“As Postulants, you chose the group title, Lanterns of Merciful Light. Today’s liturgy speaks of Jesus telling the Disciples that they will be witnesses of His suffering, forgiveness and merciful love. You have learned how to recognize the light of Jesus in another and you have had opportunities to experience Jesus’ mercy for yourself and extend that mercy to others. We now live in the promise Jesus made to send us the Holy Spirit to be with us. God will continue to give the graces to live the Vows throughout our life.”
When six young aspiring sisters entered Valley of Our Lady Cistercian Monastery the year Prioress Mother Anne Marie’s own mother died in 2006, Mother Anne Marie wondered if her mom (who had six daughters) had anything to do with the new postulants’ arrival.
Whether or not a mother’s intercession played a role in the six millennials entering the community in the Diocese of Madison, Wisconsin, the new sisters proved to be an abundant blessing for then-novice-mistress Mother Anne Marie, 66, who was used to forming one or two postulants a year.
“I was pestering mom,” said the Mendota, Illinois, native, “‘If you’re pulling strings to get six postulants to enter all in one year, you’re going to have to help me.’”
Four of the six women went on to profess solemn vows, and more continue to enter, so much so that community leaders had to creatively allocate space to house their now 21 members and move ahead with fundraising to build a larger monastery.
Monsignor Gilles Wach, Prior General of the Institute of Christ the King Sovereign Priest, is pleased to announce that the feminine branch of the Institute, the Sisters Adorers of the Royal Heart of Jesus Christ Sovereign Priest, will open their first religious house in the United States. With the approval and paternal blessing of His Excellency, the Most Reverend William P. Callahan, Bishop of La Crosse, this house will be located in the very diocese where the Institute began its ministry in America some twenty years ago, and which has now yielded seven vocations to the Sisters Adorers. Though the official arrival date is yet to be determined, the process will begin in the autumn of 2019 for three sisters to open this American foundation in a house in close proximity to St. Mary's Oratory, where the Institute currently exercises its apostolate in the Diocese of La Crosse.
The work of the Institute throughout the United States will now be supported in a special way by the prayer apostolate of the sisters, who consecrate their daily life of attendance at Mass, chanting of the Divine Office, and Eucharistic adoration to the sanctification of the clergy and the souls confided to them. A particular spiritual work of this convent of the sisters will be to pray daily for the Bishop, clergy and people of the Diocese of La Crosse. The sisters will also have the potential eventually to make vestments and liturgical linens and take part in faith formation activities with the small children and female youth who frequent the Oratory.
Msgr. Wach would like to express his profound gratitude to His Excellency Bishop Callahan for according this warm welcome to the Sisters Adorers in America. It is his sincere hope that the sisters' presence in Wausau will bear great fruit in the Institute's continued service in the Diocese of La Crosse and throughout the United States.
This is the best news that I've heard in years!!!!!!!! YES!
This also comes with the approval of a bishop who came under a great deal of fire when he removed the Institute from their first USA apostolate near Cashton, WI. Immediately after that announcement was made, many poorly informed commentators took to rashly judge those involved, Bishop Callahan now proves he is a great friend of both the Institute of Christ the King and to the traditionalist movement. It reminds us all to pray and reflect before allowing ourselves to react rashly without fully understanding these situations we encounter online. This is a great win for the La Crosse Diocese and a sign that the Institute of Christ the King has made a significant investment in the state of Wisconsin.
CHICAGO -- Half an hour before tipoff on a Wednesday, Loyola-Chicago players gather outside their locker room at Gentile Arena. They form a circle around a tiny woman in a black wheelchair and join hands.
It's a pregame scene that has been repeated for decades around here. Last March, it became internationally famous, mainly because of the "international celebrity" leading the ritual.
This night, the topic of Sister Jean Dolores Schmidt's prayer is overcoming adversity, appropriate for the 2019-20 Ramblers. She talks about Loyola's 1962-63 team, which featured four black starters and withstood racism on its way to the school's only national championship. When finished, Sister Jean takes each player's hands and does a quick blessing.
A series of delays and red tape in trying to convert a 1922 St. Paul building into a convent has led the Handmaids of the Heart of Jesus to pause their establishment in the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis.
“As much as we were so sad about it, we’ve come to follow the Lord, and we know that his ways are actually better than our ways,” said Mother Mary Clare Roufs, who formed the order in 2007 with three other women. “So, there’s a real peace, even though there’s a sadness, but also hope, insofar as we hope to be back soon.”
