Category Archives: Women’s Communities

News, Women's Communities

Sisters of the Holy Cross in Opus Angelorum Elevated to Pontifical Status

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The Sisters of the Holy Cross in Opus Angelorum, an IRL affiliate community since 2004, was elevated this year from an Institute of Diocesan Right to an Institute of Pontifical Right. With the authorization of the Holy Father, Pope Francis, the Congregation for Religious promulgated the decree of pontifical recognition on the Feast of St. Mark, April 25, 2018, which was communicated to the Mother General on June 1, 2018. With this step, the governance of the Sisters no longer stands under the Bishop of Innsbruck, Austria but reports directly to Rome and the Congregation for Religious. It is a confirmation of their way of life and mission in the Church, and more firmly anchors them to the rock of Peter, to whom they pledge their fidelity.

History of the Sisters

The first Sisters were lay women who joined priests and other lay persons in a group gathered around Mother Gabriel already in the 1950’s in order to live a closer bond with the Holy Angels in their role in the economy of salvation, and to spiritually assist priests, both spiritually and materially, in their vocation. This was the beginning of the spiritual movement, Opus Angelorum. The first canonical institution of Opus Angelorum to be erected in the Church was the Confraternity of the Holy Guardian Angels in 1961 in the diocese of Innsbruck, Austria, which also has a branch in the US today. The Sisters received a house in the diocese of Salzburg, which they named the “House of Adoration”. There they held their first novitiate for a newly formed “pious union,” which was erected in 1964. Along with the Opus Angelorum and the brother community of priests, the Canons Regular of the Holy Cross, the community of the Sisters quickly spread to other countries, including Germany, Switzerland, Portugal, Brazil and the Netherlands. Today, they are present and active in 10 countries with 170 perpetually professed Sisters. They were erected in the Diocese of Innsbruck as a Diocesan Institute in 2002.

The Sisters first came to the US in 1998 and lived for over 10 years at an inner-city parish in Detroit. In 2015, they moved to a residential home in Ohio, as they wait for the completion (hopefully this fall!) of their first convent in the United States.

Spirituality of the Sisters

Beginning from their own total surrender to God, seeking the glorification of the Triune God through a life in imitation of Christ and of sharing in His salvific mission, the Sisters devote themselves by prayer, Eucharistic Adoration, sacrifice and service, to the sanctification of the priesthood and religious state. They are particularly devoted to the Passion of Christ, which they commemorate weekly. They live their life in communion with the Holy Angels, consecrating themselves to them and collaborating with them in the spiritual battle for souls. The Sisters are aggregated to the Order of Canons Regular of the Holy Cross, share the same spirituality and assist the priests in the apostolate, Opus Angelorum.

News, Women's Communities

Mother John Marie Stewart (1926-2018), Foundress of the Disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ

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On May 26, 2018, Mother John Marie Stewart, DLJC, the foundress of the Disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ, a Franciscan charismatic religious community, passed into eternal life. Her funeral Mass was celebrated by Most Reverend Patrick J. Zurek, Bishop of Amarillo. He was joined by Most Rev. Samuel Jacobs, Bishop Emeritus of Houma, LA, as well as other priests.

Mother John Marie was born in Arkansas in 1926 to a family of Methodist ministers, elders and missionaries. She graduated from Vanderbilt University with a degree in nursing. While working towards a Ph.D. in English Literature at Columbia University, Mother John Marie, a Catholic convert who gradually became a secular humanist, was brought back to the Catholic faith after a long absence by the quiet evangelization of a Catholic sister.

In February 1969, two years after the beginning of the Catholic Charismatic Renewal in the United States, Mother received the Baptism in the Holy Spirit. In the ensuing years she participated in street evangelization and attended many Charismatic Conferences.

On January 22, 1972, while on retreat at a Poor Clare Monastery, the Lord gave her the community’s Founding Document which along with the Franciscan Third Order Regular Rule and Constitutions are the framework of their way of life. The Disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ were erected as an Institute of Diocesan Rite on April 7, 1991 in the Diocese of Amarillo, Texas

By her untiring love for souls, Mother John Marie taught her spiritual daughters to “go after the lost sheep” and then help them receive the fullness of the Holy Spirit through the Charismatic Renewal. She traveled the world where she was never afraid to openly declare that “Jesus is Lord” and to remind people that Jesus loved them.

Mother John Marie leaves behind thirty-eight spiritual daughters―thirty sisters in Perpetual Profession; three in Temporarily Profession; and one Novice and three Postulants. Their Motherhouse is in Prayer Town, Texas and they also have local houses in Texas, New Mexico, Pennsylvania and Mexico.

For more information, please visit: www.dljc.org

 

Discernment, News, Women's Communities

Bethany House: A New House of Discernment For Women

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Bethany House is a women’s discernment house, sponsored by the Office of Vocations in the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis. Located in Minneapolis, it opened in September of 2017 and is a home for women ages 20-27 who live in community and discern whether they are called to consecrated life

This is a new initiative of the Office of Vocations in partnership with the Handmaids of the Heart of Jesus, a religious community based in New Ulm, Minnesota. The women may work or go to school, but the objective is the same – to sit at the feet of Jesus like Mary of Bethany, listening. “This is about discerning God’s will, and that’s the goal … wherever God may lead them,” said Father David Blume, vocations director for the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis.

