In the Shadow of His Wings

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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• Catholic Vocations for Women , Holy Week , Monastery traditions , Passion of Jesus , Passionist Spirituality , The Holy Eucharist
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Sponsa Christi March 26th, 2013

Jesus loved us “to the end” – to the fullest extent possible.
What other religion can boast that their god loved them so much
he/she became a human being and died for them that
they might know Love eternal?

Our post last year entitled Meditations for Holy Week is getting a lot of views so I thought I would re-post that again this year.

Here are some EXCELLENT meditations
on the spirituality and history of Holy Week.

Holy Week

Palm Sunday of the Lord’s Passion

Evening Mass of the Lord’s Supper

Friday of the Lord’s Passion

Easter Vigil in the Holy Night

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• Catholic Vocations for Women , Easter , Holy Week , Passion of Jesus , Passionist Spirituality , Passionist Vocations for Women
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Sponsa Christi March 24th, 2013

Christus vincit!  Christus regnat!  Christus imperat!

Christ conquers the Evil One!  Pope Francis, our 266th Pontiff, reminded us of this in today’s Palm Sunday homily.

“Jesus on the Cross feels the whole weight of the evil, and with the force of God’s love he conquers it, he defeats it with his resurrection.

“Dear friends,we can all conquer the evil that is in us and in the world: with Christ, with the force of good!”

Today we have crossed the threshold into the holiest week of the Church Year. Today, we enter into this Holy Week vigilant, faithful, joyful.  Vigilant against the enemy, who as our 1st Pontiff, St. Peter the Apostle, wrote “…is prowling around looking for someone to devour.”  Faithful, as St. Peter went on to say, “Resist him solid in your faith,” the weapon against the enemy is our faith which is exercised by prayer. We also enter into this week through our joy. Deeds of joy…a subdued joy that will burst forth in songs of exuberant praise at the Holy Easter Vigil Saturday night.

Our Holy Hour of Eucharistic adoration
during this evening of Palm Sunday.

How can we be joyful during Holy Week? It is because of the deeds of that first Holy Week that we are able to know joy and fulfillment in our lives. Because we have such a loving Savior who has conquered, is conquering and will conquer the Enemy in our lives. Let us be with Jesus in loving silence, adoration, deeds of mercy and participation in the Sacraments of Reconciliation and Eucharist.

Our prayers are with and for each of you during these Holy Days. Please pray for us.

“With Christ,” Pope Francis declared, “we can transform ourselves and the world. We must bear the victory of Christ’s Cross to everyone everywhere, we must bear this great love of God.”

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Sponsa Christi February 2nd, 2013

O what a most glorious day!  Words cannot express it…Blessed be God! Alleluia!

I must share with you the moving homily preached by our Fr. Rodger Hunter-Hall.  I will leave you in suspense regarding a photo…I’m terrible aren’t I?  Also, I don’t have a photo yet but I do have a homily…

Presented to the Lord and Consecrated by the Spirit

Your Excellency

Dear Brothers in the Sacrament of Holy Orders

Mother Prioress

Dear Sisters

Dear friends in Christ:

In the life of a monastery like Saint Joseph’s, today’s event is truly a milestone, an event for the history book. Professions happen just infrequently enough that, each time one occurs, it truly grasps the fullness of our attention. It calls each of us to reflection; it lifts our eyes and focuses them, for these all too brief moments, on a distant horizon…a horizon where time and eternity come together.

Continue Reading »

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• Bride of Christ , Catholic Vocations for Women , Cloistered Life , Passion of Jesus , Passionist Spirituality , Passionist Vocations for Women , Redemptive Suffering , Saint Paul of the Cross , Scripture Reflections
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Sponsa Christi February 2nd, 2013

Here is that marvelous reflection I mentioned in my last post. This is found in the worship booklet for the Mass of Religious Profession which will take place in 4 hours…

~  Reflection by Sr. Cecilia Maria of the Body of Christ  ~

As we come to this feast of the Presentation of Our Lord in the Temple, upon which I also will be presented at the altar of the Lord as His bride, my thoughts turn to Joseph and Mary as they brought their newborn Son into the courts of the Lord for the first time. How their hearts must have been overflowing with unspeakable emotion! Their footfalls upon the Temple steps were both a culmination and a beginning: a culmination of the long, often difficult, often uncertain journey which had begun for them with an angel’s announcement in Nazareth; and the beginning of a new journey towards the world’s redemption. Today I, too, mark a culmination and a beginning as I profess my first vows as a Passionist Nun.

