Contemplative Dominican Nuns

From The Rambler (Christendom College's Student Journal)

Monasticism to “Reinforce” Christendom

By Marc Solitario and Scott Lozyniak

Friday, 30 November 2007

Many around campus would joke (seriously) that Christendom is a product of the thirteenth century. If you’re actually one who likes this (at least a little bit), we’ve got good news for you! Just twelve miles away on a mountain top in Linden there’s a structure being built that resembles one of the best things to come out of the Middle Ages—and it’s supposed to be that way! After catching wind of this, a group of us from Christendom decided to go find out just what was happening in Linden.

A group of cloistered Dominican nuns have left their home in Washington, D.C., in search of a place more suitable for their way of life. While they are temporarily in Western Massachusetts at another monastery, they are patiently awaiting the completion of a dream become reality after many years of waiting—St. Dominic’s Monastery. So, over fall break we decided to visit these sisters at their temporary home and learn more about this new and exciting development in the life of both their community and the Arlington Diocese.

After 7:45 Mass on the Feast of St. Luke, we found ourselves in the small parlor of the Dominican monastery conversing with two of the sisters. Sr. Mary Fidelis, the novice mistress, and Sr. Mary John Thomas, who just last week entered the novitiate, eagerly met us to give us insight into their small, but growing community. After fussing with the tape recorder and getting settled in over some breakfast, we got down to business.

“So, Sisters, why did you pick Linden, Virginia for your new monastery, and are you anticipating growth in your community now that you have a permanent (and much larger) home?”

Sr. Mary Fidelis recalled being taken to the Linden site for the first time. “The view was breathtaking…in D.C. there wasn’t a lot of privacy, silence, or much solitude, so this property seemed to provide those things. We were able to get a large enough piece of property and build away from the road enough so that when the area develops we will still have that separation. The other monastery was just an old house [some laughter] that the sisters remodeled. In Linden it’s going to be a traditional monastery.”

In regard to growth, the Sisters are excited about the many inquiries they have received from the “rich Catholic area” that they will be living in.

“I think that some of the things that our community values are what young people are looking for in religious life: going back to the traditional habit, devotion to the Eucharist, fidelity to the Church and the Holy Father, and Marian devotion,” commented Sr. Mary Fidelis, “and it’s not an easy life. It’s a challenging life with a radical separation from the world.”

“I think another attractive thing about this community in particular is the desire to live the life authentically, as it is intended to be lived,” said Sr. M. John Thomas.

Sister M. Fidelis then spoke of the community’s movement in response to John Paul II’s “call to a new evangelization” and its revival of many ancient Dominican traditions, the absence of which after Vatican II left the community at a loss. For example, the Sisters said that they have returned to the 3:30 night office in the past few years as well as perpetual abstinence (no more steak, ladies!), the only exception being chicken on Sundays. Other small liturgical things within the monastery will also be re-appropriated. “When you think about it, these women 800 years ago were doing these same traditions,” reflected Sr. Mary Fidelis.

When we had begun speaking of their new foundation around Christendom, many thought we were talking about the new school being founded by the Sisters of St. Cecilia from Nashville, who are active Dominican sisters. The idea of a cloistered Dominican nun drew a few blanks, although ironically the nuns (fully cloistered) came first, founded by St. Dominic himself in the thirteenth century. Then we decided to put the question to the sisters, asking what exactly the difference between them and the active Dominicans sisters was.

“Actually, I was with the Nashville sisters for two years,” replied Sr. M. John Thomas, the youngest in a family of 14 children from Houston, Texas. “I can personally say it is very different. Some of the externals seem the same, and some of the monastic practices are similar, but our life has a fundamental difference in what it is ordered to, and I think for us as nuns it is sole union with God.” She explained that the nuns don’t have an external apostolate, such as teaching. “The other big difference would be the enclosure (separation from world). The very nature of consecration means being set apart, and for us it is for union with God.”

Then, really putting the young novice to the test, we asked her to explain what would distinguish Dominican nuns from other cloistered orders (Poor Clares, etc.).

“The emphasis on the search for Truth, Veritas [the Order’s motto], is part of every branch of the order, and so for us it is the search for Truth as a person. We come to know Truth as a person in God. It [our life] is very Eucharist-centered, with emphasis on the Incarnation of the Word, not only to know it in Scripture, but also through the Liturgy. Dominicans are known for their Marian devotion; the propagation of the Rosary was popularized by the Dominicans. We’ve had the tradition of singing the Salve every evening since the second Master General.”

I inquired into the meaning of the Dominican saying “Contemplare et contemplata aliis tradere” (“To contemplate and to share the fruits of contemplation”), and after thinking for a moment, Sr. M. Fidelis commented: “Study is an important part of the Order for the friars, sisters, and nuns. I know a lot of people would react with saying ‘why study, you’re not going to have to teach or preach’, but as Sister was saying, we’re not studying for anything external, but to get to know God because the more you get to know someone, the more you love them. That is the goal of our study.”

Sr. M. John Thomas then added that Dominicans are known for being at the heart of the Church, and especially for “promoting fidelity to the truths of the Faith, the Magisterium, and to orthodoxy.”

Now that you, dear Christendom student, have an idea of what this community’s charism and life entails, it is only reasonable to want to check it out in person and see these Dominicans in action, as it were. Sister M. Fidelis told us that though a permanent chapel has been planned in the next phases of the project, a temporary one will serve the sisters until the necessary funds are acquired. Also, there will be Eucharistic exposition and adoration, which will grow in length (during the day) as the community increases. Even before the permanent chapel is built, there will be a public chapel that will hold around 25 people (just enough for 2 Christendom van-loads!).