The New Ulm-based order announced last May their plans for a convent that would house four sisters to primarily serve at the Cathedral of St. Paul in St. Paul. A few months later, they began transforming a former chancery building next to the Cathedral that served as the longtime offices of The Catholic Spirit. But coming up on a year of work with no real progress, the sisters saw the obstacles as a sign from God that the timing isn’t right.
Mother Mary Clare said the sisters had completed significant work with help from many volunteers and professionals: They removed all carpeting and restored hardwood floors; scraped, patched and painted walls; refinished window sills and installed donated wooden blinds; installed new lights and ceiling fans; installed tile in a kitchenette; removed wires; and cleaned the attic, which they had hoped to use for bedrooms.
For 100 years, the Carmelite Sisters of the Divine Heart of Jesus have quietly cared for disenfranchised young boys on an unassuming residential street near downtown Wauwatosa.
First looking after toddlers and boys from broken homes, then shifting focus to delinquent adolescents, generations of sisters and their young charges have come and gone in the stately Victorian home on Kavanaugh Place known as the Carmelite Home for Boys.
“It’s the work that we do – we take care of children, the aged and the youth,” said Sr. Immaculata Osterhaus, superior of the Northern Province of the Carmelite Sisters of the Divine Heart of Jesus. “We’re willing to give our life, 24 hours a day if it has to be.”
The property on Kavanaugh Place and its inhabitants are a striking study in what can change over the course of a century, and what can stay the same.
Though the work done by the sisters and those for whom they do it have both undergone transformations; the spirit of that work – care for the vulnerable and a cheerful embrace of suffering – remains unaltered.
Just who was the "Flying Nun"? Well, those of us who grew up in the 1950s and 1960s think of Sister Bertrille, that tiny nun with the huge bird-like headpiece on her habit. Sally Field starred as the winged postulant who could easily fly when stirred by the slightest breeze. Based on the 1965 book, "The Flying Pelican," the sitcom ran on ABC from 1967 to 1970.
The character, Sister Bertille, was a nun in the fictitious convent of San Tanco in San Juan, Puerto Rico, where the nuns' habits were adapted from those of the Daughters of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul. Interestingly, the real Daughters of Charity are an order that make annual vows throughout their life, leaving them free to leave whenever they wish.
But, Sister Bertrille was not the original "Flying Nun," at least not in this part of Wisconsin. Sister Mary Aquinas Kinskey, was our local flying celebrity.
So I go on a bit of a rant, but then find another fine piece in a secular paper on a Catholic topic.
MANITOWOC – The first thing Sister Maddy Takyala of Uganda wanted to do when her plane landed in Milwaukee earlier this winter was to touch the snow.
With daytime temperatures in her native country reaching the 80s and 90s all year long, she had never seen — except in the movies — the fluffy white stuff that now surrounded her.
“It was too cold,” Takyala said, shaking her head as she recalled her first real-life contact.
She was on her way to Manitowoc to study at Silver Lake College, with plans to earn her education degree so she could return home to teach.
After an arduous journey that included delays, canceled flights and lost luggage, she finally arrived at what would become her second home for the next several years.
Sister Maddy, 25, is among eight international Sister students being sponsored this year by the Franciscan Sisters of Christian Charity, founders of the college.
The youngest of 11 children, she was the first in her family to leave her country.
BAILEYS HARBOR — Mother Mary Catherine is on the cusp of an adventure — a good place to be, she says, because it means resting totally in God’s hands.
For her, it’s a familiar situation. Although she and two novices are now part of a fledgling religious order, the Missionaries of the Word, Mother Mary Catherine was once a member of Blessed Mother Teresa’s Missionaries of Charity.
After 10 years of formation, during which time she worked closely and personally with the saintly missionary, she was refused admission to final vows because of health issues.
The order’s decision, coming a month after the death of Blessed Teresa, stunned the former Peggy Duemling.
“I had always had asthma, but it was never mentioned as a problem until then,” she said.
In 1998 she packed her bags, came home to Wisconsin, went back to school, and although she was a little confused, she was content to wait and see what God had in mind.
Great article, worth a read. Not to be selfish but I'm glad she came back, we want all the women religious here in Wisconsin, especially those of the caliber of Mother Mary Catherine!
VATICAN CITY — The final report of a five-year, Vatican-ordered study of communities of women religious in the United States will be released by the Vatican Dec. 16.
The top two officials of the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life and three leaders of women’s congregations were to take part in the presentation, according to Basilian Father Thomas Rosica, head of Canada’s Salt and Light Catholic Media Foundation and assistant to the Vatican spokesman.
