Category Archives: Women’s Communities

Cloistered life, News, Women's Communities

Striving to Reach the Goal

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mother_mary_salvador_webOn May 13, 2013, Mother Mary Salvador of the Heart of Jesus, C.P., was laid to rest in the Passionist’s community cemetery in Ellisville, Missouri. Anyone who called the Passionists to request prayers or one of their handmade note cards was greeted with the sweet and gentle voice of this dear sister.

Mother was actually an active sister who 20 years after her entrance into religious life transferred, “to our great joy” as the nuns said, to the Passionists.

This link directs you to a short video of Mother Mary Salvador and her reflection on the Passionist vocation and the value of suffering. She reminds us that to reach the Resurrection, it is necessary to pass through Good Friday. No one questions the sweat, sacrifices, pain and labor that an athlete goes through to reach the finish line. We have a much greater goal in store for us – a heavenly union with God!

The Passionists’ motto is: May the Passion of Jesus Christ Be Always in Our Hearts. Like Jesus, who bore our sins on the Cross, the sisters take our sufferings and offer them on our behalf to Jesus, that it might bear fruit in our lives and give us the hope and grace to see beyond it. It is not a simply desire for endurance in suffering; it is the hope that we will experience a foretaste of the glory and joy that is to come.

Please pray that these sisters will receive many holy vocations. Our poor, suffering world needs their witness for without the remembrance of the Passion of Christ and what it won for us, the light of faith will grow dimmer in our world.

News, Women's Communities

Surely the Angels are Delighted!

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aberdeen1The Nashville Dominicans, officially known as the Dominican Sisters of St. Cecilia, are a community experiencing a wonderful growth in vocations. Because of this, they are able to send sisters into “mission” territories. Their newest home is in Scotland, where four sisters were welcomed into the Diocese of Aberdeen in August. They will be living in a 15th century convent called Greyfriars.

The Bishop of Aberdeen, Hugh Edward Gilbert, OSB, remembering old American western movies, likens the coming of these American sisters to the US Calvary charging across the hill to save the day, only they are armed with rosaries not rifles.

Scotland was once Catholic territory. The Diocese of Aberdeen was established in the 11th century but in the 16th century, an Act of Parliament abolished papal authority and jurisdiction throughout Scotland. Eventually, the people came under Presbyterian governance. The Catholic diocese of Aberdeen was formally re-established in 1878. The Catholic population in 2006 was only 20,000 in a diocese of over 700,000 people, true missionary territory.

aberdeen2It seems that when the bishop was in Rome to attend a class for new bishops last year, he encountered Bishop Edward Rice of St. Louis who astonished him by saying: “‘Do you know, ever since I heard that convent (previously occupied in the Aberdeen diocese by the Sisters of Mercy) was empty I’ve been praying the Nashville Dominicans would fill it.” Bishop Rice added, “If you want to re-evangelize Scotland, they’re the people who’ll do it. I’ll write to the Prioress General, tell her she must accept your invitation, and I’ll pay the fare over for one of the sisters.”

To make a long story short, Bishop Rice kept his word and the sisters arrived ONE YEAR LATER!!

Bishop Gilbert says, “It means that Jacob’s ladder, with its busy angels, after lying on the ground gathering dust, is being set up again. Surely the angels are delighted. Surely the stones are glad. Surely those buried here are pleased!”

Read his inspiring homily in it’s entirety here. May this be a start of a great springtime of vocations for the Scottish people!

Women's Communities

Whatever Your Language – Jesus Calls!

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Sr. Mary Frances
Sr. Mary Frances

In July, five Parish Visitors of Mary Immaculate celebrated their jubilees. The most senior was Sr. Mary Frances, age 99, who celebrated her 80th anniversary in religious life. Altogether, the five sisters have lived 295 years of religious consecration!

At the other end of the spectrum, Sr. Theresa Marie Moore joyfully professed her first vows of chastity, poverty, and obedience, on the feast of the Assumption of Our Lady. Her white veil was replaced with a black one and she received the medallion of the Parish Visitors.

theresepvmiThe Parish Visitors apostolate is to seek out God’s people, especially those who have strayed from the Faith, and bring them into the Church family and strengthen them in their faith. Catechesis, the teaching of prayer, visiting those imprisoned, and encouraging the young, are just some of the one-on-one things the sisters do in the name of Jesus.