In regard to students visiting, Sr. M. Fidelis said: “we would always welcome the students at different (arranged) times.” The Sisters expressed a desire for even those who might not have a vocation to their community to be exposed to their way of life, even for future priests and fathers to know the life and come to appreciate it. As the Dominican Fr. Gabriel O’Donnell, long-time supporter of St. Dominic’s Monastery, recently expressed (paraphrased): the contemplative nun acts as a silent witness to us, who are caught up in the humdrum of everyday life, to the reality that ultimately, God is the Origin and Meaning of life.

There will be two guest rooms attached to the monastery for relatives and lay people who desire to make a retreat for a week or weekend- a sure “energizer bunny” for our spiritual life.

Cloistered Dominican Nuns of St. Dominic's Monastery, Front Royal, Virginia

H/T to Catholic Online

New Society of Diocesan Priests

From their website:

The Apostles of Jesus Christ, Priest and Victim, is a new society of diocesan priests, founded in the Archdiocese of Chicago with the permission of Francis Cardinal George, whose charism is to sanctify its members through conformity to Christ crucified in a mission of shared charity.

Our fundamental mission is to save the greatest number of souls and to renew parish life according to the following specific means:

Reverently offering the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, in both the ordinary and extraordinary forms, thus communicating the beauty and nobility of the Sacred Liturgy.

Zealously preaching and teaching in order to extend Christ’s universal Kingship.

Fostering sanctification of the family through the sacramental life and consecration to the Hearts of Jesus and Mary.

Forming men in their vocation to natural and spiritual fatherhood, including priestly vocations, through devotion to St. Joseph.

In our mission to save souls, which we carry out in communion with the Pope and the Bishops, we offer our lives and sufferings daily in union with Jesus, High Priest and Victim, in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass and with Mary, our Mother in the Order of Grace.

"Navy veteran is new pastor at Our Lady of Good Counsel"

From The Eagle Tribune (New Hampshire)

By Yadira Betances
Staff Writer

METHUEN — The Rev. Marc Bishop has left the war in Iraq behind him, but is taking memories of that service with him as he settles in as pastor of Our Lady of Good Counsel.

Bishop, a former lieutenant in the Navy Chaplain Corps, was installed as pastor on Saturday.

"It's a privilege to be put in this position," he said. "We have a wonderful gift with the Augustinian and Marist traditions that merged here. There's a lot of learning ... and potential for growth."

The installation ceremony was conducted by the Rev. Arthur Coyle, vicar for the Merrimack Valley. During the service, Coyle presented Bishop with the keys to the church, the purple vestments priests wear during confession, holy oils and a French chalice donated to the church in 1954. The Revs. Peter Gori and Bill Waters, the first two pastors at the parish, attended the service.

Our Lady of Good Counsel was created eight years ago after the merger of St. Augustine Church on Ames Street in Lawrence and St. Theresa Church on Plymouth Street in Methuen. The parish has 1,180 members. The Augustinians led the parish until this summer when they withdrew from the church due to a lack of priests.

Bishop was born in Saugus. He was studying political science at Seton Hall University in New Jersey, when he decided to become a priest.

"As I was discerning different vocations and different ways of serving the Lord, I realized I could only be happy as a priest," he said.

Read the rest of the story HERE.

Archbishop Chaput recalls men and women religious to obedience

I think His Excellency was trying to make a point about...obedience.

Remarks of Archbishop Charles Chaput at the 2008 LCWR-CMSM Assembly (Leadership Conference of Women Religious -Conference of Major Superiors of Men)

Pictures and other speeches from the assembly can be found HERE. (If you are looking for pictures of religious in habits, this won't be the link to visit)

August 1, 2008
Denver, Colorado

Thank you for the invitation to address your meeting. I want to begin by welcoming you to Denver -- both as a fellow religious, and as a bishop.

Being a Capuchin and being a bishop is an unusual combination. Many people enter religious life for a radical experience of the Gospel, and one of the reasons they sometimes do this is to avoid the institutional frustrations that can go with diocesan life.

When I became a capuchin, I would never have expected to be here today as a bishop. I got here, frankly, for one extraordinary reason. The Holy See decided it needed a Native American to be a bishop of Rapid City, South Dakota, because a large percentage of the Catholics there are Native American. I’m very blessed to be a Potawatomi Indian, and that’s why I went to Rapid City, out of love and in obedience. Now I’m the Archbishop of Denver. I know that I am also here because of love and obedience.

All of us who are religious share that same commitment to love and obedience – love FOR and obedience TO Jesus Christ, to the Church and to her pastors. Charles de Foucauld called obedience the “yardstick of love.” It’s a clear way we measure the fidelity and unselfishness of our hearts. I do not think it’s an accident that John XXIII had the words, “Obedience and Peace” as his papal motto. The Church belongs to Christ, the Church is His spouse and we find His peace through love and obedience to His Church, which is finally not an institution or corporation or bureaucracy, but our mother and teacher.

I’ve experienced authority in the Church both as a Capuchin major superior and now as a bishop. I know very well the frustrations good people sometimes suffer at the hands of leaders who are made of clay.

Nevertheless, St. Francis and St. Ignatius and many other founders had a common experience: For them, obedience was that “yardstick of love.” The kind of radical love expressed in obedience – an obedience that can make our hearts ache and bruise our vanity – is the seed of renewal in every age of the Church. I entered religious life because I wanted to be one of those seeds, because I knew my own happiness depended on it. I am sure you want to be those seeds of renewal too.

