Category Archives: Women’s Communities

Women's Communities

Little Sisters of Jesus

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Everyone always says that the Church in France is dead or dying but there are always wonderful signs of life. Today, I stumbled across this newish order of women called the Little Sisters of the Consolation of the Sacred Heart and the Holy Face. When I first saw the habit I thought: Charles de Foucauld. There is no mistaking the red heart with the red crucifix coming out of the top.

While Charles de Foucauld did not found any orders of men or women during his lifetime, after his death many Little Sisters or Little Brothers of Jesus have cropped up around the world, taking their inspiration from Charles’ humble and solitary life. These particular sisters were founded in 1989 in the diocese of Frejus-Toulon (Provence-France) and seem to be an active/contemplative order with an apostolate for children, the elderly and the sick. They say the Office in Latin.

Charles is not yet a saint but he continues to inspire people, almost 100 years after his sudden death. His alone-ness, his thirst for Jesus in the Eucharist and the value he saw in silent fraternity with the poor moves people to give Jesus their all.

Charles de Foucauld himself was a child of privilege, born in 1858 in Strasbourg, France. Leading a selfish and irreligious life that was a scandal to his family, he told a priest that he had trouble believing in God. The priest told him, “What is missing now, in order for you to believe in God is a pure heart. Go down on your knees, make your confession to God and you will believe.” This is exactly what happened. Charles left the Church filled with “that infinite peace, that dazzling light, that unfailing happiness.”

Charles eventually became a monk and moved to Algeria where he lived alone in the desert until he was killed in 1916 by rebels. Despite having few companions in life, after death he inspired many to live his life of poverty and solitude in imitation of Jesus in His hidden life in Nazareth. In the 1930’s, the Little Sisters of Jesus and the Little Brothers of Jesus were founded and established their first foundations in North Africa. Today, they are virtually in every country in the world or close to it. I stumbled across a Little Sister in an Israeli desert who gave me cookies and juice from her meager rations.

The evangelization that I am called to live is not through the word but through the presence of the Blessed Sacrament, the offering of the sacrifice of the Mass. It is through prayer and penance and the practice of the Gospel virtues – love, fraternal and universal love, sharing even my last mouthful of bread with every poor person, with every visitor, every stranger, and welcoming each person as a beloved brother or sister. -Charles de Foucauld

 

 

Cloistered life, Women's Communities

Daughters of Elijah

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Last week, I had the privilege of visiting the Hermits of St. Mary of Carmel in Houston, Minnesota, a diocesan institute of autonomous right following the Primitive Rule.  I was not planning to spend more than an hour but the conversation was so lively and the tour so interesting that the time flew by like the breeze. We found we had a lot in common, where we grew up, etc., so there was a lot of laughter.

The prioress was a Carmelite for the Aged and Infirm for 25 years. Another sister was originally a Poor Clare until she experienced the call within a call. The youngest sister was a Carmelite in Singapore who felt drawn to the hermit life which took her to Ireland and finally to Minnesota. One sister, in search of the hermit life, worked on Mount Carmel then went to Italy and finally to Minnesota. There is also a postulant and 3 others who will soon be coming to experience their unique life.

Most of the women who “come and see” what the life is like do not stay. Some feel called to live a solitary life as a canonical hermit (Canon 603). Others return to traditional community life. The blend of community life and eremitical life is difficult. St. Bruno said that some amount of community life is necessary to make the life livable. Nevertheless, it is a call for the few.

This is not a place to escape to or a place to escape from problems. If anything, if you come in carrying a lot of unresolved issues, they will be brought to the cold light of day.  Many people come but “few are chosen.”

The center/community building is on a hill overlooking a valley and the individual hermitages. The chapel is in the middle with a bay window overlooking the hermitages. The tabernacle is made of glass containing a large consecrated host in a small monstrance. The tabernacle is lit at night so that all the sisters can see it from their hermitages. It must be quite a sight to see the golden glow of the Lord in the dark of night.

