In the Fall of 2017, a seminarian for the Diocese of Rockford, Jack Reichardt began exchanging letters with Poor Clares Mother Abbess, Mother Maria Dominica, PCC, in order to obtain permission and discuss building a new website for the local monastery, home to twenty professed nuns.
Finally meeting at the Monastery in January, Reichardt and Mother Dominica decided that the site should serve two purposes:
To appear to an audience of those women who may be discerning a call to the consecrated life as a Poor Clare nun, and
To appeal to the faithful who would like to visit with the Poor Clares in prayer.
Having taken a web design course while in high school, Reichardt wanted to put his hobby to use and build something worthy of the Poor Clares that reflected their “beautiful life, that is chaste and pure and prayerful” where people could find out more about their history, life, and vocation.
In gratitude for his hard work, one of the sisters offered the following remarks:
“[Jack’s] deliberation and prayerfulness impressed us very much, and his competence to create a site that is simple but beautiful and which effectively reflects our way of life has been crowned with success. We are grateful to him and to all those who contributed!”
The IRL is very delighted to welcome a new affiliate: The Dominicans Nuns of Our Lady of Mount Thabor Monastery in Ortonville, Michigan (Archdiocese of Detroit). The contemplative community lives the joy-filled monastic life of prayer, work, silence, and study… all for the sanctification of souls!
The foundation of the Monastery began in 1969 when two nuns, Sister Mary Martin, O.P. and Sister Anne Mary, O.P. received permission to leave the Dominican Sisters of the Perpetual Rosary Monastery (Blue Chapel) in Union City, NJ, to establish a new contemplative mode of life within the monastic setting. Remaining faithful to the essentials of monasticism, they eventually found a home in Detroit at the invitation of John Francis Cardinal Dearden. In August of 1973, they moved into their current location in Ortonville, in rural Oakland County. Their foundation day is August 6, 1973, the feast of the Transfiguration of Jesus Christ on Mt. Thabor. The community received its letter of aggregation into the Dominican Order in 1999.
Their daily schedule focuses on the Divine Office (Liturgy of the Hours), which they sing or chant together in chapel. The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass is celebrated daily and is the center of their contemplative life. Profound silence is observed from after Compline until after Morning Prayer. Their habit is a simple white tunic, black veil, leather belt with rosary attached, and scapular.
The community is self-supporting and does remunerative work for its self- sufficiency. Sewing services are offered by the Sisters including the making and alteration of Dominican habits as well as the sale of Dominican Third Order Scapulars. They also maintain Transfiguration Retreat House where faithful may come for a private retreat. The intellectual life is nourished through reading, research, and study. This strong charism of the Dominican Order is never neglected.
It was with great joy and gratitude that the Apostles of the Sacred Heart of Jesus learned in January that their foundress, Mother Clelia Merloni, will be beatified, after a miracle attributed to her intercession was approved by the Vatican. The date for the beatification has not been set yet but it will take place at St. John Lateran Basilica in Rome.
Mother Clelia was a woman of deep prayer who put all her hope and trust in the Sacred Heart of Jesus. The Institute she founded is dedicated to sharing the love of the Heart of Jesus with the world, a mission that she herself shared in with her whole heart.
The miracle that led to this wondrous announcement was the complete and sudden healing of a doctor in Brazil who suffered from Guillain-Barre Syndrome, rendering him barely able to swallow or breath and near death. A sister gave the family novena prayers for Mother Clelia’s intercession and placed a tiny relic in a cup of water. The man was barely able to swallow a drop but it was enough. Suddenly, he could swallow and eat, and by morning, even the doctor attending him realized that a miracle had occurred.
Mother Clelia was born in1861 in Italy and founded the congregation of the Apostles of the Sacred Heart of Jesus in 1894, caring for the urban poor, the orphaned, the sick and the young. Bitterly difficult years of poverty ensued as they struggled to keep their work going. More suffering at the foot of the Cross awaited Mother when she was the victim of false accusations and stripped of her leadership position. Eventually, she was given permission to leave the congregation she founded and was dispensed from her vows. She chose to live the life of the Blessed Mother with her Fiat and silence. Twelve years later, Mother humbly requested and received permission to rejoin the community. The last two years of her life were devoted to prayer and meditation as she prepared for eternal life. What a model of humility and selflessness.
Throw yourself with complete trust in the Heart of Jesus, hoping for and expecting every advantage, support and victory from Him alone.