The theme of this meeting is “On This Holy Mountain.” As I was thinking about that theme, my mind turned to the Transfiguration. The Transfiguration showed the Apostles and us that Jesus is not merely a great teacher or wise thinker or brave leader. He is our Lord and God. So Christian discipleship and consecrated life demand more than a polite relationship with Jesus and His Church. Christ does ask for our approval or agreement. He doesn’t need either. Instead, He asks us to follow him – radically, with all we have, and without exceptions or reservations. What he deserves is our love – a love that is expressed in our worship, in our service to others and in our obedience to the Church.

On the Holy Mountain of the Transfiguration, a bright cloud cast a shadow over Jesus and his disciples and the voice of God said: “This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased; listen to Him,” which could just as accurately be translated, “This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased; obey Him.”

We religious are women and men who consecrate ourselves to God through poverty, chastity, and obedience. All the vows are important. Poverty is about things outside ourselves. Chastity is chiefly about things within us. But obedience is about everything, within and without. It is truly “the yardstick of love.”

My God grant you all a time of refreshment, friendship and peace in your meeting, and thank you for coming to Colorado.


Text of greeting originally posted here.

Discernment

To those discerning God's call, from today's first reading:

1 Kgs 19:9a, 11-13a At the mountain of God, Horeb, Elijah came to a cave where he took shelter. Then the LORD said to him,“Go outside and stand on the mountain before the LORD; the LORD will be passing by.” A strong and heavy wind was rending the mountainsand crushing rocks before the LORD—but the LORD was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake—but the LORD was not in the earthquake. After the earthquake there was fire—but the LORD was not in the fire. After the fire there was a tiny whispering sound. When he heard this, Elijah hid his face in his cloak and went and stood at the entrance of the cave.

Are you able to hear the tiny whispering sound? Are you listening for it, or are you still looking for the big signs?

"An Unlikely Priest"

Originally published in the Milwaukee Catholic Herald
By Karen Mahoney

Reposted here from Karen Mahoney's blog "Write 2 the Point"

As a young boy, Tadeusz Pacholczyk was accustomed to the life of science and scientists. The son of Andrzej, an astrophysics professor at the University of Arizona, the young boy sat wide eyed in his family’s living room with his father’s colleagues discussing the history and philosophy of science. Of particular interest to him were the Jesuit Priest astronomers from the Vatican Observatory affiliated with the university.

After observing numerous discussions in his Arizona home on the apparent conflicts of faith and science, Pacholczyk knew he wanted to be a part of that life and planned to attend college for science.

At 15, the aspiring scientist received a fellowship sponsored by the American Heart Association and assigned to a summer rotation with Dr. Jack Copeland, a cardiac surgeon with the U of A Medical Center. Shadowing the busy surgeon cultivated his interest towards the field of the biosciences.

A book and a vacation when he was 17 changed the course of his life and led him in a direction few scientists dare venture. During that vacation, Pacholczyk read an autobiography about The Little Flower, St. Thérèse of Lisieux. Influenced by her dogged determination to pursue her vocation by appealing to the mother superior, the bishop and finally the pope, Pacholczyk realized that he was called to pursue his vocation with a similar passion.

“When I was 19, I spent time in the seminary and tested the waters to confirm my calling,” he said. “I paid my own way and studied philosophy at the same time. I knew again for sure that God wanted me to become a priest, but I came to understand during that time that I should study science, but I didn’t know why or where it would lead.”

Pacholczyk returned to the University of Arizona where he earned undergraduate degrees in philosophy, biochemistry, molecular cell biology and chemistry. During that period, he performed research on hormonal regulation of the immune response.

“From there I went to graduate school in Connecticut (Yale) and studied Neurosciences and received me PhD there,” he said. “I went to Harvard at that point and studied for three years there doing my post-doc work.”

Upon achieving the scientific background that he knew he was supposed to do, it was time to follow God’s additional path for his life.

“I went to Rome and studied at the Pontifical North American College, with duel programs in Pontifical Gregorian and Lateran studies,” he said. “It seemed like I was forever in school.”

In Rome for five years, he focused his work on dogmatic theology and bioethics, examining the question of delayed ensoulment of the human embryo.

Ordained a Transitional Deacon in 1999 in Rome, Pacholczyk returned to his home diocese in Fall River, Massachusetts and was ordained a priest at the Cathedral.

“I was very blessed that the Bishop of my diocese released me to serve full time as Director of Education at the National Catholic Bioethics Center in Philadelphia,” he said.

His work has led him to testify before members of the Massachusetts, Wisconsin, Virginia and North Carolina State Legislature during deliberations over stem cell research and cloning. He has given presentations and participated in roundtables on contemporary bioethics throughout the United States, Canada and Europe. He has had frequent appearances on CNN, ABC World News Tonight and National Public Radio.

On July 25, he was a guest at the Milwaukee Pfister Hotel for a Mass and a talk the following day in commemoration of the 40th anniversary of Humane Vitae. His discussion ‘Stem Cell research in light of Humanae Vitae’ attracted more than 200 guests. Sponsored by the Nazareth Project, Bishop William Callahan presided at the anniversary Mass and concelebrated with a dozen area priests.

For the calm, even-tempered Fr. Pacholczyk, the opportunity to combine science and faith are pieces of the same puzzle.

“Many think that science and faith are intrinsically opposed to each other,” he said, softly, “That is false and one great big myth. God is the author of both science and true religion. It is an impossible conflict. If there is a conflict it is because science is overstepping its bounds or the reverse—some religious is trying to speak about an area in science that they have no expertise.”

With the education to back his theological understanding, Fr. Pacholczyk is comfortable speaking with university professors, scientists, the media and fellow clergy members.

“Bioethics formation augments the ability to exercise a fruitful ministry,” he said. “I can reach people because of my training that other priests cannot. I can go do universities and debate professors and interact with scientists that is a group many priests don’t have a chance to interact with. Some have scientists in their parishes but generally don’t deal with the specific questions that I do.”


