In the Shadow of His Wings

Sponsa Christi May 12th, 2013

Today is Mother’s Day!  O Blessed day to all you Moms out there. Each year on this day the Mass in our chapel is offered for all of our mothers, living and deceased.

To honor our heavenly Mother we just had our annual May procession, and we also installed a picture of our new Pope Francis in the entrance foyer of the monastery. Tomorrow is “Fatima Day,” May 13th, the anniversary of Mary’s first apparition to the children of Fatima in 1917.  Pope Francis asked the archbishop of that area to consecrate his Petrine ministry to Our Lady of Fatima on this anniversary. So our installation of the new Pope’s picture today is quite significant, as we pray for his intentions for the Church throughout the world.

Mother Catherine Marie hangs the new image of Pope Francis.

Not all the Sisters could be present for the procession.

Yes…it is a little chilly today in western Kentucky.

After singing hymns in honor of our Blessed Mother and crowning her image in the back of our chapel we prayed the following prayer of consecration by Fr. George Kosicki.

Consecration to the Immaculate Heart of Mary

Mary, Mother of Jesus and Mother of Mercy, since Jesus from the Cross gave you to me, I take you as my own. And since Jesus gave me to you, take me as your own. Make me docile like Jesus on the Cross, obedient to the Father, trusting in humility and in love.

Mary, my Mother, in imitation of the Father, who gave his Son to you, I too give my all to you; to you I entrust all that I am, all that I have and all that I do. Help me to surrender ever more fully to the Spirit. Lead me deeper into the Mystery of the Cross, the Cenacle and the fullness of Church.  As you formed the heart of Jesus by the Spirit, form my heart to be the throne of Jesus in his glorious coming.

By Fr. George Kosicki

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Tags: Pope Francis

• Blessed Mother
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Sponsa Christi May 10th, 2013

Isn’t that a neat word? – heterogeneous!  Meaning “different in kind, unlike, incongruous”…I thought that a good description of the photos in this post. Really, I was just wracking my brain to think of a unique name for this post and happened upon this word.

Please keep us Sisters in your prayers…the Marthas of a few weeks ago are now the Marys. That’s right – half the Sisters are beginning 8 day solitude retreat Saturday through Pentecost Vigil – while the other half keep the monastery running – hopefully the kitchen will survive – the 3 junior professed sisters have taken over…

Some monasteries news…

Nothing like putting a meal on the table for the Nuns and also baking some bread for a feastday breakfast.  Mmmm…delicious!

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Several weeks ago we celebrated Mother Catherine Marie’s feast day (St. Catherine of Siena) with a lovely Gaudeamus day.

Sr. Mary Therese surprised Mother and all of us with about 7 new oil paintings!  I think some of them might be put in our on-line gift shop so stay posted.

Sr. Cecilia Maria presents Mother Catherine Marie with the “first fruits” of her peppermint and spearmint plants. We are enjoying fresh mint tea!

One can’t outdo the Superior in generosity – Mother Catherine Marie has treats for all the Sisters, with the blessing of our Eucharistic Jesus – Lord of our House.

Sr. John Mary presents Mother with some note cards made from cartoons drawn by a recently deceased sister of our Passionist Nuns in Japan – Sr. Maria Dolores.

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Recently we were invaded by the Niehaus clan (Sr. Mary Andrea’s family) who helped move and stack wood. Sr. John Mary’s brother also joined in on the fun. THANKS FOR ALL YOUR HARD WORK! ! !

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Thanks to our dear Passionist brother in Christ – Fr. Giuseppe Barbieri, C.P. – we have these photos from Easter day.

Christie and Sr. Ann Miriam have a transfiguration moment.

These smiles show forth the joy of being brides of Christ and living a life of love in the heart of the Church.

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I hope you enjoyed this little highlight from the past couple of months.  God-willing and the creek don’t rise (which it is currently doing with all the rain we are getting) I will write another post with photos of our grounds during this beautiful Spring weather.  Please join us in praying for good planting weather for our farmers!

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Tags: Family, Gaudeamus Days

• Catholic Vocations for Women , Easter , Monastic Life
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Sponsa Christi April 26th, 2013

After spending time going through the troubleshooting list of our Spam Free plug-in and getting no where…my Computer Guru-Sister had the idea of just getting rid of that ole plug-in and seeing if a comment would then come in…this idea was backed up by our tech guy. YES, the comment came right on in!  So we now have a new Spam Free Plug-in.  It has been working for about 5 minutes now…so, if you want to leave a comment about a previous post I would love to hear from you and so would the other Sisters here who read your comments!