If you want to experience first-hand what their door-to-door ministry is like, click here and read the story entitled: “A Day’s Walk.” Each story of a Catholic fallen-away has its own heartbreak, yet, the sisters bring a ray of light into those closed doors which is the light of Christ. Each heart is melted a little, comforted, given a glimmer of hope. What a beautiful ministry!!

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Come, share our joy in loving and serving God and His people! Proclaim to every person: “Come, come my children; I will teach you how great is the Lord.” (Psalm 34:12)

Spanish: ¡Venga, comparta nuestra alegria en amar y servir a Dios y a su pueblo!

Igbo : Bia ka anyi nwe obi uto ịhụ chukwu n’anya na-agbara ya Odibo na-gbakwara ndi nke ya.

Tagalog : Masaya kaming nagmamahal at naglilingkod sa Diyos at kapwa! Sali ka na!

Korean

Whatever your language: Come! Be not afraid! Jesus calls!

 

Saints, Women's Communities

Nescio te! – I Know You Not!

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Sometimes people say when arguing about the Church’s stance on various issues that “Jesus was a product of His times, ergo, if He were on the earth today, we would have women priests, gay marriage, democratic elections for Pope,” etc. etc. etc…..

Mother Mary Francis, P.C.C., in her classic book, A Right to be Merry, says that one thing that makes the daughters of St. Clare bristle is the notion that Saint Clare, with her missionary heart,  became a cloistered contemplative simply because it was the only form of religious life available to women in her day.

Mother wrote:

If Saint Francis had wanted his Second Order to be a missionary order, he was just the man to have made that a fait accompli in no time at all. No one was ever more “original” than the saint who walked at right angles to everything characteristic of his age.

What he founded was was a Second Order of enclosed, praying nuns, because that is what he wished to found. Saint Clare, on her part, did indeed have a missionary heart. That is why she entered the cloister; to be a missionary to all the world.

Any daughter of hers who is not a missionary at heart is in danger of hearing hard words from her Seraphic Mother when she meets her after death: Nescio te!-I know you not!

Women's Communities

The Gallery Community

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The first Visitation monastery in the United States was founded in Georgetown, Washington, DC, in the late 1700’s. On June 6, 2013, this monastic foundation established a new community called the Saint Jane de Chantal Gallery Community.

When the Visitation Order was founded on June 6, 1610, by St. Jane de Chantal and St. Francis de Sales, it had its beginnings in Annecy, France, in a house nicknamed “La Galerie” because a “gallery” ran along one side of their new monastery.

The purpose of the new Gallery community is to invoke the Holy Spirit and pray that the blessings of vocations may come to the Visitation family for the glory of God and for the benefit of God’s people.  The Gallery community is an opportunity for young women “to experience our monastic way of life as handed down to us in the spirit of our charism…As a monastic, contemplative community the sisters of the Gallery Community will be faithful to their lives of prayer, their Constitutions and the Spiritual Directory placed in the hands of their Holy Mother, Saint Jane de Chantal, by Saint Francis de Sales on June 6, 1610, Trinity Sunday.”

In this Year of Faith, Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI encourages everyone to rediscover and retrace the history of our Faith. By embracing with new fervor their founding charism and way of life, the Visitation sisters believe that this will once again attract women who wish to single-heartedly follow after the Heart of Our Lord Jesus Christ.

It was Saint Francis de Sales’ hope that the Visitation nuns be “daughters of prayer in the Church and daughters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.” It was St. Margaret Mary Alacoque, a Visitation nun, who received the revelations of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.
For more information, visit their website!

Women's Communities

The Family of Clare

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Happy Feast of St Clare!

Most people are familiar with the Poor Clares, the contemplative Order of nuns founded by St. Francis of Assisi and St. Clare but did you know that there are four branches on the family tree? The Poor Clares, the Poor Clare Colettines, the Capuchin Poor Clares and the Poor Clares of Perpetual Adoration.