While Fr. Pacholczyk is comfortable debating topics such as human cloning, stem cell research, in vitro fertilization and end of life issues, much of his day-to-day life is admittedly stressful for the 44-year-old, red haired, bearded priest.

“I have had to debate my former Biology professor at MIT,” he said. “When I was a student, I used his book and found myself debating and exposing the errors in an ethical debate. When we first began, the small classroom had a few seats filled, but after our PowerPoint demonstrations and debating, the room was over-filled. It was cool, but it was quite stressful too. It is through God’s grace that he has given me a gift to remain calm. I always try to keep my cool and not ever to get into a shouting situation and I have never have.”

In his position as Director at the NCBC, Fr. Pacholczyk is amazed at the changes not only in society, but among Catholics as well.

“Our society is moving very rapidly into a future that is filled with new forms of biotechnology and it is already affecting how new life comes into the world,” he said. “Recently, in Britain, a mother had a family history of breast cancer. What she did was to make 11 embryos and had each one of them tested for the gene for breast cancer. The ones that had the genes were either frozen or thrown away. The only ones to be implanted are the ones that didn’t have the genes. We are seeing stem cells, cloning, genetic testing—our Church exercises a pivotal and well developed criteria that helps to answer questions and Church is an essential voice as the future of society lies in these questions.”

For many skeptics who disbelieve the correlation between science and faith, Fr. Pacholczyk reminds that much of the questions he examines are rooted in Natural Law.

“What that means is that you don’t actually need faith to understand,” he said. “Everyone knows that we shouldn’t kill someone else. Although it is revealed in the Ten Commandments, we all knew that even if He hadn’t told us, we still know it is wrong—it is an obvious thing. A lot of my work deals with natural law questions. But it is all still in the bigger framework of faith.”

Researching all of Church documents pertaining to life, ethics and medical situations, Fr. Pacholczyk believes that these documents demonstrate that faith permeates the whole view.

“Many sense these truths can be known on their own,” he said, adding, “At our center, we deal with issues such as invitro fertilization-which many Catholics are probably not aware that it is a huge ethical problem, to end of life nutrition and hydration issues. We have a consulting service with six full time ethicists and a 10-12 member hard hitting support staff to provide more than 600 consultations per year. We also provide consultation for hospitals and the Vatican when they are reviewing documents.”

As this is an election year, Fr. Pacholczyk encourages Catholics to educate themselves about ways to vote appropriately. It is important for Catholics to understand that there is a hierarchy of goods and that some issues far outweigh other issues.

“If Catholics get the order wrong, they are going to end up harming the good of society and their own lives,” he said. “Life is at the top of the priority and if we structure society where human life is destroyed and violated and no one does anything-we are sowing seeds of our own destruction. It is important to establish power, do your homework and bring your vote and don’t vote in favor of someone who inverts the goods and turns things upside down….like saying it is OK to do abortions as long as the budget is balanced.”

While balancing the budget is good, it is short term, admitted Pacholczyk, who affirmed that taking human life affects the entire society and subsequent generations. It is important to take your values to the ballot box.

“Many Catholics have adopted a Kennedy mindset by saying that they will be Catholic on Sunday between 11-12 and the rest of the week is mine,” he said. “Nothing will bleed over and they will build compartments in their minds and live a highly segregated existence.”

Living this type of existence is the most dangerous type of existence, which will eventually lead to personal collapse.

“The Lord Jesus wants to affect the entire week—24-7, to live with us every hour,” Fr. Pacholczyk said, adding, “He wants to us to be completely His and live a fruitful reality. That is a gift.”

For More Information:
National Catholic Bioethics Center
6399 Drexel RD
Philadelphia, PA 19151
www.ncbcenter.org
215-877-2660

"Seminarians make impact on fellow WYD pilgrims"

From the Pittsburgh Catholic
By John Franko

When Eric Campbell went to World Youth Day 2005 in Cologne, Germany, he met seminarians who showed him what the seminary was about and what living for Christ was about.

It convinced him that it was a life he wanted to explore.

“That made me want to enter the seminary,” he said. “It changed my life completely.”

Campbell, 20, was one of more than two dozen diocesan seminarians who made the pilgrimage with young people of the diocese during the World Youth Day 2008 gathering in Sydney, Australia.

He interacted with young people from St. Paul in Butler.

Campbell said he was impressed by their faith and their interest in spirituality. Just talking to them and seeing how the event was changing their lives, he noted, gave him hope.

He said he told them of the importance of not being afraid to abandon themselves to God.

“We can show them that its OK to live your life for Christ, to lay down your life for each other,” he said.

Seminarian Kevin Fazio, 36, joined young people from St. Columbkille in Imperial and St. John Neumann in Franklin Park.

Fazio said he waited for teachable moments to talk about the faith, and he found the youths to be very receptive to his sharing.

“You could tell that they were genuinely interested,” he said.

Fazio noted that there were a variety of questions asked about the church, but that people are particularly interested in vocation stories. He recalled a conversation with a young woman from Latvia.

“There’s something unique to a vocations story that people find interesting,” he said. “People from different countries, from all ends of the earth.”

Seminarian Mike Seeger, 19, traveled with St. Sebastian in Ross Township.

He said he was amazed by the openness and honesty of the questions asked by the young people.

It meant a lot to him that he was able to share his own excitement at seeing Pope Benedict XVI with the teens, Seeger said.

“We came back and we were jumping up and down, shaking,” he said. “It was just an amazing experience. Everyone was really excited.”

The reaction of the young people to the seminarians’ presence was overwhelmingly positive.