As Mary came to the Temple to consecrate her firstborn to the Lord according to the Law of Moses, the joy must have been palpable! Having conceived the Son of the Most High and nurtured Him in her womb by faith, and having endured both physical and emotional difficulties, she now brings the Son back to His Father. “Behold, O God, the Long-Expected One! I consecrate to you your Christ!”

In a similar way, my profession today is a culmination of the grace which was poured into me at baptism and which has grown and blossomed with the years. My journey, like Mary’s, has been difficult at times and has required me to leave behind many familiar and beloved things for the sake of God’s work. My journey, like Mary’s, has arrived at a day resplendent with joy, a day when I shall be consecrated entirely to the Lord and His love.

The Presentation in the Temple is also the beginning of the road to Calvary for both Jesus and Mary. It is the hinge between the seasons of Christmas and Lent, between the joyful and the sorrowful mysteries. After Simeon gives thanks to God for the salvation this Child represents, he turns to Mary and prophesies His passion and her share in it. As He is presented to His Father, Jesus’ life is definitively given over to the work of redemption in all its suffering and all its glory.

This consecration is at the very heart of the Passionist Nun’s life. As I profess my vows today, my life becomes knit together with Jesus’ own life, my mission with His mission. From now on, my whole existence will be caught up in Jesus’ work of redemption, “filling up in my own body what is lacking in the sufferings of Christ for the sake of His Body the Church” (Col 1:24), and becoming a channel of the grace, the glory, and the joy of His resurrected life into our world.

The Passionist Nun is called to be a sign of the love of God, who “so loved the world that He sent His only-begotten Son … not to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through Him” (John 3:16-17). By her union with Jesus Crucified and Risen, she shows to the world both the depths of God’s suffering love, and the height and breadth of the life and joy which flow from it. Please pray for me, that I may be faithful to the vocation to which God has called me!

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• Blessed Mother , Bride of Christ , Catholic Vocations for Women , Passion of Jesus , Passionist Spirituality , Passionist Vocations for Women , Redemptive Suffering
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Sponsa Christi August 16th, 2012

Summer days are almost gone…along with many of you, this summer has been unusual with the triple-digit weather and lack of rain.

This summer brought us a large track hoe to dig out the sides of our lake which was becoming quite the weed-bed. So now we have huge piles of clay in our woods where they dumped the lake mud. It was a messy job; grass seed will definitely need to be sown in the fall.

Sisters watch the track hoe at its first day on the job.

Independence Day brought us a Gaudeamus Day  – a free day with time to relax and enjoy one another’s company. With the terrible drought we skipped the fireworks. This was the final day of the Fortnight for Freedom.

Grilling out on Independence Day. Delicious! But those barbecued grills were tough to clean!

Braving the heat on Independence Day—after a water balloon toss! The Lord sent a nice cloud cover and we enjoyed a game of croquet before Vespers.

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Today we had a Passionist Renewal morning led by our Msgr Powers. He has gradually been leading us through our Holy Founder’s letters to Mother Mary Crucified. This was letter #7. Msgr likes to pull words out of the letter and go very deeply into them.  He himself is a poet and mystic and keeps busy giving retreats and days of recollection and spiritual direction.

In today’s letter St. Paul of the Cross told Mother Mary Crucified (the Superior of the first Passionist Nuns, she was a Benedictine for many years, waiting the foundation of the Passionist Nuns) that he so desired her to be clothed as he was in the Holy Passion of Jesus Christ. Ah…he waxed eloquent on the holy habit for about an hour…one point he brought out is how we are clothed in the Passion of Christ, clothed in Jesus’ greatest act of love clothed in a spousal garment. This is the reason we wear black…to symbolize the love of Jesus crucified.  Our Passionist emblem – that the Passion of Christ would be ever in our hearts…not only his physical sufferings but the love, the virtues that motivated our Lord to endure all he did for our redemption, our sanctification – that this would be ever in our hearts!  Then we had a 45 min prayer period and then discussion time.  Truly, Passionists are “robed in salvation!”