“Preach the Gospel as you go for the streets!” ―Poor Friars Motto
There is a new community in the diocese of Houma/Thibodaux in Louisiana whose members can be seen hitchhiking around the highways and byways of the diocese.
The Little Friars and Little Nuns of Jesus and Mary, also known as the Poor Friars, were founded in Italy and recognized as a Public Association in 2014. They have the Franciscan spirit of poverty and evangelization, and the Carmelite spirit of contemplation and prayer in their cloisters, but have their own unique Rule of Life.
There are many in the world today who do not give serious thought to the Church because of a perceived worldliness in its members and clergy. Where is the poverty of Christ? There are many shining examples among bishops, priests, religious and the laity. But in our day, when people do not notice simple signs of sanctity and heroism, a sometimes more dramatic image must be revealed. This is what the Poor Friars are: a sign of contradiction in our self-absorbed and self-centered culture; the embodiment of true dependence on God for the basic needs in life, as given freely through strangers and neighbors in encounters that change lives forever.
Father Antonio Maria
They personally cannot accept money at all. They also do not own cars so they hitchhike everywhere. “This is where our Apostolate shines,” says Fr. Antonio Maria Speedy, American Provincial, “as while in the vehicle with the people, we invite them to the Sacraments of Confession and Holy Communion.”
Women and men make up the community though they live separately. They minister in four Italian dioceses. In 2010, they were invited by the local ordinary to begin the process of establishing a community in Louisiana. Father Antonio Maria is the chaplain to the Diocesan Office of Evangelization and the Administrator of two parishes.
Here is a description from their website for their reason for being (raison d’être), all the more penetrating because of the charm of the language translated from the Italian!
Today all the world or many, many people in effect have the need to see real poor of the Lord in the Church, because they no longer understand the Benign Mystery of its Glorious Richness; instead of esteeming it they accuse it!, and not only, they also accuse unjustly its Ministers that represent it.. , . instead of becoming nearer they go further ! For this was immediately born the urgency to make ourselves truly poor, so the confused people, in regards to the so called wealth of the Church, no longer having the possibility to point the finger at us, given that they see us extremely poor, they stop, and finally listen to the demonstrated Truth and the simple answer as to why Jesus was poor while now the Church is (rightly ) Rich, and etc.. etc.. ; and like this in fact many, begin to take up again the esteem for their Mother Church and for her Ministers, returning like this to the Holy Confession and to the Holy Communion, and therefore concretely: be on the way towards the Blessed Eternal Life. Amen !
Two Sisters from the Carmelite Sisters of the Most Sacred Heart of Los Angeles came from opposite coasts for a recent Come & See weekend in Saint Paul, Minnesota. Sr. Elizabeth Therese, O.C.D., and Sr. Catherine Marie, O.C.D., live in Alhambra, CA, and Miami, FL, respectively, but have their roots in Minnesota. God’s call is not limited to state boundaries and each sister discerned that God was asking them to leave their home and kinfolk to find their fulfillment as spouses of Christ in the Carmelite community in Alhambra, California. (See article)
Sr. Elizabeth Therese is the vocation directress and slowly realized her vocation from interactions with a campus ministry, a third order Carmelite group, Adoration and monthly discernment dinners. She also was engaged to be married. Though, “it’s not until you have a personal relationship with the Lord, whether you’re called to religious life or marriage,” she said. “that you’re going to be able to know what your vocation is.”
Sr. Catherine Marie felt her call through the Eucharist and Adoration. A teacher, she immediate felt that she had come home once she visited the Carmelites in Alhambra. “It was as if Jesus was saying to me, ‘Welcome home, I have been waiting for you.’”, she said, “Inside my heart I felt myself responding, ‘Finally, I am home.’”
A stumbling block for Sr. Catherine Marie was her educational debt. But thanks to The Labouré Society, located in Eagan, MN, she was able to raise the money to pay off the balance. Sister advises: “Do not be afraid to say, ‘yes’ to Christ,” she said. “He takes nothing away and gives you everything your heart could desire.”
If you live in the California area, please consider becoming part of Handmaidens, a faith formation group for single women between the ages of 18 and 35, dedicated to cultivating a deeper relationship with the Lord, as well as a greater understanding and appreciation of the dignity of their vocation as women. Formation and living holiness in the world is supported and nurtured through adoration, prayer and conferences given by the Carmelite Sisters and chosen laity.