One adult leader pointed out that at least two of the young men in her group had expressed an interest in the seminary to her. Others were asking more questions.

David Jimenez of St. Bede in Pittsburgh’s Point Breeze neighborhood was part of a group that welcomed seminarian Michael Peck.

Jimenez described Peck, 34, as a “humble and peaceful man” who led them in the Liturgy of the Hours” and created a prayerful focus each day.

“That really provided you with a lot of guidance and reflection,” Jimenez said.

He noted that the excitement and glitz of World Youth Day sometimes overshadows the prayer aspect, but Peck did not allow that to happen.

Kristy Foglia noted that Peck started with morning prayer, ended with evening prayer and said grace at meals in between.

“He really showed that God was in his life and that he can be in mine as well,” she said.

Foglia said she was impressed that Peck, a late vocation, had left his job in order to follow God.

Joanne Sheehan, catechetical administrator at Mater Dolorosa-St. Joseph in Chicora, spoke of the one-on-one communication between seminarian Dave Rombold, 20, and her young people.

She recalled, in particular, their taking part in adoration of the Eucharist together.

“He is such a good example,” she said. “You know what a real person he is. You can be a real person and still love Jesus.”

Sheehan pointed out that Rombold also connected with the parents who made the trip. They also experienced “real-life conversations that weren’t like a sermon.”

The group bought Rombold a gift, and each of them signed it as a token of their appreciation for his contributions.

“He wasn’t a holy roller, he was somebody just like us,” Sheehan said. “That will attract boys to the seminary.”

Sheehan said Rombold described his life at the seminary and what it means to have Bishop David Zubik living there.

She also noted that he talked to each of the young people individually and let them know “how cool” it was that they have Jesus in their lives.

“He brought it to a level that was understandable and interesting,” she said. “It was everyday kind of stuff.”

While the seminarians spoke a lot about their life of discernment, they said their interest in the young people extended beyond recruiting others to join them.

Seminarian Dan Gallagher noted that at an event like World Youth Day young people are looking at themselves in a different way, trying to find where they’re at in their faith.

He said his own real conversion began in Cologne. It was where he really opened his eyes to Christ.

Gallagher, 24, said he wanted to help others do the same.

World Youth Day provided good pastoral experience that could prove valuable in the future, he said.

“As a priest, it would be awesome to lead a pilgrimage to World Youth Day,” he said. “It is such a powerful experience.”

The young people of St. Elizabeth of Hungary in Pleasant Hills shared the World Youth Day experience with seminarian Michael Roche.

“He was great,” said Torie Wytiaz. “We just loved having him with us.”

Her brother, Nick, was interested in Roche’s journey to the seminary.

Roche, 29, gave up a career as an accountant. “You realize that it wasn’t what he was called to do,” Nick said. “He had a call to God.”

St. Elizabeth traveled without a priest, and the young people appreciated that Roche was there to provide a spiritual aspect.

Torie said it was “neat” that Roche was as excited as they were to see Pope Benedict.

Nick admitted that the group was initially skeptical about traveling with someone they had never met because they were afraid it would affect their plans. He noted, however, that the skepticism was short-lived.

“It worked out great,” he said. “It was a great program that the diocese decided to have.”

He added that, should the day come, members of the St. Elizabeth group would like to attend Roche’s priestly ordination.

"Seminarians get hands–on summer assignments"

From the Florida Catholic (St. Petersburg)
By Janet Shelton

College students home for summer break typically hang with friends or work jobs. Diocesan seminarians often spend their summer breaks serving without pay and hanging out in churches.
Summer continues a seminarian’s preparation for the priesthood. It’s a time when they learn firsthand what is involved in the service of a priest.

“I think it’s a great thing because it helps you learn what priests do, even though it’s during the summer and so a little more laid back,” said Brian Fabiszewski, a theology student at St. John Vianney College Seminary who is serving at St. Paul Parish in Tampa. “I’ve gotten a little snapshot of what their life is like.”

Because they live in the parish rectory, seminarians get a realistic view of life as a priest. They see how priests work to fit personal prayer and public service into an always-changing schedule filled with administrative and ministerial duties. They get to ask questions about real situations that simply have no parallel in the classroom.

“You’re kind of putting them out there on the front lines,” said diocesan Director of Vocations Father Len Plazewski.

Father Plazewski said the pastor hosting the seminarian has to be a good guide and the parish has to have a rectory with room for the seminarian. The parish also has to be active during the summer. Diocesan seminarians cannot spend summers in service until they have completed at least a year of theology. How they serve depends on their progression toward the priesthood. Seminarians never go to their home parish and often are sent to places that have no seminarians. That way, more people can learn about the process of a priest’s formation.
Having a seminarian around can be a boost to vocations. Young people considering the priesthood or religious life can feel more comfortable approaching seminarians than a priest.

“Parishioners come up and ask me what my first year was like, about classes, our daily activities, different things we’ve done. … There’s a lot of interest in the people here,” said Fabiszewski. “(A couple of altar servers) ask a lot of questions about the classes and the different experiences we have.”

Kyle Smith, a diocesan seminarian on his first summer assignment at Light of Christ Parish, Clearwater, said his biggest surprise of the summer is that priests really do serve 24 hours a day. Seminarians are told that, he said, but seeing it firsthand was a surprise.

“Just the constantness of the parish (surprised me),” he said. “I knew that, but it never encapsulated in my mind for some reason.”

A seminarian is exposed to many different experiences through his working summers. In his last summer assignment before ordination, transitional Deacon Carl “Buster” Melchior has served in a hospital, in parishes that are mostly elderly and in parishes with schools and a younger demographic. Because he is now ordained a deacon, his duties are closer to what he will do as a priest. Now serving at St. John Vianney Parish, St. Petersburg Beach, he performs baptisms and graveside services and wears a clergy collar.