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I just read in our Holy Cross Province Newsletter of our Passionist men that tomorrow, August 17, four men will be vested in the Passionist habit and enter the novitiate! Alleluia!  I don’t have any other details but please keep them in your prayers.

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Next Wednesday will bring our Gaudeamus Day in honor of Sr. Mary Elizabeth’s Golden Jubilee. Which reminds me that I only have 5 days to finish my card for her.  You see, each Sister creates some kind of card for Silver or Golden Jubilarians….recycled cards, computer cards…whatever a Sister can come up with!  I must get busy…

Next week’s post should bring to you all the goings on that have been thus far worked on in secret for Sr. Mary Elizabeth’s day!

Ta ta!

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Sponsa Christi August 2nd, 2012

Gee…I feel as though every time I post I must first apologize for being truant or something!

Summer is a busier time for me. Hopefully, a month from now will bring regular blog posts again…

Anyhow…let’s get on with the story…

When I last left off with you it was the day after our public celebration of Sr. Mary Elizabeth’s Golden Jubilee, that is, fifty years of vowed Passionist life!

In honor of Sister’s Golden Jubilee we gave her a large crucifix for our altar. This gift she got to open early along with a nice gold vase. You can see below that we used these during her Jubilee Mass.

Priests – Msgr Bernard Powers, Fr. Ray Clark, Fr. Joe Mills and Fr. John Schork CP (Passionist). Servers in back – seminarian Jarrod Kaelin and Dwayne Roby. Greg Mills also served but is not in this photo.

Her celebration was glorious in many ways…the Holy Mass, prayers, flowers, reception, photos of Sisters life, food, friends and family.

Here is Sister with her only surviving sibling Marguerite.

Two posters were made for the occasion. The one above shows pictures of Sister and her family, etc. from early childhood up to her Silver Jubilee (25 years of vowed life)

This poster includes photos of Sister during the last 25 years.

August 22 will bring us a private celebration here in the monastery…good food again, gifts, song,  joy and perhaps a skit!

The cover of Sister’s Mass program booklet.

The following message from the heart of our Jubilarian was featured in the front cover of the Mass booklet.

From Janssens’ painting of our Suffering Redeemer on the front cover, we see Jesus looking out at us and over the whole world.  From the cross, He saw all generations from beginning to end, and the loving thirst in His Heart burned to save each and every human person.  This made our Divine Savior send out from the cross His agonizing cry: “I thirst”.

The sacrifices and sufferings we embrace in union with Jesus become our language of love, to satisfy His “thirst”.

The charism of our founder, St. Paul of the Cross, was to keep alive in the hearts of God’s people the grateful memory of Christ’s redeeming love and thirst for every soul.  In solitude, silence and prayer within the life of our cloistered community, I strive to let the Holy Spirit renew the Passion within me.

Daily I strive to live our Passionist vows in the atmosphere of Christ’s sacrificial love, offering myself with Jesus to the Heavenly Father for the salvation and sanctification of all.

As I celebrate the wonder of Christ’s love to which I have committed myself by vow, I invite all of you to honor Him with me each day by offering this prayer:

Lord Jesus, by Your suffering and death, You made it possible for us to be holy and to share in the eternal joy of Your resurrection.  With trust and confidence we look upon You on Your cross and strive to unite ourselves with You in the passion of our daily lives.

Look down upon us and draw us close to You.  Give us, we beg You, a share of Your courage in times of adversity and anxiety.  Strengthen us in our struggle against physical and spiritual evil.  In our efforts to imitate You in Your Passion, help us to look upon those around us with loving care and concern. 

We pray that those who have turned away from You may be drawn back to You through the merits You gained for us on Calvary, so that all of us might live in never-ending peace with You forever.  Amen.

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• Bride of Christ , Catholic Vocations for Women , Monastery traditions , Passion of Jesus , Passionist Spirituality , Passionist Vocations for Women
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Sponsa Christi April 30th, 2012

Scripture Reflection for the 4^th Sunday of Easter

find these readings here at USCCB website.