On November 21 (the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary in the Temple), the Church will celebrate World Day of Cloistered Life, also known as “Pro Orantibus” Day, which is a Latin phrase meaning “for those who pray.” This is an important ecclesial event for all Catholics worldwide to commemorate the hidden lives of consecrated religious in cloisters and monasteries.
We celebrate this day because the contemplative life is a gift from Almighty God to us all — all the world benefits spiritually from the prayer and sacrifice of these dedicated and faithful souls, even when we may not know it. On this day, the faithful are encouraged to reach out to the cloistered and contemplative communities in their diocese, through prayer, encouragement, and material support.
“Religious profession so orders our whole life to God and neighbor that it is a sign the unity of the Trinity reflected in our unity and our outpouring love for God, our sisters and all mankind. It is this loving kenosis which produces perfect human fulfillment.”
—Constitutions for Poor Clare nuns (Article 5, number 3)
Poor Clares, Palos Park
St. Thomas Aquinas asserted that happiness is union with the One who is Goodness itself, namely God. Our country’s forefathers saw the human desire for happiness as not just a goal but a fundamental right, the “right to the pursuit of happiness.” However, pleasure and happiness are not the same and the “right to the pursuit of happiness” presupposes the moral obligation to live according to the laws of God. Indeed, the Catholic Church proclaims that we were created to know, love and serve God in this life so as to be happy with Him forever in the next.
This happiness or blessedness is ultimately holiness. Therefore, we can say we have been endowed by our Creator with the “right to pursuit of holiness.” This pursuit of holiness, or striving for perfection, is the life’s work and obligation of those who make profession of the evangelical counsels. We do this by daily offering our lives at the service of God’s plan in the vows of obedience, poverty and chastity, emptying ourselves in order to be filled with Christ and bring him to others. “It is this loving kenosis which produces perfect human fulfillment.”
Obedience
Obedience is an act of the will, a free choice, not an act of fear or compulsion. “The love of Christ impels us,” St. Paul says, and it is through this love that any fear is transformed into the free surrender of our will and the great desire to do what God is asking of me at this moment. In his conferences on the evangelical counsels, Archbishop Charles Schleck, C.S.C. asserts that “obedience perfects the will instead of suppressing it. To love God is not merely to surrender or give up something of our own will. It is to adhere positively and firmly to the will of the one we love. And to love God means to do what He desires; it is obey. Obedience is universal in character and belongs to the very life of the Church. It brings to completion our baptismal faith … (it) perfects the consecration proper to baptism.”
Chastity
In her biography of Saint Colette, Mother Mary Francis, P.C.C., describes the young Colette, with the vow of perpetual virginity fresh upon her soul, as a woman no longer alone in the world. She is espoused to Christ now. Yet this reality is hidden from the eyes of men and is part of the great paradox of Christian life where the one who loses her life finds it and the grain of wheat that dies brings forth much fruit. It is our radical renunciation of all things, even the great good of earthly marriage, for the sake of the Kingdom of Heaven which is the source of our union with Christ. And it is our union with Christ which allows us to enter into His love for all mankind.
Poverty
In a radical kenosis the second person of the Blessed Trinity became man to save us by His death and resurrection. In the words of St. Paul “… He did not deem equality with God something to be grasped at but emptied Himself.” Our form of life is to live the holy Gospel, and we do this by striving to imitate the self-emptying of Christ in every aspect of our life. “According to the thinking of St. Clare, evangelical poverty goes far beyond the renunciation of earthly possessions, extending to the whole of life. For in the Franciscan concept, the surrender of temporal goods is intimately bound up with the profession of obedience and chastity and also with enclosure and communion in the spirit” (Art. 11 #1).
“Enclosed nuns are called to give clear witness that man belongs entirely to God, and so to keep green among the human family the desire for a heavenly home” (Art. 20 #2). We strive for that union in this life and are a sign for the world of each soul’s destiny.
For those who are called and who respond to its totality of grace, ours is a life of profound joy in the pursuit of holiness through the total surrender of all we are and all that is, for God’s glory and the salvation of souls. “Amen, amen, without ever turning back” (Testament of our Holy Mother St. Colette)
In West Springfield, Massachusetts, on a busy street, up on a hill, is the Dominican Monastery of the Mother of God. Their presence there silently proclaims to the passers-by their faith in God and their desire to belong wholly to Him. Their foundress, Mother Mary Hyacinth of Jesus, entered the Dominican Sisters of the Perpetual Rosary in Union City, NJ, on September 8, 1908. She was chosen by Bishop Thomas Mary O’Leary to be the foundress of their community: “Come, come to Springfield in the name of God and Mary. This will be our gift to Our Lady on the feast of her birth.”