Deacon Melchior said his summer assignments and in-parish service have been a great preparation for the priesthood. He has comforted those whose loved ones have died, prayed to find words of hope for those whose health is failing and encouraged young people to grow in the service of God in a world designed to pull them away.

But he added that all summer lessons do not relate to active ministry. These are times when the seminarian practices what he preaches on a practical and personal level. The men learn what it means to behave as priests.

“We’re public people and that’s something they kind of beat into our heads,” he said. “If we’re in a restaurant, we have to temper our conversation. … That’s not something you wake up one morning and say, ‘OK, I’ll temper my conversation.’”

Since coming to Light of Christ Parish in Clearwater in late May, Smith’s service has given him a broad look at ministry.

“I’ve done a wake, which was interesting,” he said. “I worked the vacation Bible school – taught third- and fourth-graders; they kept me busy. I’ve been working with youth ministry and young adult ministry and as a eucharistic minister.”

One of Smith’s most enlightening tasks has been bringing the Eucharist to elderly residents of a nearby nursing home. He said it has helped him better appreciate the ministry needs of people in the last stages of their lives.

Fabiszewski helps answer the phones in the parish office, serves at Mass and assists with funerals and weddings. He and other seminarians organized a diocesan candlelight vigil on the night Florida resumed its executions. He said St. Paul’s has shown him the needs of a large, active parish. His home parish, St. Catherine of Siena, is much smaller.

“I guess my favorite part is meeting the diverse number of people here,” he said. “The parish is just a great parish: very vibrant, active, just a lot of different cultures. It’s just been great meeting the people and interacting.”

One of the biggest lessons summer assignments bring seminarians may be perspective. Smith and Fabiszewski both realized that church ministries run through people who have many different ideas on how things should run, so it’s good to remember why everyone is there in the first place.

“I just learned even though there are a lot of differences, everybody is pretty much looking for the same thing when they come to church – which is getting to closer God,” Fabiszewski said. “I’ve been able to see that, up close. Everyone has different views and has their different devotions and everything, but pretty much everyone is looking for the same thing: to get closer to God and to find order in their life.”

Smith said: “It takes all types of people to run a parish and you need to be flexible and understand there are all sorts of personalities. … Everybody has different opinions on what the church needs to do. The purpose of the church is to (bring Christ to) every ministry – that’s basically the bottom line.”

"Call to priesthood requires family's support, archbishop says"

From the Catholic Standard (Washington, DC)

By Meredith Black

Seminarians of the Archdiocese of Washington and their families gathered for a day of prayer and fellowship at St. Patrick's Church in Rockville on July 26 for the second annual Seminarian Family Day. The day included a Mass celebrated by Washington Archbishop Donald Wuerl followed by a picnic. Thirteen priests of the Archdiocese of Washington concelebrated the Mass, including some newly ordained priests. This year, the archdiocese has nine new seminarians.

At the beginning of the Mass, Msgr. Robert Panke, the director of priest vocations and formation for the Archdiocese of Washington, welcomed the seminarians and their families.

Then Msgr. Panke told his own vocation story. When he was younger, he said that he had no idea God was calling him to the priesthood. But after going on a pilgrimage with his family, Msgr. Panke had a conversion experience that led to his decision to become a priest. As a priest, he said that he realized, "I actually have two families"- his immediate family and the family of God. No matter what vocation a person is called to, the key to happiness is to conform one's heart and one's life to God, he said.

The priest thanked the parents for their generosity and said the seminarians "have learned from their parents how to live and how to love." Msgr. Panke said the vocation to the priesthood was "not your son's idea" but God's idea.

During his homily, Archbishop Wuerl said it was very appropriate to have the day begin with the celebration of the Eucharist. "It's in the Eucharist that the priest finds the fullness of his identity," he said. To the families, he said, "Thank you for being here today to show support for your son..." Archbishop Wuerl said the families' gathering there highlights the "role of the family" in a young man's discernment process.

The archbishop said Mary is the "quintessential example of being open" to God's call. Mary must have looked to her parents for solidarity and prayer, he said. Seminarian Family Day was held on the feast of St. Anne and St. Joachim, Mary's parents. The archbishop said, "As wondrous as was Mary's call," it was a "great weight" for a woman to carry alone. "The Church recognizes that she clearly turned to her family," he said. For seminarians to have an "enduring response" to their call to the priesthood requires an enormous amount of support, the archbishop said.

Seminarian Charlie Gallagher, who is in his third year of studies at the North American College in Rome, came to the Family Day with some of his family members. Gallagher's faith was nurtured in his family, where he is one of nine children. The family belongs to St. Mark's Parish in Hyattsville, and the seminarian's father, Deacon Mark Gallagher, serves there. Growing up, the family prayed the rosary together after dinner and visited a nursing home following Sunday Mass. Charlie Gallagher said he was inspired by his father's "daily witness" and his mother's generosity toward her children. Gallagher said "the influence that a good family had centered on Christ...[is] beyond calculation."

Gallagher's sister, Judy, said the seminarian was a devoted altar server in his younger years. "He took his position as an altar server very seriously," Judy Gallagher said, noting that her brother formed close relationships with the priests in the parish. The seminarian's younger brother, John, said his older brother's vocation to the priesthood "brought me closer to the faith."

Deacon Gallagher said of his son's vocation, "It's something that we've been praying for since the children were conceived." But he said he and his wife encouraged their children to respond to whatever the Lord was calling them to. He added, "We're so grateful to God for each of the vocations he has blessed our children with."