Acts 4:8-12

Ps 118

1Jn 3:1-12

Jn 10:11-18

Sister Rose Marie started us out with a question this week. “What do you think St. John means when he says, ‘We shall be like [God], for we shall see Him as He is?’ It seems like he is saying that because we shall see Him, we shall be like Him.” Usually, as Sr. Mary Andrea pointed out, we think of it the other way around: we shall see God in heaven, because we will have been made like Him. Perfection in God’s image and likeness is the prerequisite for heaven, so to speak. But St. John turns it around. We shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is.

Her question started a glorious discussion about the power of God’s being. Sr. Cecilia Maria suggested that since God is Life Himself, so creative and regenerative in His very essence, perhaps merely being in His Presence changes us into Himself. Perhaps seeing God as He truly is, is a bit like standing by a fire: if you stand close enough, you become fire yourself! Our discussion continued: perhaps this is a hint at what Purgatory is. If when we die, we have not yet become like God, perhaps the sight of Him in all His Holiness, Power, and Beauty transforms us into His perfect likeness!

Sr. Mary Veronica had a beautiful suggestion: St. John may mean something more than physical sight here. “To see God” may well take on the deep implications of the Biblical “know,” implying profound communion between two beings. When we see God as He is, we will know Him, and that knowledge will by its very nature bring about the intimate communion of spousal love. Knowledge between God and the soul renders each into the other!

The other half of our sharing focused on our call to communion with Christ Jesus, our Good Shepherd. Sr. Cecilia Maria was captivated by Jesus’ statement, “I will lay down my life for the sheep…. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down on my own.” We are baptized into Christ, and we are called to the same reality, the same powerful and heroic choice! When I am hurt, when I suffer, when I must die to myself in the course of my day, I have a choice: I can be a victim and say, “woe is me,” or I can freely lay down my life for the sheep. Jesus looked like a powerless victim in His Passion, but He turned around and chose it. He chose to die for me and for the whole world. I must do the same! Our chaplain preached a beautiful homily on this call: we are all called to be Good Shepherds in our own lives; we are all called to lay down our life for the sheep entrusted to us. And as contemplative nuns, the whole world is the flock in our care!

Sr. Mary Andrea connected this reality with the psalm. “We bless you from the house of the Lord!” the psalmist sings. Since we are the house of the Lord by our baptism, we are called to be a blessing for the world wherever we are! We dwell in communion with Christ; we always and everywhere must live His life of redemption for the world.

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Sponsa Christi April 24th, 2012

Scripture Reflection for the 3^rd Sunday of Easter

Acts of the Apostles 3:13-15, 17-19

Psalm 4:2, 4, 7-9

1 John 2:1-5

Luke 24:35-48

“Last week and this week I have been captivated by the fact that the risen Jesus is recognized and defined by the wounds of His crucifixion,” Sr. Cecilia Maria began as we reconvened for our Sunday Scripture discussion. In this week’s gospel, Jesus reassures His troubled disciples that it is truly he by showing them His pierced hands and feet. Last week, St. Thomas declared that he would not believe unless he saw and felt for himself the wounds left by the nails and the lance, and Jesus came to satisfy his desire.

What makes these scenes so remarkable is that none of the disciples, save St. John who was on Calvary, would have known the crucified Jesus. They knew Him by His voice, miracles, walk, visage. Yet He shows them His wounds, and by them they recognize and believe in Him. “See my hands and my feet, that it is I myself!” Why? Why the wounds?

Sr. Mary Veronica phrased the mystery this way: God chose to retain and glorify the wounds of His shameful and bloody crucifixion. He didn’t have to. He could have wiped them away entirely, just like He could have avoided the Passion in His work of salvation. But He didn’t. He suffered, and He chose to remain wounded even in His glory for all eternity (as Sr. Mary Andrea reminded us).

Jesus Christ – and therefore God, who is Love Himself – chose to be defined by His wounds. This should give us great hope and consolation! God did not only enter into our suffering, but He made it a part of Himself and then glorified it.