They eventually took on perpetual adoration of the Blessed Sacrament and went from Third Order sisters to Second Order nuns. Life in modern times is more complicated for everybody, cloistered nuns not excluded, but they have striven in recent times to strengthen the essentials of their enclosed life, striving for the one thing necessary – union with God.
In 2008, reflecting more deeply upon their contemplative vocation after the nuns’ Jubilee Year, they decided to take back their traditional veil, believing that each nun should strive to become a mini “house of prayer.” This was followed by the restoration of a simple grille in their parlors in 2011, as another reminder of their call to silence and withdrawal from the world.
Following the Rule of St. Augustine, they make solemn vows and follow Papal enclosure. The solemn chanting of the Divine Liturgy is at the heart of their day. Their Eucharistic adoration and Rosaries flow out of this wellspring of grace, while study and lectio divina are a fruitful preparation for it. They strive to make the Liturgy as beautiful as they can, all for the glory of God.
May Our Lady, who helped them to begin this work of love for God, allow it flourish through her special Motherly intercession. Amen!
The canonization cause for Ven. Henriette Delille (d. 1862), foundress of the Sisters of the Holy family in New Orleans, continues to move forward. Twenty-nine years ago, her cause was opened and in 2010, Pope Benedict declared her Venerable. As the Sisters celebrate their 175th anniversary this year, they are hoping that the details of a miracle, attributed to Henriette’s intercession, will be accepted and authenticated so that Henriette can be Beatified during this eventful year.
The Sisters of the Holy Family were founded in 1842. The sick, the infirm and the poor were the Sisters’ first concern and the “dearest objects of solicitude,” but they also sought “to bring back the Glory of God and the salvation of the neighbor by a charitable and edifying behavior.” Henriette’s antidote to the dissolution and irreligion of the time was to “teach the mysteries of the religion and the most important points of Christian morality.” One of her priorities was to promote the Sacrament of Marriage. How we need Henriette’s powerful intercession today when families are so under attack!
An exhibit on her life at the Ursuline Convent Museum in New Orleans opened late last year and runs through September 2017. Created by the Archdiocese’s archivist, it highlights the life of Henriette, born to a French father (it is believed) and mother who was a “free woman of color” of French, Spanish and African ancestry. Her great, great grandmother, Marie Ann, was a slave who purchased her freedom. The women in Henriette’s family were free, independent and well-to-do. But Henriette broke with family tradition, choosing instead to devote her life to the Lord as a “humble servant of slaves.”
A documentary on her life is available and for more information on her community and her Cause, please visit the Sister’s website.
Congratulations to their new novices, Sister Marie Vianney, SOLI and Sister Maria Joseph, SOLI. And their new postulant Jessica!
Be sure to watch EWTN on February 28, 2017, when one of the IRL’s communities will be featured on EWTN. A 30-minute video on the Sisters of Our Lady Immaculate, a (newish) religious community in Canada, will be broadcast at 6:30PM (EST).
The video is an inspiring, intimate look into the apostolate of the SOLI Sisters from Cambridge, Ontario. This community of sisters in Canada is bringing about a renewal of authentic Catholic catechesis in the schools they serve, and in their care for the elderly. This deep love for young and old, as the Sisters daily strive to answer the call of becoming a true Bride of Christ, gives witness to their unwavering faith.
Mother Dorothy (l) and two SOLI sisters
The sisters are also expanding into new mission fields! At the invitation of the Bishop, the sisters will be assisting in Catholic education in the Diocese of Peterborough, Ontario, where Sr. Bernadette and Sr. Mary Catherine have been appointed Principal and Vice-Principal respectively of Our Lady of the Wayside Catholic School.
The sisters were founded in 1977 by Father Lloyd Ryan and Sr. Mary Josephine Mulligan, formerly a Grey Sister. They both saw the need for a new religious order of women who would be dedicated to living the religious life authentically and teaching our Holy Catholic Faith with courage. This fervor and zeal for promoting the Truth with religious solidly formed with the essential foundations of religious life sounds much like Father John Hardon, S.J., who founded the IRL to support communities such as these, striving to bring the light of Christ to our secular society.
You can order the video from EWTN, a great resource for anyone seeking to inspire a young woman to consider religious life!
The IRL is very delighted to welcome a new affiliate: 