Father Blume was inspired to found Bethany House after a young woman told him: “Our men have a path, but for us women, we don’t have a path — we have 500 paths, and it’s kind of confusing.” The Vocations Office takes care of the house’s administration while the Handmaids oversee the formation and pastoral aspects.

Handmaid Sister Mary Joseph Evans makes it clear that this is not a Handmaid discernment house. “They have total freedom to discern any community. … Because we’re diocesan sisters, part of our role in our service of the diocese is to walk with young women in general, in helping them know and discern and embrace the Lord’s will, just like a diocesan priest would for the men.”

Residents at Bethany House commit to nine months of common living as well as a weekday schedule that includes a 5:45 a.m. Holy Hour with morning prayer in the parish’s Adoration chapel. The women then attend daily Mass before heading to classes or work. They share three evening meals each week, and pray night prayer together each night. Then they observe “grand silence” until after Mass the following day. A 2-month summer program is also an option.

One resident described the experience as a retreat. “And that’s how they really set it up to be,” she said. “We’re retreating to Jesus, and Jesus is really retreating to us more, I feel like, because He wants to be in our hearts.”

For more information, please visit: 10000vocations.org/bethany-house

Men's communities, News, Women's Communities

Contemplatives of St. Joseph Add Women’s Branch

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The Contemplatives of St. Joseph, a monastery for men founded in 2010, now have a women’s branch. Over the years, founder Fr. Vito Perrone had to turn women away seeking to join them in their contemplative yet active life. But now, there are 3 women in formation with more to surely come because they seem to be experiencing a boom of sort in vocations and interest!

The COSJs are a Public Clerical Association of the Christian Faithful as decreed by Most Reverend Salvatore Cordileone, Archbishop of San Francisco. They take Saint Joseph as their model for his silent, contemplative witness. “He keeps his eyes on Jesus and Mary, as we do,” says Father Perrone. “He is steady, loving, is manly and has a huge influence. That is our model of the contemplative life.”

The community of priests, brothers and sisters commits to eight hours of community and individual prayer. They celebrate the Extraordinary Form of the Mass “to enter into the deep and profound spirituality preserved by the Church and handed down from our western fathers to us today.” Their First Friday Healing Mass draws many. Those in attendance are blessed with the oil of St. Joseph that was used by St. Andre Bessette, the humble servant of St. Joseph.

They also offer retreats; spiritual direction for priests, seminarians, and nuns; parish missions; and will be offering The Catholic Spiritual Life Academy to teach families how they can live a modified contemplative life.

On May 1, Archbishop Cordileone was the principal celebrant at a Solemn High Mass on the Feast of St. Joseph the Worker where the Missa Sancti Joseph was premiered, composed by Frank La Rocca. In addition to receiving professions, investitures and bestowing blessings on candidates and postulants, the Archbishop also bestowed a special blessing for the beginning a COSJ Third Order.

“We feel the contemplative life is a very powerful witness within the life of the church,” Father Perrone said. “Basically, you have to die to yourself in order to understand the riches of life with Christ,” He adds: “Religious life, especially with the COSJ, is not for the faint of heart.”  But it is for those with a heart for Jesus and the Church in imitation of the Guardian of the Redeemer―Saint Joseph!

See article in Catholic San Francisco.

Cloistered life, Consecrated Virgins, Discernment, General interest, News, Pro-life, Reflection, Resources, Saints, Vocations, Women's Communities

New Website Alert: Poor Clare Colettine Nuns of Corpus Christi Monastery in Rockford, IL

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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:

  1. To appear to an audience of those women who may be discerning a call to the consecrated life as a Poor Clare nun, and
  2.  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.

Click here: Poor Clare Colettine Nuns of Rockford, Illinois | JMJ+FCC

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!”

Cloistered life, General interest, News, Reflection, Vocations, Women's Communities

New Affiliate: The Dominican Nuns of Our Lady of Mt. Thabor Monastery in Ortonville, Michigan

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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.

News, Saints, Women's Communities

Mother Clelia Merloni, Foundress of the Apostles of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, To Be Beatified!

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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.

Jesus never abandons those who trust in Him.

Men's communities, Women's Communities

Little Friars and Little Nuns of Jesus and Mary

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“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 !   

Discernment, Women's Communities

God knows No Boundaries: Finding a Vocation With the Carmelites in California

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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.

The next meeting date is November 18, 2017.

Cloistered life, General interest, Liturgical Year, Men's communities, News, Papal Address, Reflection, Resources, Women's Communities

Tuesday, November 21, 2017 – World Day of Cloistered Life

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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.

Please click at the link for more info and for resources: //www.cloisteredlife.com/news/pro-orantibus-day/