They accept only alms for their support. If the Lord wants their life to continue, then He will provide.

Visitors are welcome but silence and quiet is the norm. You can write to them for more information at 33005 Stinson Ridge Road, Houston, MN 55943. They do not have a website or use email.

News, Women's Communities

I Must Decrease

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From the beginning of their foundation, the Franciscan Sisters of St. John the Baptist were inspired by Ven. Archbishop Fulton Sheen to offer a holy hour every day for priests and seminarians. Imagine their joy when their bishop, Daniel R. Jenky, asked them for help in the setting up of the diocesan museum as well as the Archbishop Sheen Museum. The Museum is also only one block away from the Cathedral of Saint Mary of the Immaculate Conception, where Sheen attended grade school, learned to serve Mass, and was ordained a priest on Sept. 20, 1919.

The Franciscan Sisters of St. John the Baptist are a relatively new community established in 2006. Previously members of another religious congregation, they were inspired to start a new community, modeled after the life of St.  John the Baptist, which is a life of total trust in God and self-renunciation. They are a contemplative-active community who serve the sick and poor, according to the needs of the Church, their bishop and society. Bishop Jenky told the sisters that John the Baptist is “a faithful model of conversion who spent his life preparing the way of the Lord and preaching repentance.”

May the Sisters be blessed on this solemnity of the Birth of St. John the Baptist!

“He must increase and I must decrease” (John 3:30).

News, Women's Communities

Our Treasure in Earthen Vessels

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Many women who believe they have a religious vocation often find the doors shut to them because of age or infirmity. Someone pointed me to the Benedictine Monastery of Jesus Crucified in Connecticut as community who accepts people with disabilities or handicaps. I do not know the particulars but their website says:

All the sisters, handicapped or in good health, put their potential, their talents and their weaknesses in common for all “carry their treasure in earthen vessels” (2 Cor 4:7). Whatever our physical condition may be, it is one of the means by which we follow Christ in His Passover to the Father. It is not in spite of our handicaps and weaknesses that we go to God, but with them.

The Sacred Heart of Jesus always loves and looks after his own. Father Maurice Gaucheron, a priest on the staff of the Basilica of Montmartre, felt deep compassion for the women who came to him who had a sincere desire to enter religious life but were prevented from doing so because of their fragile health. With Suzanne Wrotnowska, aka  Mother Marie des Douleurs, a group of women were formed under the Benedictine Rule.

The Congregation of the Sisters of Jesus Crucified was established in the diocese of Meaux in 1938 and became part of  the international Benedictine Confederation in 1984. Their one location in the United States is the Monastery of the Glorious Cross which has 17 sisters. Their address: 61 Burban Drive, Branford, CT 06405. Their phone number is:  (203) 315-9964 or 315-0106.


 


Cloistered life, News, Women's Communities

The Heartbeat of the Church

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Somehow, I don’t equate southern Florida with a cloistered, contemplative community but on that point, I am wrong in more ways than one! The Poor Clares of the Monastery of San Damiano of St. Clare in Fort Myers Beach recently celebrated their 25th anniversary in the Diocese of Venice. They, in turn, are a “daughter house” of the Poor Clares in Delray Beach, Florida, who came to the newly created Diocese of Miami in 1960.

Much like the papal line of succession, the Poor Clares can trace their lineage back to the first monastery that their founder, St. Francis of Assisi, began in Assisi, Italy, in 1212, with their foundress Saint Clare. St. Clare lived with her sisters for 42 years in the monastery of San Damiano in Assisi. Going forward 800 years, Delray Beach was founded by the Poor Clares in Bordentown, New Jersey, which was founded by Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts, which was founded by Evansville, Indiana, which was founded by Omaha, Nebraska, which was founded by San Lorenzo Roma, in Italy, which was founded by Ss. Cosmas and Damian Rome, which was founded by San Damiano in 1233. And if this isn’t enough to make you dizzy, their are over 800 Poor Clare monasteries in all parts of the world!