Seminarian Mel Ayala is in third year of theology at the Theological College in Washington. His parents came from Florida, his brother from Atlanta, and his sister from Damascus for the Family Day. The seminarian, who will be ordained a transitional deacon in 11 months, said his family belonged to St. Paul's Parish in Damascus. "It was just really cool to be going to Mass and being part of a wonderful parish family," he said. Ayala played the piano for the music ministry at the parish. He called that ministry "another form of prayer." Ayala also had the opportunity to assist Pope Benedict XVI with the incense during the Papal Mass at Nationals Park. He said it was "just such an honor to be part of the Mass [and] even so much more to be with the Holy Father during the Mass."

Chris Seith is one of the younger seminarians and will attend a college seminary in New York. Seith attended DeMatha Catholic High School in Hyattsville and two years at the University of Maryland before deciding to enter the seminary. He said he was inspired by examples from other priests, his parents, and by many prayers.

Seith said his parents showed him "what a loving family is supposed to be and encouraged us to follow God's Will." Seith said his family said the rosary every night and went on retreats. He was also involved in the youth group at St. Pius X in Bowie. About how a family's love fosters a vocation to the priesthood, Seith said, "It's how you come to know God's love for you, and unless you know how much God loves you, you can't understand that what He wants for you is going to make you happy."

During his last semester at college, Seith said he began to have a structured prayer life, spending one hour each day in prayer. "[The] more I prayed, [the] more I started wanting to be a priest," he said.

"Seminarians immerse themselves in parish life"

Future priests learn to balance rigors of ministry, prayer life

From the Catholic Sun (Pheonix)
By Andrew Junker

CHANDLER — Deacon Will Schmid stood at the ambo in St. Mary Parish July 29 and preached.

It was the feast of St. Martha. She was a friend of Jesus who had Him over for a visit with her sister Mary.

While Martha busied herself preparing the home, Mary sat at Christ’s feet and listened to Him. Martha complained to Jesus, who said that Mary had chosen better in spending quiet and untroubled time with her Lord.

“As Americans, it’s really easy for us to identify with Martha,” Deacon Schmid said. “But there are times when we just need to put aside all the things we want to do or think we need to do and just be with Jesus.”

Balancing quotidian activity with time for contemplation is a struggle most Christians share. But the lesson of Martha and Mary is especially salient for seminarians like Deacon Schmid, who spend their summers at local parishes learning how to foster a strong prayer life amidst the sometimes-hectic schedule of a priest.

For Deacon Schmid — who is scheduled to be ordained next June — this is his fifth summer of parish work. He spent previous summers at St. Thomas the Apostle and St. Theresa parishes, as well as spending some time learning Spanish in Guatemala.

“I think it teaches you who the people of God are that you’re called to serve,” he said of the summers. “The seminary can give you good examples, but they can’t give it to you fully. It’s nice to be able to be at a parish and just get to know the people.”

Deacon Schmid has also been getting some on-the-job sacramental training from St. Mary’s priests. He’s baptized children, assisted at burials and led the vigils that happen the night before a funeral.

“It’s the opportunity to take what we’ve been learning at seminary and make it concrete — to live it so that it becomes part of who we are,” he said.

From learning to action

The years spent in the seminary prepare future priests in the finer points of philosophy and theology and give them ample time and structure to form their prayer lives.

But when they begin their priestly ministry, they’ll have to take what they’ve learned and apply it to real parishioners in all sorts of real situations, while at the same time maintaining a strong personal commitment to prayer.

Spending time with pastors who can manage both the parish office and the Divine Office — or Liturgy of the Hours — is the best kind of classroom for seminarians, said Fr. Paul Sullivan, assistant director of vocations.

“Firstly, it’s for their own spirituality. It gives them a sense of the prayer life amidst the work of the parish. Second, they get to see the work of the priest, the hospital visits, the Masses, the time spent hearing confession — just the daily schedule,” he said. “The third thing is that the parishes get to know the seminarians and the seminarians get to know the parishes.”

This last point struck Kurt Perera, who recently completed his first year at seminary. He spent his summer at St. Thomas the Apostle and got to know parishioners of all ages through his work with the parish’s vacation Bible school, youth group and assistance at Mass and funerals.

He’s also shadowed various staff members whose duties might include finance or sacramental preparation just to get a flavor of all that goes on in a day at a parish.

“I have come to see that it is a lot more than just praying and celebrating Mass and the sacraments each day, though those are very vital aspects and are at the core of the priesthood,” he said.

Brian Rollo agreed.

“You definitely have to have a sense of administration, to organize well, to be open to your staff so they feel like they can come to you,” Rollo said.

He’s also recently completed his first year of seminary training and is spending his summer at St. Anne Parish in Gilbert. He was impressed by how far ahead the pastor, Fr. Greg Schlarb, plans.

“There’s a lot more that goes on than I ever suspected,” he said. “It amazes me how much coordination is needed between everyone to make it go smoothly.”

That’s the kind of realization you just can’t get in the seminary, Fr. Sullivan said. The summers spent at local parishes can highlight the administrative duties of a diocesan priest, but they should also prepare the seminarian for his own responsibility toward prayer.

“You need to maintain your spiritual contact with Christ in the Eucharist despite the environment you’re in,” said Fr. Sullivan. “A spiritual life based on the Eucharist is not really an option.”

This can get played out in different ways, said Deacon Schmid. Some priests prefer to set aside prayer time in the morning, before Mass. Others like to end their days with a long visit with the Lord in adoration. Still others might slip away for an hour after lunch.

What’s important, he said, is that all the priests he’s worked with have recognized and imparted to him the absolute necessity of quiet prayer in the life of a priest. It’s what helps them grow in holiness and spiritual fatherhood, he said.