Although it was too early for the Vatican press office to announce the event, Jesuit Father Federico Lombardi, Vatican spokesman, told Catholic News Service that a news conference was “foreseen” on that date.
The final report of the findings of the apostolic visitation also was expected to be made available online, Father Rosica told the Detroit Free Press Dec. 2 during a visit to Detroit.
Judging by the first two installments of “The Sisterhood: Becoming Nuns,” none of the young women seems particularly well-suited for religious life (although Claire evidently thinks she is) or is necessarily anywhere near the point of making an actual decision.
Sister Monica Martin, FSCC has a review on her blog.
I first would like to say how grateful I am to be watching this from Hawai'i where TV timing isn't always accurate! I wasn't looking forward to watching this show at 10/9c, especially when it gets closer to Christmas and we'll be getting up early for Misa de Gallo. I happened to turn on the TV at 8pm, and there it was!
I was pleasantly surprised to see that the young women on the show were not actually in an initial formation program. That laid to rest a whole slew of fears I had had. It is more of a "come and see" program, or an extra long "nun run." Granted, discernment can feel intense during pre-convent days, as this episode illustrated well, but things get a bit more personal during pre-postulancy/postulancy.
On that note, there was a lot going on in this episode. My heart went out to Eseni as she described her family situation and how she feels that Sisters are peaceful and free of drama. I have met young women who are looking at religious life for that reason and it is always so sad, because what they really want is to be happy. They will find happiness if they keep working on it and perhaps find a good therapist to talk with, but it won't magically appear within the walls of a convent. Maybe they have a calling, maybe they don't, but now is not the right timing for them. As Sisters, we all are broken and we all have a past, but we didn't run away from anything. It's not a running from; it's a running to.
If a young soul wanders, Mother Mary Catherine has dedicated her to life to shepherding it back on the path to heaven.
She is trying to save souls as the founder and mother superior of a newly formed community of Roman Catholic religious women within the Diocese of Green Bay. They’re called the Missionaries of the Word and their focus is to bring the Gospel to teens and young adults, which can be a volatile age for faith.
“I always consider it like rebounding them back into the court,” Mother Mary Catherine said. “We see it as such a teetering time of you can either go one way or the other. If you have the truth, you really can make a whole different choice. And those choices and those values, I remember from my education days, are what build your character and that’s what shapes the whole direction of your life.”
Green Bay Diocese Bishop David Ricken, who established the Missionaries of the Word on May 1 during a Mass at St. Pius X church in Appleton, said igniting the faith in young adults can make them strong believers for life. The small community of sisters, now marked by their blue habits, are trying to do just that by working in the spirit of New Evangelization, a movement within the Catholic Church to reintroduce the faith to those who no longer practice.
“We have a couple of generations of Catholics who haven’t been really engaged in their faith. Part of that is all the pressure from the culture, but part of it as well is that we haven’t done a very good job of really making disciples, you know real followers of Jesus, of our Catholic people,” Ricken said. “We can see that so many people that fall away from the church eventually wind up falling away from God. Some of them go to other churches, but often times they just quit and they get farther and farther away from God. So a person’s soul can wind up in trouble with all kinds of problems if they’ve excluded God or neglected God.”
There’s been some very positive news for everyone who hopes for resolution of the serious problems in most communities of women religious whose leaders belong to the larger and far more troubled of the two US women’s religious superiors’ groups, the Leadership Conference of Women Religious.
The news is unfortunately not that there’s been deep reform yet, but nevertheless good news: the head of the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Cardinal Mueller, made a very forthright address April 30th to the leaders of the LCWR about the need for them to work closely with Archbishop Sartain and the other two US bishops who have been appointed for their reform and approving conference speakers and honorees. Mueller spoke firmly against their poor decision of honoring problematic feminist theologian Sr Elizabeth Johnson:
“It saddens me to learn that you have decided to give the Outstanding Leadership Award during this year’s Assembly to a theologian criticized by the Bishops of the United States because of the gravity of the doctrinal errors in that theologian’s writings. This is a decision that will be seen as a rather open provocation against the Holy See and the Doctrinal Assessment. Not only that, but it further alienates the LCWR from the Bishops as well.”
Mueller addressed then a second objection, “namely that the findings of the Doctrinal Assessment are unsubstantiated. The phrase in the Doctrinal Assessment most often cited as overreaching or unsubstantiated is when it talks about religious moving beyond the Church or even beyond Jesus. Yes, this is hard language and I can imagine it sounded harsh in the ears of thousands of faithful religious. I regret that, because the last thing in the world the Congregation would want to do is call into question the eloquent, even prophetic witness of so many faithful religious women. And yet, the issues raised in the Assessment are so central and so foundational, there is no other way of discussing them except as constituting a movement away from the ecclesial center of faith in Christ Jesus the Lord.”
