On November 9, 2018 the First Federation of Visitation nuns launched a new website. Designed by Vocation Promotion, the website, VisitationSistersFirstFederation.org, provides links to the six monasteries in the Federation, which include: Mobile, AL; Rockville, VA; Philadelphia, PA; Snellville, GA; Toledo, OH; and Tyringham, MA.
This was one of the steps taken to comply with the requirements of the recent Vatican document Vultum Dei Quaerere and its implementing instruction Cor Orans. They will also, said Sr. Sharon Gworek, Federation President, be revising the “Constitutions and related documents to bring them in line with those two documents. A committee has been formed to undertake this task and it is being accompanied by the prayer of all the sisters.”
The First Federation is one of two federations of Visitation nuns in the United States. The federations serve as a source of communion and mutual support for the monasteries especially since each monastery is autonomous. The federations help them to strengthen the bond of love that unites them to one another.
The question is often asked: is contemplative life still relevant today?
The answer can be found in Vultum Dei Quaerere, No. 6:
“Dear contemplative sisters, without you what would the Church be like, or without all those others living on the fringes of humanity and ministering in the outposts of evangelization?
The Church greatly esteems your life of complete self-giving. The Church counts on your prayers and on your self-sacrifice to bring today’s men and women to the good news of the Gospel.
The Church needs you! It is not easy for the world, or at least that large part of it dominated by the mindset of power, wealth and consumerism, to understand your particular vocation and your hidden mission; and yet it needs them immensely.
The world needs you every bit as much as a sailor on the high seas needs a beacon to guide him to a safe haven. Be beacons to those near to you and, above all, to those far away.
Be torches to guide men and women along their journey through the dark night of time. Be sentinels of the morning (cf. Is 21:11-12), heralding the dawn (cf. Lk 1:78).
By your transfigured life, and with simple words pondered in silence, shows us the One who is the way, and the truth and the life (cf. Jn 14:6)….”