Category Archives: Women’s Communities

Cloistered life, Women's Communities

New Carmel Foundation

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A new Carmelite Community has been established in the Diocese of Oakland, CA, with the arrival of 5 nuns from the Carmel in Valparaiso, NE. It is fortunate timing because another Carmelite Monastery recently closed after more than 60 years of prayer in the diocese.

Generous benefactors donated the land for the new convent. Temporary lodging will house the nuns and the additional ones who will join them later. A building able to house 21 nuns, the maximum stipulated for a Carmel by St. Teresa of Avila, is planned.

The Valparaiso Carmel also founded a Carmel in Elysburg, PA in 2009. They are obviously bursting with vocations. According to one site on the internet, they actually had 38 nuns in residence in Valparaiso in July! They are a traditional order of Carmelite Nuns with Mass offered in the Tridentine Rite.

For a list of societies and religious orders for men and women using the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite, click here.

News, Women's Communities

More Signs of Life for Women Religious

I read with interest an article in the Rochester, MN, Post Bulletin (my old hometown), that a young nurse from Saint Mary’s Hospital has joined the Religious Sisters of Mercy of Alma, Michigan. Christina Kluczny was 9 years old when she promised God that someday she would be a sister. After graduating from college with a degree in biology, Christina went back to Creighton University to earn her nursing degree. For 4 1/2 years, she worked as a nurse in Rochester.

But she never forgot her promise to God. After spending 5 days with the sisters in Jackson, Minnesota, where the RSM sisters run a medical facility, Christina “knew that a religious vocation was my future. I felt so peaceful.”

There will be ten (10!) women entering the novitiate this summer. Christian says, “Answering the call to be a religious sister is not a life that these women settle for. A religious vocation is a gift, and they feel happy and fortunate to be living their lives as Religious Sisters.”

The RSM Sisters, an IRL Affiliate Community, were founded in 1973. A unique characteristic of the Institute of Mercy (which is their heritage) as founded by Venerable Catherine McAuley is the fourth vow of service to the poor, sick, and ignorant.

“God has not stopped calling men and woman to be priests or sisters,” says Christina. “We just need to encourage these vocations so that those who are called feel free to answer ‘Yes.'”

 

News, Women's Communities

IRL Author Celebrates 75th Anniversary

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Sr. Evelyn Ann Schumacher, OSF, a Franciscan Sister of Christian Charity and a special friend of the Institute on Religious Life, is celebrating her 75th profession as a religious sister. As an 8th grader in 1933, Sister knew the convent was where she was meant to be. Her parents who “would not put an obstacle in the way if God were really calling her to religious life” ultimately agreed. Her father’s last words to her as he put her on the train were: “Do whatever they tell you.” As soon as she arrived at Holy Family Convent in Manitowoc, Wisconsin, she knew she was home.

Sister was a teacher until 1974, earning Masters degrees from Creighton and Marquette along the way. Then she began to conduct retreats and days of recollection as well as turning her talents to writing. She has authored 4 books for the IRL:

  • An Undivided Heart. Pope John Paul II on the Deeper Realities of the Consecrated Life
  • Holiness, The Heart of Renewal. The Lasting Legacy of Pope John Paul’s Message to Religious
  • Pray Always! The Contemplative Dimension of the Apostolic  Religious Life
  • Invitation to Intimacy. Christian Discipleship as Taught by Jesus in the Farewell Address of John’s Gospel

Sister Evelyn Ann is now retired and lives at St. Rita’s Health Care Center in Manitowoc. God bless her for her faithfulness.

 

 

News, Women's Communities

An Olympian Goes For the Eternal Prize

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The National Catholic Register has an article in the current issue (July 15-28, 2012) about a former Olympian who is now a Franciscan Sister of the Renewal. Sr. Catherine Holum was an American speed-skater at the 1998 Winter Olympics in Nagano, Japan. Appropriately enough, she is stationed in England where the XXX Olympiad will kick off on July 27th.  Her mother Dianne has 4 Olympics medals.