I absolutely loved this! A magnificent moment, particularly what this young woman says after singing that causes one of the judges to break down in tears.
The HOPES Center of Racine, a ministry of the Racine Dominicans, says it will close its Cup of Hope coffee shop and Just Trade store in early 2014 and move its counseling program to larger space a few doors down on 6th St.
"The shops have been losing money, and the longer we keep those entrepreneurial ventures going, the more we are putting at risk the counseling services," said HOPES Center executive director Sister Maryann McMahon.
"It was time for us to put our energies where we are growing."
A group of Racine Dominicans opened the businesses at 506 7th St. in October 2008 with the idea that the retail operations would help to fund the counseling services for the homeless and uninsured. But the retail businesses slowed with the economy and — with no marketing budget or expertise — the sisters worried they might take the counseling services with them.
I'm not sure how the order is, but I like the idea. It seems a little more Benedictine than Dominican though.
Here's a recent flier from their Facebook page...
(I totally agree with the last one on this list). I think Americans
have a much bigger problem with the original deadly sins though.
Vatican II, the 1960s-era council of bishops that catapulted the Catholic Church into the modern world, profoundly affected every aspect of the church, not the least of all its female religious.
Cloistered for centuries and relegated in recent decades to roles in education and health care, Catholic sisters took seriously the bishops' call to engage in the broader society. And they branched out into myriad ministries, often to serve the poor and marginalized.
"They talked about Vatican II opening the doors and windows of the church, and it really did," said Sister JoAnn Persch, who ministers to immigrants in the Chicago area, many of them undocumented, with fellow Sister of Mercy Pat Murphy.
"For the first time, we were able to follow the signs of the times to see what the needs were in the changing world," said Persch, 79. "I know for me and for many women, that was very exciting."
For today’s Feast of St Anthony of the Desert (aka St Anthony, Abbot or St Anthony the Great), and because the primary focus of this blog is how Madison is rejoicing in Jesus Christ, I wanted to show you a really wonderful religious community in our diocese: the nuns of Valley of Our Lady Cistercian Monastery in Prairie du Sac, near Sauk City. They are a cloistered monastery that rises way before the crack of dawn and chants the whole Liturgy of the Hours in Latin every day. They’re the only contemplative monastery in the diocese, and the only monastery of Cistercian nuns of the common observance in the country, and they’re praying for us night and day, even though most people don’t even know they’re there.
As a branch of the Benedictine family, Cistercian spirituality is “ora et labora”, pray and work. Their primary, most important work is as official pray-ers of the Liturgy of the Hours, the opus Dei, the Prayer of the Church. Fittingly, they don’t just say this prayer but sing the Gregorian chant. The Church prays through their voices, and God listens and responds with grace for us all. Another essential form of prayer for them is Lectio Divina, meditative and contemplative reading. They also do manual labor in the form of various tasks around the monastery and also the work of making altar breads, which is how they support themselves. They practice silence, except for a daily time of social recreation.
Some catechesis: under Church law, there are quite a few different forms of consecrated life other than religious life. Within true religious life, women’s religious communities are of two different major types: active communities like the Sinsinawa Dominicans or the Dominicans of Mary, Mother of the Eucharist, who make simple vows and are called Sisters, and contemplative monastic communities who make solemn perpetual vows and are called nuns. A nun is the counterpart of a monk, a contemplative monastic who takes solemn vows. Sisters are often called nuns colloquially, but, for instance, the “Nuns on the Bus” are Sisters and not nuns. The Cistercians are nuns.
The Remarkable Journey of Catholic Nuns in the United States from daughters of the Church to citizens of the world.
I'm told this movie is showing at Sinsinawa, WI(of course) January 16 and Dubuque, IA January 11-12. The website says the opening screening is January 6th in Davenport, IA. It looks like all the sisters involved are members of the pro-abortion front group NETWORK, of Nuns on the Bus fame.
"I did exactly what the Church asked me, and now the Church is looking at me like 'Where have you come from? You know. Who are you?'"
"I've been at the community 50 years, I'm celebrating my golden jubilee. You're going to tell me for 50 years I haven't been faithful? I don't think so!"
The movie ironically explains exactly where the sisters went wrong, they changed from professed pray-ers to professional politicians.
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