The sisters’ life in Florida revolves around the traditional monastic blend of work and prayer. Their ministry is prayer— for the Church, for the diocese in which they reside and for all God’s people.

Bishop Frank J. Dewane expressed his feelings about the Poor Clares in a letter to the community: “San Damiano Monastery has remained true to the mission of its founding. This Monastery participates each and every day in the same charism which filled and motivated St. Francis and St. Clare… like your two venerable founders, you have left all and given yourselves entirely to living the Gospel life — for the greater glory of God and for the salvation of souls. Your life of prayer and community is the ‘heartbeat’ of our Church.”

Mary Almighty God bless you. May He look on you with the eyes of His mercy and give you peace. 

Here below may He pour forth his graces on you abundantly, and in heaven may He place you among His saints. 

Blessing of Saint Clare

News, Women's Communities

The Heartbeat of the Sacred Heart of Jesus

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On June 1, Cardinal Timothy Dolan presided at the Mass in which six Little Sisters of the Poor made their first profession. The close proximity of the Cardinal to the Little Sisters Novitiate would not necessarily make this an unusual event but what made his presence extra-special was the fact that one of the newly-professed Little Sisters was from his hometown of Baldwin, Missouri and even attended the same grade school that he also had attended. The Cardinal promised to be at her first profession and three years later he kept his promise. He brought along with him Sr. Sister Mary Rosario, RSM, principal of Holy Infant Grade School in Baldwin. Hr truly is a man of the people.

The Cardinal told Sr. Elizabeth and the 5 other sisters making their first profession that they were called to be the heartbeat of Jesus, tenderness incarnate, in receiving God’s love and extending it to others. Also in attendance, were 5 novices who, God willing, will soon take their place at the side of the aged poor.

The sisters new assignments will take them to Ireland, Australia, New Jersey, California and Pennsylvania. I think what is beautiful about the Little Sister’s formation is that they all spend time at the Motherhouse in Brittany, France. There is a great sense of sisterhood among the Little Sisters across the world which comes from this shared time together at the resting place of their foundress, St. Jeanne Jugan.

News, Women's Communities

BBQ With the Marian Sisters

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For those of you who like to support new and growing communities that are faithful to Magisterium of the Catholic Church, here is your opportunity!

The Marian Sisters of Santa Rosa are hosting, with Bishop Robert Vasa, a barbeque in very elegant surroundings on June 30, 2013, at the Smith Family Ranch in Napa, California. The purpose of the event is to support their growing community and share in the joy of their new vocations.

For those nearby, come share in the delicious meal, fine Napa wines and a raffle courtesy of Ignatius Press. For more information or to make reservations for the BBQ, contact Carole Duncan at (707)944-9540 or email dincan@aol.com.

As Marian Sisters we are animated by a desire to magnify Jesus Christ in and through our lives of consecration to Mary. We strive to communicate the beauty, goodness and truth of the Catholic Faith through our works of joyful evangelization while living the fullness of the Church’s liturgical life.

Cloistered life, Women's Communities

A Daughter of St. Dominic and the Church

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Christendom College has seen an extraordinary number of young women enter religious life. One beautiful story is that of  Sr. Mary Jordan, O.P. (Ida Friemoth, ’05), now a member of the Dominican Monastery of St. Jude in Marbury, Alabama, who made her Solemn Profession as a cloistered Dominican nun in August of 2012.

She chose to attend Christendom College because she desired to learn Truth, especially the truths of Thomistic philosophy and theology. The great Dominican, St. Thomas Aquinas, and his teachings were “an incomparable preparation for our doctrinal study as Dominican nuns, and even more so for understanding and living the virtuous life.”

For Sr. Mary Jordan, her time at Christendom was her first exposure to the Latin Mass and Gregorian Chant. When she visited the Monastery of St. Jude for the first time and heard the Divine Office sung in the traditional Dominican chant, her heart soared; “God was using the liturgical formation I received at Christendom to point out to me where He wished me to be His.”