I would especially like to hear from you if you tried to contact us about disseminating our vocation brochures…

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Sponsa Christi April 25th, 2013

It’s that time of year when we have our Community retreats. Beginning yesterday half of the Sisters are “in retreat”; they are the “Marys”. The other half of us are the “Marthas” and we keep the monastery running for 8 days.  I always seem to have extra time during these days to catch up. Thank you Lord!

This morning I have been “unburying” my desk of letters, cards, to-do notes, etc. In the midst of this I came across a Christmas card that had a powerful promise of prayers. I had set it aside to share with you all and well…here it is 4 months later!

This card is from a woman who works with the Institute on Religious Life. They do an excellent job fostering and strengthening vocations to Consecrated Life.

I wanted you to know that you have someone special praying for the Passionists. A prisoner named Richard has written to us in the past and told us that he and his roommate are living the monastic life – regular prayer, no TV and often silence. They are praying specifically for Passionists. I’m sure his prayers, given his environment, are very powerful. I pray that his sacrifices may in God’s mysterious ways, bring young women to your beautiful way of life. May Christ’s passion be always in our hearts.

Wow, what a powerful tribute to the power of Christ’s mercy and love.

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• Prayer for Vocations
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Sponsa Christi April 22nd, 2013

I just came across these words of Pope Francis that inspire courage, trust and joy in responding to Jesus’ call to follow more closely.

Just after ordaining 10 men to the priesthood, Pope Francis called on young Catholics to ask Jesus “what he wants from you and be brave!”

“There are many young people today, here in the square. Let me ask this: have you sometimes heard the voice of the Lord through a desire, restlessness, inviting you to follow him more closely? Have you had any desire to be apostles of Jesus?” Pope Francis asked the crowd in St. Peter’s Square.

He urged the youth present in the square for the April 21 Regina Caeli prayers to strive for high ideals. “Ask Jesus what he wants from you and be brave!” he exclaimed.

Pope Francis also encouraged people to pray for those who are discerning their vocation and wondering what God’s will is for their lives.

“Behind and before every vocation to the priesthood or consecrated life,” he said, “there is always strong and intense prayer from someone: a grandmother, a grandfather, a mother, a father, a community … .”

“Vocations are born in prayer and prayer, and only in prayer can they persevere and bear fruit,” he remarked.

Pope Francis made his remarks after having ordained 10 men as priests for the Diocese of Rome in St. Peter’s Basilica, a celebration that coincided with the World Day of Prayer for Vocations, which was created by Pope Paul VI.

In his remarks before reciting the Regina Caeli prayer, he emphasized the importance of the day and asked for prayers for the new priests.

He finished his words by invoking the intercession of Mary, that she would “help us to know better the voice of Jesus and to follow her to walk in the way of life.”

Read more: http://www.ewtnnews.com/catholic-news/Vatican.php?id=7496#ixzz2RE5W5dhS

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• Catholic Vocations for Women , Prayer for Vocations , Vocation Discernment
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Sponsa Christi April 21st, 2013

Have you ever heard of the Invisible Monastery?  Well, until a month ago I hadn’t either.  On this 50th World Day of Prayer for Vocations I thought it a wonderful occasion to tell you about it.

Several weeks ago I received a letter in the mail with a very interesting return address. The sender was “Invisible Monastery”.  I was delighted to see it is an endeavor to promote continuous prayer for an increase of priestly and religious vocations founded by our good friend at Vianney Vocations.

I hope you will visit the Invisible Monastery and pledge to pray for vocations. When I registered last week there were less than 5 other persons who had registered in the Diocese of Owensboro.  We need more registrants!

Here is a link to today’s message for the World Day of Prayer for Vocations by Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI.  A very inspiring meditation written before his retirement.

I dislike writing blog posts without photos – enjoy these photos taken yesterday!

Christie’s precious little garden beside shed

Christie with her great gardening apron and shovel in hand!

Fence repair – fence needed to keep out the deer. Wood and blocks needed to keep out the rabbits and mice. Did you know mice like broccoli leaves?

Sr. Cecilia Maria has big plans for this flower bed.

Last year when we opened the door of this bird house we discovered it was instead an ant house!

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Tags: Pope Benedict XVI, Weather Flora & Fauna

• Catholic Vocations for Women , Prayer for Vocations
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Sponsa Christi April 17th, 2013

Greetings blog friends!  We still haven’t gotten the comment box situation fixed yet. We are very busy and so haven’t been able to give much time to fixing the problem. We’ve tried to no avail (!) several different things listed in troubleshooting for this problem with the comment spam blocker.

If you are interested in writing us to receive some brochures as I mentioned in an earlier post email us at vocations(at)passionistnuns(dot)org.  Thanks!

In case you haven’t noticed our latest newsletter is posted at our website. This newsletter featured Sr. Cecilia Maria’s First Profession of Vows.  Enjoy!