When she was 16, Sr. Catherine had a profound experience of faith while on a pilgrimage to Fatima but fell away from her faith while she attained a degree in photography from the Art Institute in Chicago. However, she was always pro-life and encountering a group of pro-life young people who were on a walk across America changed her life. Here she witnessed joyous, zealous Catholics whose love for Jesus really made a difference in their lives. When she encountered the Franciscan Sisters of the Renewal at World Youth Day in Toronto, she felt the same attraction in her heart that she had felt for these young people. She joined the community in 2003.

Heaven, she says, is eternal glory. Winning a gold meal is only brief glory.

 

 

Women's Communities

Ten Misconceptions About Discernment & Religious Life

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The Sisters of the Immaculate Heart of Mary of Wichita have a list on their website of the top ten misconceptions about discernment and religious life that was one of the most perceptive and at the same time the most obvious set of points I have ever read. They likened the discernment process that a young women goes through before marrying to the discernment process a young woman goes through before choosing a community.

For example, #1: You are called to a particular Community

If you are called to Religious Life, you are called to a particular Community.  When a young woman feels called to marriage, she doesn’t say, “I am called to get married.  Any man will do, as long as I follow my vocation.  I’ll marry the first one I meet.”  Just as in marriage God has a plan for your partner, He has a plan for the right Community for you.

Example #9:  How do you choose from so many Communities?

Some young women say, “But there are SOOO many religious Communities out there.  I give up before I even start because I don’t know where to start.”  Well, there are a lot more men in the world than religious communities.  Why hasn’t this stopped women from getting married?  Because it only takes ONE man, the RIGHT one.  When you meet him, you stop looking.  Take it one at a time and trust God to lead the right one to you, or to place him in front of you.  The same applies to Convents.

All of the examples cited on this Top Ten list are equally perceptive and instructive. It really takes the mystery out of the discernment process when you liken it to choosing a spouse. If God is calling you to religious life, then He will lead you to that right community where your vocation can blossom and be fruitful.

The IHM Sisters are an IRL Affiliate Community with a Carmelite spirituality and an emphasis on Eucharistic and Marian devotion. The sisters engage in the works of Catholic education on all levels, including spiritual retreats. In union with Mary, the sisters pray for the Church, especially for the conversion of sinners and the sanctification of priests.

 

 

Cloistered life, Women's Communities

You Are Mine!

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Take a few moments to watch this beautiful YouTube video  of the investiture of a Poor Clare nun from December 11, 2011. Beautiful music and beautiful written reflections are used to bring us into the experience of this very special day for Sr. Marie Elise of Jesus Crucified from the Poor Clare Monastery in Barhamsville, VA.

Mother Abbess asked her repeatedly: will you be nervous or cry and the answer was always, no! Then came the moment of the cutting of the hair, like St. Clare, and the donning of the headcover and veil.  She saw herself in the heart of the Jesus with the doors to His heart closing until they were shut completely. Sr. Marie Elise heard Jesus say, “You are mine.”  Then she cried. She arose from her knees a new person, devoted to Christ alone.

The Poor Clares in Barhamsville are an IRL Affiliate Community. Visit their website for more information.

 

Women's Communities

Oblate Sisters of St. Francis de Sales

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On September 22, 2012, Fr. Louis Brisson, founder of the Oblate Sisters of St. Francis de Sales, will be beatified in Troyes, France where the Motherhouse is located. It was interesting that the miracle cited in the beatification process was the healing of an 8 year-old Ecuadorian boy named Carlos whose foot was crushed by a tractor. The Oblate Sisters placed a relic of Fr. Brisson on the foot and asked the family to pray a novena to Fr. Brisson. Some were skeptics but all participated and much to the doctor’s astonishment, within 10 days, Carlos was walking without pain or limping. Carlos later enlisted in the US Air Force and served in the Vietnam War!

It was a Visitation nun who urged Louis to found an Order in the spirit of St. Frances de Sales. With the aid of St. Leonie Aviat, the sisters were founded in 1868 and the fathers in 1876. They lead an active life of loving service that springs from a compassionate heart.  St. Francis de Sales had a great love for the Heart of Jesus and wrote to St. Jane de Chantal,  “I believe, dear Mother, if you are of one mind with me, that for our coat-of-arms we will choose a heart, transfixed by two arrows and ringed by a crown of thorns. Let it be surmounted by a cross upon which will be carved the holy names of Jesus and Mary. It was our Savior, when he was dying, who gave us life by the opening of his Sacred Heart.”

