poland. They engage in various ministries in three major areas: evangelization, education, and health care. In the last two years, 15 novices made their first profession in their congregation worldwide. Two of them were received here in the U.S., for the American Province. Besides Mountain Home, the sisters have convents in Illinois and Wisconsin.

 

 

News, Women's Communities

A Mission of Mercy and the Misery of Mankind

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The Religious Sisters of Mercy of Alma welcomed Raymond Cardinal Burke to their Motherhouse on March 12, 2012, where he led a ceremony of enthronement and consecration of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. The Cardinal had had a long-standing personal invitation to visit the motherhouse in Central Michigan.

The sisters devote themselves primarily to medical care, including hospital-based care and care for the elderly. Continuing the charism of their foundress, Venerable Catherine McAuley, each Sister of Mercy is called by her vows to be a point of convergence between the Mercy of God and the misery of mankind. What a beautiful and vital image for our time.

Men's communities, News

Vietnam Musings – Vocations and a Cardinal

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Vietnam might be the last place where you would expect vocations to be flourishing but that is just what the Conventual Franciscans are experiencing at the Orders’ mission in that country.

May God bless these young men on their journey of faith, especially in light of the sacrifices of the many Catholics who defended their Faith in that country and even gave up their lives rather than renounce the Truth. I am reminded of one of my heroes, Cardinal Francis Xavier Nguyen Van Thuan, who was imprisoned in Vietnam for thirteen years, nine of them in solitary confinement. His books are spiritual classics.

Also, read the story of Joseph Nguyen, a young seminarian who was in a coma and pronounced dead and has the death certificate marked VOID to prove it. While Joseph was in his coma, the Cardinal appeared to him while his parents were praying for the Cardinal’s intercession.  The Diocesan inquiry into the life of Servant of God Francis Xavier Nguyen Cardinal Van Thuan opened in 2010.

 

 

Men's communities, News

Benedictine Video: Quaerere Deum – “To Seek God”

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On April 14, 2012, Fr. Cassian Folsom, O.S.B., will receive the 2012 Pro Fidelitate et Virtute award at the 2012 IRL National Meeting banquet. Fr Folsom founded a new monastery in a small apartment in Rome in 1998 and in 2000 moved the community to Norcia, the birthplace of Sts. Benedict and Scholastica. The Vatican II document Perfectae Caritatis urges religious to rediscover to their roots which Fr. Folsom surely did!

A 40-minute video, “Quaerere Deum,” showing what life is like for the monks has recently been released and is available to all for viewing. The title comes from the first task of all monks, “To Seek God,” as described by the Rule of St Benedict.

In 2009, the monks were given a new apostolate by the Holy See: to make both the ordinary and extraordinary forms of the Roman rite available. “This practice of offering both forms (in utroque usu) allows us the possibility to drink deeply from the riches of the tradition and, at the same time, to open our doors wide to the Church as she is today.”

For registration information for the IRL National Meeting and/or banquet (April 13-25, 2012), please visit our website or give us a call at (847)573-8975. The theme of the meeting is “Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God of Hosts: The Liturgy as a Foretaste of Heaven.”