At Christendom, she learned that the highest use of anything is to dedicate it to God. Now her whole life is dedicated to Him and as such, concerned and praying for the whole world. Every day the nuns at the monastery take turns keeping an Hour of Guard, praying the Rosary before Our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament as Our Lady’s Guard of Honor. Someone is always there, in the chapel; interceding for the world.

Sr. Mary Jordan said, “I have discovered in the monastery the truth of what Peter Kreeft once said: that perhaps the most powerful warriors in the fight between the Culture of Life and the Culture of Death are the contemplatives spending hours a day in prayer before the Blessed Sacrament.”

For more information about the Dominican Monastery in Marbury whose common life includes the solemn celebration of the Liturgy, Eucharistic Adoration and Perpetual Rosary, Marian Consecration, and fidelity to the Magisterium of the Church, visit their website.

Liturgical Year, Saints, Women's Communities

Hearts Like Thine

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The Sister Servants of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus have as part of their charism the mission to spread devotion to the Sacred Heart. This picture was sent to me by one of the sisters whose congregation in 2009 opened a place of prayer in Paray-le-Monial, France, where St. Margaret Mary received the revelations of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. They hope this place of prayer will strengthen their fidelity to their charism and bring them many, holy vocations! May our hearts become more like Thine, O Lord, on this Solemnity devoted to your Sacred Heart!

Long for heaven, fly to the Lord as on wings, and never lose your peace. Cease not to work for the glory of God and the salvation of your soul until the Lord decides to say: “It is time.”

Remember that here you have no lasting city, but are awaiting another. Live then like the traveler or exile who, on returning to the fatherland, takes only what is necessary from earth.   And yet collect heavenly treasures zealously.

Through the Immaculate hands of Mary, entrust all your merits to the Heart of the Lord Jesus.

—St. Joseph Sebastian Pelczar, Founder of the Sister Servants of the Most Sacred Heart  of Jesus

Women's Communities

Leaving the World for the Sake of the World

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Like unseen leaven in the world, cloistered contemplative Carmelites strive to foster a life of deep prayer and communion with God thus drawing all people closer to God.  As St. John of the Cross said: “The least action done out of pure love is worth more than all of the good works of the Church put together.” Fortunate is the country and diocese that has Carmelites praying for them!

The Founding Carmelites

It was 50 years ago today, May 27, 1963, that the Discalced Carmelites of St. Agatha, Ontario, moved into their new, permanent monastery, the Carmel of St. Joseph, from their smaller quarters in Kitchener, Ontario. Ten years earlier, they had arrived in Canada at the urgent invitation of the bishop to found the first English-speaking Carmel in Canada. As their numbers grew, the monastery was enlarged and as it continued to grow, a new foundation also under the guardianship of St. Joseph was established in British Columbia in 1991.

It seems amazing that there were no English-speaking Carmels in Canada until the 1950’s. The original sisters, three professed sisters and one novice, came from Cleveland Heights, OH, in 1952 from the Carmel of the Holy Family, a community who had recently sent 6 sisters to the Carmel in Kenya. The Carmel in Ohio traces its roots back to the first Carmel established in the United States in Port Tobacco, MD, in 1790.

One of the sisters in St. Agatha wrote that she was attracted to the Carmelite vocation after reading “The Story of a Soul” by St. Therese of Lisieux. She said, “During my 4 years at university, I have seen the tragedy of many who lived a lifestyle in the darkness of sin and refusal to love God, or even accept Him in their lives. I knew that those are the people who are in most need of prayer. I felt the urge to do something for them.” This woman is now following Christ’s example of prayer and sacrifice for the salvation of souls, for the Church and for all God’s people.

May those who “leave the world, leading a life of prayer and solitude, for the sake of the world” continue to intercede for the people of Canada.