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Tags: Passionist Nuns Newsletter, Stages in Formation

• Bride of Christ , Catholic Vocations for Women
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Sponsa Christi April 15th, 2013

Recently heard from a friend of ours that she was unable to leave a comment in our comment box.   I have not receive any comments and am wondering if others are having the same trouble.

If so, would you contact me at nunsp(at)bellsouth(dot)net?  And put “blog comments” in the subject box.

God bless!

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Sponsa Christi April 12th, 2013

Easter greetings to all our friends!  Sorry I abandoned the internet world right at the Sacred Triduum. We had a profound experience of the Passion, Death and Resurrection of our Divine Bridegroom.  We are still celebrating with Alleluias and the lovely Regina Coeli!

Would any of you be interested in distributing some of our vocation brochures? Here is a PDF version.

front cover

brochure when half way open

Yes, our brochure is “outdated” now with the election of Pope Francis. This is another reason why we would like to get these distributed quickly.

Opened brochure

back side of brochure

If you are interested, please leave your name, address and phone number, number of brochures to send and a brief explanation of how you would use them in the comment box below.  If I publish the comment to the blog I won’t publish your contact info.

OKAY – OUR COMMENT BOX ISN’T WORKING – you can contact us through our vocation email address:  vocations(at)passionistnuns(dot)org.

God reward you for promoting Passionist life!

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• Catholic Vocations for Women , Passionist Vocations for Women , Vocation Discernment
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Sponsa Christi March 28th, 2013

Today our community and all of the you have entered into the most sacred days of the Church Year. We have many beautiful monastic customs during the sacred Triduum. One of these is a communal gathering of our intentions for our spiritual children. Earlier today our Superior shared with us the following words of encouragement…

    After making the Lenten journey with the whole Church—and ours was certainly a strenuous journey!!— we have come now to the blessed days of the Paschal Triduum.

We, the “daughters of the Passion and brides of Christ Crucified”, feel ourselves prompted from deep within to spend these days of the Sacred Triduum as Our Lord’s close companions and helpmates. We can also be a great help to one another by trying to maintain silence and recollection as much as possible, and helping out where others need our help–either in the care of the sick, or food preparation, sacristy work and so forth. As for the correspondence work, we can let that go until next week. These days are too precious to spend them on anything that is not really necessary.

We know from our community sharings on Bl. John Paul’s encyclical on the Eucharist, that the Pascal Triduum is, as it were, concentrated in the Holy Eucharist.

So the Last Supper, Good Friday, Holy Saturday and Easter Sunday are all “concentrated” in the Holy Eucharist.  We are mysteriously and really made present to them at every Mass.  And we know and believe–also from Pope John Paul’s encyclical, that there is a mysterious “oneness in time” between that first Triduum 2000 years ago and today.  We could meditate on these truths til our dying day and never exhaust their magnificent riches.

In these sacred rites, there will be a oneness in time between the Last Supper, Good Friday, Holy Saturday and Easter Sunday.  We will truly be there!  And we know from Church teaching that we are not play acting, we are not spectators.  We are participators, we are really and truly taking part in and reliving these events with the Church, as the liturgy makes them present in a unique way.

Jesus wants to celebrate His Passover here with us in our monastery, with us, His brides, closest companions and helpmates in the work of redemption.  We want our hearts to be like His.  His great Heart has the whole world gathered into it and embraced in saving love.  Before He offered His sacrifice on the cross, He made His intentions, and we read them in chapter 17 of John’s Gospel.

We too, before entering the Triduum, make our intentions– we gather into the embrace of our prayer, our new Holy Father, and also Benedict XVI, our bishops, priests, religious, laity, our families and their crying needs, all our Oblates and Associates and friends, all Passionists, our benefactors, all who need and ask our prayers, all who attend our services, etc. – we gather them all up and carry them in our hearts into the liturgy, into our prayers and sacrifices of these precious days, pleading the Passion of Jesus, His wounds, His Precious Blood, His own bitter sufferings for them.  Let us not forget the wonderful doctors and nursing personnel who generously care for us, our employees, etc.  Our hearts are to be as wide as the Heart of Jesus!

Just as Jesus is never possessive or stingy–keeping anything only for Himself–so we literally give our lives and prayers away for souls, for the intentions of the Hearts of Jesus and Mary.  Spending time with Him, gazing at Him, at His suffering Face, His Sacred Heart, His strong virtues, and uniting ourselves with Him in His humility and obedience, His love for souls—all of this not only sanctifies us, but is a saving work for the Church and the world.

So let’s be generous during these days, trying our best also to give of ourselves fully in the liturgy.

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Tags: Liturgy, Nuns Reflections, Pope John Paul II, Spiritual Motherhood

• Catholic Vocations for Women , Holy Week , Monastery traditions , Passion of Jesus , Passionist Spirituality , The Holy Eucharist
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