Perhaps the most famous Poor Clare of today is Mother Angelica, PCPA, who founded the Eternal Word Television Network. This is very appropriate for St. Clare is the patron saint of TV.

The least known of the Poor Clares, at least in this country, are the Capuchin Poor Clares. They were founded by Venerable Maria Laurentia Longo in Naples, Italy in 1538, a few decades after the founding of the Capuchin Franciscans. Both groups were founded in an attempt to return to a more primitive way of Franciscan life. The most famous Capuchins Friars  of recent vintage are Padre Pio and Sean Cardinal O’Malley of Boston.

The Capuchin Poor Clares are fairly new to the US, their first monastery being established in 1981 in Amarillo, Texas. There are now 4 additional monasteries in the US: Wilimington, DE; Alamo, TX; Denver and Pueblo, CO. If anyone is near Wilmington on August 10, please join them at 11:00 for a special Eucharistic Celebration in honor of St. Clare. You can support these wonderful sisters by buying their Clarisas butter cookies, made from scratch, in small batches, using nothing but the finest ingredients!

You know, I am sure, that the kingdom of heaven is promised and given by the Lord only to the poor: for he who loves temporal things loses the fruit of love. Such a person cannot serve God and Mammon, for either the one is loved and the other is hated, or the one is served and the other despised. St. Clare of Assisi

News, Women's Communities

A Quick Novena for Conversions

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One of the missions of the Sisters of the Immaculate Heart of Mary of Wichita (IHM) is to pray for the conversion of sinners. You can help! Using Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta’s “quick novena” as a model, the sisters are enlisting the help of the laity in this endeavor to pray for sinners and to ask for Our Lady’s help as they build their new novitiate. As of May 13, 2013, they had prayed 71,080 Memoraraes on their way to their goal of 5,000,000!

The IHM sisters have a special devotion to Our Lady of Fatima. When their religious institute was founded in Spain in 1848 by Fr. Joaquin Masmitija, he placed it under her protection. It was in Fatima that the Blessed Mother told Lucia, Francisco and Jacinta to “pray much and make sacrifices on behalf of sinners, for many souls go to hell because there is no one to make sacrifices for them.” When they made such a sacrifice, she told them to pray: “O Jesus, it is for love of You, for the conversion of sinners and in reparation for the sins committed against the Immaculate Heart of Mary.”

Their mission and the beloved name of Mary held by the sisters encourages them to partake of this work for the sake of the world. Anyone can pray the quick novena which is 9 Memoraraes said in petition and 1 said in thanksgiving for a total of 10. You can pray all at once or scatter them throughout the day. If you do this daily for 14 weeks, you will have said 980 Memorares! Add 2 more days and you will have said a thousand. You can help the sisters reach 5 million prayed for the conversion of the world!

The sisters sent us a postcard that can be used as a daily tally which is to be mailed back to them after 1000 Memoraraes are said. They will then present them to Our Lady of Fatima at her shrine on their property each year on May 13th and October 13th—the anniversary of her first and last apparition at Fatima in 1917.

For more information, please visit their website.

 

Women's Communities

The Cross and the Guillotine

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In this month of July devoted in particular to the Precious Blood of Jesus Christ, it is fitting that the Church honors today the Martyrs of Compiegne in France. In 1794, sixteen members of the Discalced Carmelite community offered themselves as a holocaust, poured out their blood, to end the bloodshed of the French Revolution, in particular the Reign of Terror.

Their Superior, Blessed Teresa of St. Augustine, said, “Having meditated much on this subject, I have thought of making an act of consecration by which the community would offer itself as a sacrifice to appease the anger of God, so that the Divine peace of His dear Son would be brought into the world, returned to the Church and State.”

Fr. Richard Veras said that these were not melodramatic women. “This was a Christian community who prayerfully and painstakingly discerned and verified a vocation to martyrdom.”