This means that we can meet God even and especially in the parts of our life that hurt the most, the wounds of our own existence. This gives an extraordinary dimension to our own resurrection and eternal life. In heaven, God will not remove from us our wounds from physical, emotional, psychological, spiritual sufferings. No, but He will glorify them! Our ugliest sufferings and trials will, in Christ, become the most beautiful parts of us, just like Christ’s glorious wounds shine with the brightest radiance.

Sr. Rose Marie helped us to see the consolation and assurance Christ’s wounds gave to the apostles, and that they can give to each of us. What was the disciples’ reaction to Jesus as he appeared and said to them, “Peace be with you?” They were startled, terrified, troubled, questioning, incredulous, amazed! And for good reason: the vast majority had abandoned or denied Him, and they were cowering from fear of joining Him in His fate. Seeing Him alive would have confirmed their earlier conviction that He truly is the Messiah of God…and God’s people had killed Him. Surely they were thinking in their hearts, “What will He say now? What will He do now? We are in trouble. We blew it.” But Jesus comes with peace, and the assurance: look at my hands and my feet, and know that “it is written that the Messiah would suffer.” This was planned, and I did it for you! Peace be with you.

May we each discover the peace that flows from Christ’s glorious wounds! May we recognize Him in them, and may we discover, as Sr. Rose Marie stated so poignantly, that Christ’s wounds mark the way to heaven.

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Sponsa Christi April 13th, 2012

Well, I just found that I did not publish this last Thursday as I had thought! bummer!  Well, perhaps it will still be an inspiration to some…

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As we begin the Sacred Triduum this evening I am bringing you the Formation Sisters reflections on the readings from the 5th Sunday of Lent.  Be blessed!

Scripture Reflection for the 5^th Sunday of Lent

Jeremiah 31:31-34

Psalm 51:3-4, 12-15

Hebrews 5:7-9

John 12:20-33

This week we were all captivated by – as Sr. Mary Veronica eloquently put it – the pathos of the heart of Christ, expressed not only in the Gospel but in all the readings. They all take us deep into the mystery of God’s covenantal love for us, a love which reaches its climactic fulfillment in Jesus Christ, Love Incarnate.

Sr. Mary Andrea highlighted Jeremiah’s narrative of God’s poignant and tender promise of His new covenant, in which He will heal the very roots of our infidelities and make it possible for us to truly be in intimacy with Him. “I will be their God, and they shall be my people…. All, from the least to the greatest shall know me!”

The psalmist fervently prays for Him to accomplish this work: “A clean heart create for me, O God; renew in me a steadfast spirit!” But it is St. John and the author of Hebrews who really paint for us the stunning portrait of Jesus Christ upon the eve of consummating this new covenant.

According to Hebrews, Jesus “offered prayers and supplications with loud cries and tears to the one who was able to save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverence.” The “loud cries and tears” of the Lord have always captivated Sr. Mary Veronica. How rich is the heart of Christ! The full spectrum of His human virtues and passions includes fervent intercession, profound reverence, unstinting obedience…and heart-wrenching grief and majestic joy.

Sr. Cecilia Maria pointed out that in the original Greek, when Jesus says, “I am troubled now… Father, save me from this hour,” He is actually quoting the Greek text of Psalm 6:4-5: “In utter terror is my soul…Lord, save my life!” What a mystery of suffering! Sr. Rose Marie was similarly intrigued by the seeming contradiction of Jesus’ fear and confidence in the Gospel.

We found an answer to the contradiction in the eternal reality of God’s covenantal love. Anne and Sr. Cecilia Maria focused upon Jesus’ words, “It was for this purpose that I came to this hour…. When I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw all to myself.” Jesus trembles from fear, yes, as the time of His Passion draws nigh, but He trembles also from the strength of His loving longing for union with His beloved people…a union which will finally be accomplished at “this hour.”

Since the dawn of creation, God has yearned to gather His people to Himself, into the embrace of His love. Jesus gave voice to this elsewhere in the Gospels when He cried, “Jerusalem, Jerusalem…how often have I yearned to gather your children as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings…but you would not!” This hour of Jesus Passion will finally accomplish His purpose: upon the Cross, Christ Jesus will gather all of us to Himself.

It is consummated!

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