Women's Communities

Angels in the Night

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In the past 2 years, my husband’s father, mother and sister all died after suffering for several years from chronic illnesses. I gained a great appreciation for the caregivers who came in day in, day out, through scorching heat and big snows to care for our loved ones. I only mention this because the Servants of Mary, Ministers to the Sick, who provide the same loving care, are profiled in an article in the Kansas City Nursing News.

They, amongst other things, offer respite to families who are caring for sick ones at home who are near death or suffer from chronic illnesses or disabilities.  The caregivers are often overwhelmed, sleep-deprived and at the end of their rope. Some cannot afford health care at home or want to care for the loved one themselves. All need and want someone loving to assist them at times. This is where the sisters come in.

The 29 sisters in Kansas City provide respite care for caregivers/families at no charge, usually at night.  They believe they are serving Jesus when they care for the sick, in imitation of Mary who stayed at the foot of the Cross. Sister Cristela Mackinnon said, “We want to be there. It makes (the patients) change, too. We’re giving our whole life to the care of the sick.”

“If you’re lucky to get a sister, it’s just like angels coming in to help you,” said Marcy Klein, RN, with Kansas City Hospice & Palliative Care. Ruben Rabanal, a social worker with Compassionate Care Hospice, said, “We really, really need them. We need more of them.”

The congregation was founded by Mother Soledad Torres Acosta, who was canonized in 1970. They have 128 convents around the world. I am praying for more American vocations so that a convent may be built near me! In fact, we all need them close by.

Saints, Women's Communities

Mother M. Angeline Teresa

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Lost in the shuffle of the welcome announcement that Archbishop Fulton Sheen is now Venerable will be the story of  Mother Mary Angeline Teresa (nee Bridget Teresa McCrory), founder of the Carmelite Sisters for the Aged and Infirm (1893-1984) who was also declared Venerable. Mother was a Little Sister of the Poor (founded in France by St. Jeanne Jugan) who, though she loved the Little Sisters, felt called to start a new order to care for the aged and infirm that had a distinctive American flavor to it.

“Our apostolate is not only to provide care in up to date homes for the aged, but as religious, it is to bring Christ to every old person under our care.” – Mother Angeline Teresa, Foundress

The Sisters have 18 homes in the US and one in Ireland. Their Motherhouse is in Germantown, NY. Her famous words left to her daughters were: “If you have to fail, let it be on the side of kindness. Be kinder than kindness itself to the old people.”

News, Women's Communities

Daughter of Mary

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While “nuns on the air conditioned bus/van” are getting a lot of attention in the press these days, I couldn’t help but the notice the contrast between this event and the work of a Salesian sister whom I had never heard of until today.

On November 24, 2012, Ven. Maria Troncatti (1883-1969), a Salesian Sister, will be beatified in Macas, Ecuador. Sister Maria made her first profession in 1908 and left for Ecuador in 1922 where she worked among the Shuar people.

She and two other sisters “faced dangers of every kind, including those caused by the beasts of the forest and by fast-flowing rivers that had to be waded through or crossed on fragile “bridges” made from creepers or on the shoulders of Indians. Sr. Maria was nurse, surgeon, orthopaedist, dentist – but, above all, catechist and evangelizer, rich in the wonderful resources of her faith, patience, and fraternal love. Her work for the promotion of the Shuar woman bore fruit in hundreds of new Christian families formed, for the first time, on a free personal choice on the part of the young couple.”

Sr. Maria died in an airplane crash in Ecuador in 1969. Her works bore fruit that will last for all eternity, something that escapes notice of the secular press but not of our Heavenly Father. Her community, Daughters of Mary Help of Christians (Salesians) was founded by St. John Bosco and St. Mary Domenica Mazzerello and came to the US in 1908. They are the largest congregation of sisters in the world with over 15,000 sisters and growing!!