On July 16, 1794, on the Feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, the 16 women (13 nuns, 2 externs and 3 lay sisters) were brought before a court in Paris, accused of treason, sedition, etc. for holding fast to the ancient Faith of France. Sentenced to death, they were led one by one to the guillotine. As each sister was helped up the steps by Bl. Teresa of St. Augustine, they kissed a small statue of Mary hidden in the palm of her hand (still preserved by the Carmelites). The Reign of Terror lasted only 10 more days after this sacrifice. As Warren Carroll, founder of Christendom College, so beautifully put it in his book on the subject: “The Cross had vanquished the guillotine.”

O blessed Martyrs of Compiegne,

you were offered the choice of life versus death, and you chose life eternal!

We too are asked to make sacrifices big and small for the sake of the Kingdom.

Help us to courageously stand with Christ no  matter what the cost.

Amen.

 

Women's Communities

It’s All in the Family

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When a young teenage boy learned that his sister was going to become a “Sister,” he immediately thought, “I’m going to get made fun of for this!” Steve Mills was just entering 7th grade and his sister, now Sr. Mary Cecilia, was entering the School Sisters of Christ the King in Lincoln, NE.

Fast forward to May 25th, 2013, which is the day that Steve Mills was ordained to the priesthood in the diocese of Lincoln. He and his sister are just two of the brother/sister/priest/Sister combinations in the School Sisters family. Fr. Tom Dunavan is the brother of Sr. Mary Fidelis and Sr. Mary Agnes while Fr. Mark Tasler (now deceased) is the brother of Sr. Marie Jacqueline.

“Growing up with the sisters has been a blessing,” Fr. Steve said. “I think her ‘yes’ helped foster my ‘yes,’ whether I realized it or not. Being around the Sisters and their joyful spirit really helped me be more open to a vocation.”

Fr. Steve is the youngest of four children in the family. He graduated from the Univ. of Nebraska-Lincoln and then devoted two years to the missionary group FOCUS (Fellowship of Catholic University Students), assigned to the Air Force Academy.  Interacting with priests “helped me to realize the need to be rooted in prayer in order to keep that flame of faith alive, whether or not I was called to be a priest.”

His parents were surprised yet supportive of his desire to enter the seminary. At his ordination, Father Steve’s sister felt “intense jubilation and awe at watching his transformation into a priest of Jesus Christ.” Father Steve has one goal: “to be a faithful priest, pure and simple.”

Women's Communities

Hospitality and Joy

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I have just returned from a brief trip to Kansas City where the beauty of the Church was on full display.

The occasion of the visit was the 25th anniversary of the profession of Sr. Silvia Enriquez, S de M, in the order of the Servants of Mary, Minsters to the Sick. The impact that Sr. Silvia has had on my own life as I dealt with the deaths of several close relatives was amazing. She has truly been a mother to me. We, who had never met in person until the day of her celebration, greeted each other like old friends.

The Servants of Mary (Check out this documentary on their life) care for the sick and dying in their own homes. They provide a respite to the families who are caring for loved ones and they give solace to the sick and dying as they prepare to go to their final and everlasting Home. They are true angels of mercy. We could use them in every diocese in America!

What was amazing was that I was staying with the Sisters of St. Francis of the Holy Eucharist at their very comfortable retreat house in Independence, Missouri. Just before we arrived, these wonderfully hospitable sisters had brought one of their elderly sisters home from the hospital to the convent where her death was expected to come quite soon. Who came to help the sisters? The Servants of Mary came each night while I was there to do the night watch. Seeing the sister in her white habit getting out of the car in the rain and gloom was like looking at a light from heaven.

The Servants of Mary also have two Lovers of the Holy Cross living with them who are studying at a local college. The Franciscan Sisters have seminarians living on their property for the summer as they work in local parishes and ministries. Once again, the all-embracing love that these two groups of sisters have for the Church and Her members was all too evident. I put myself in that category.

Many thanks to Bishop Naumann of Kansas City for his wonderful homily on consecrated virginity and its meaning for today. How wonderful to see so many religious and priests from around the diocese in attendance at the Jubilee Mass. And if you are looking for a great book (I bought a biography on St. Philip Neri and a G. K. Chesterton Father Brown Anthology) visit the Sisters of St. Francis’ Bookstore.

May God bless these two communities with vocations!