“People always ask seminarians, ‘Does it depress you at all knowing you’ll never have any children?’ And being at a parish reminds me how much a priest is such a spiritual father, to see the people as his children,” Deacon Schmid said. “That’s just a beautiful thing to me.”

A vocation in response to evil.

From PatrickMadrid.com

Below is a powerful letter written by Sister Lucy Vertrusc, a young nun, to her mother superior. It is a difficult story about God's will, vocations and abandonment to Divine Providence. Certainly it is not to say that God caused what happened to Sister Lucy, but indeed it was allowed to happen. Sister Vertusc became pregnant after she was raped in 1995, along with two other sisters, during the war in the former Yugoslavia. The content of the letter was originally publised in an Italian newspaper at the request of her mother superior. I find it particularly poignant after watching the new Batman movie "The Dark Knight". A film filled with horrible acts of violence, which ultimately asked the question - what do good people do, when unspeakable evil is forced upon them? What is our answer to the senseless violence of our world? Sister Vertusc knows the truly heroic answer...

"I am Lucy, one of the young nuns raped by the Serbian soldiers. I am writing to you, Mother, after what happened to my sisters Tatiana, Sandria, and me.

Allow me not to go into the details of the act. There are some experiences in life so atrocious that you cannot tell them to anyone but God, in whose service I had consecrated my life nearly a year ago.

My drama is not so much the humiliation that I suffered as a woman, not the incurable offense committed against my vocation as a religious, but the difficulty of having to incorporate into my faith an event that certainly forms part of the mysterious will of Him whom I have always considered my Divine Spouse.

Only a few days before, I had read "Dialogues of Carmelites" and spontaneously I asked our Lord to grant me the grace of joining the ranks of those who died a martyr of Him. God took me at my word, but in such a horrid way! Now I find myself lost in the anguish of internal darkness. He has destroyed the plans of my life, which I considered definitive and uplifting for me, and He has set me all of a sudden in this design of His that I feel incapable of grasping.

When I was a teenager, I wrote in my Diary: Nothing is mine, I belong to no one, and no one belongs to me. Someone, instead grabbed me one night, a night I wish never to remember, tore me off from myself, and tried to make me his own . . .

It was already daytime when I awoke and my first thought was the agony of Christ in the Garden. Inside of me a terrible battle unleashed. I asked myself why God had permitted me to be rent, destroyed precisely in what had been the meaning of my life, but also I asked to what new vocation He was calling me.

I strained to get up, and helped by Sister Josefina, I managed to straighten myself out. Then the sound of the bell of the Augustinian convent, which was right next to ours, reached my ears. It was time for nine o'clock matins.

I made the sign of the cross and began reciting in my head the liturgical hymn. At this hour upon Golgotha's heights,/ Christ, the true Pascal Lamb,/ paid the price of our salvation.

What is my suffering, Mother, and the offense I received compared to the suffering and the offense of the One for whom I had a thousand times sworn to give my life. I spoke these words slowly, very slowly: May your will be done, above all now that 1 have no where to go and that I can only be sure of one thing: You are with me.

Mother, I am writing not in search of consolation, but so that you can help me give thanks to God for having associated me with the thousands of my fellow compatriots whose honor has been violated, and who are compelled to accept a maternity not wanted. My humiliation is added to theirs, and since I have nothing else to offer in expiation for the sin committed by those unnamed violators and for the reconciliation of the two embittered peoples, I accept this dishonor that I suffered and I entrust it to the mercy of God.

Do not be surprised, Mother, when I ask you to share with me my "thank you" that can seem absurd.

In these last months I have been crying a sea of tears for my two brothers who were assassinated by the same aggressors who go around terrorizing our towns, and I was thinking that it was not possible for me to suffer anything worse, so far from my imagination had been what was about to take place.

Every day hundreds of hungering creatures used to knock at the doors of our convent, shivering from the cold, with despair in their eyes. Some weeks ago, a young boy about eighteen years old said to me: How lucky you are to have chosen a refuge where no evil can reach you. The boy carried in his hands a rosary of praises for the Prophet. Then he added: You will never know what it means to be dishonored.

I pondered his words at length and convinced myself that there had been a hidden element to the sufferings of my people that had escaped me as I was almost ashamed to be so excluded. Now I am one of them, one of the many unknown women of my people, whose bodies have been devastated and hearts seared. The Lord had admitted me into his mystery of shame. What is more, for me, a religious, He has accorded me the privilege of being acquainted with evil in the depths of its diabolical force.

I know that from now on the words of encouragement and consolation that I can offer from my poor heart will be all the more credible, because my story is their story, and my resignation, sustained in faith, at least a reference, if not example for their moral and emotional responses.

All it takes is a sign, a little voice, a fraternal gesture to set in motion the hopes of so many undiscovered creatures.

God has chosen me-may He forgive my presumption-to guide the most humble of my people towards the dawn of redemption and freedom. They can no longer doubt the sincerity of my words, because I come, as they do, from the outskirts of revilement and profanation.

I remember the time when I used to attend the university at Rome in order to get my masters in Literature, an ancient Slavic woman, the professor of Literature, used to recite to me these verses from the poet Alexej Mislovic: You must not die/because you have been chosen/ to be a part of the day.

That night, in which I was terrorized by the Serbs for hours and hours, I repeated to myself these verses, which I felt as balm for my soul, nearly mad with despair.

And now, with everything having passed and looking back, I get the impression of having been made to swallow a terrible pill.

Everything has passed, Mother, but everything begins. In your telephone call, after your words of encouragement, for which I am grateful with all my life, you posed me a very direct question: What will you do with the life that has been forced into your womb? I heard your voice tremble as you asked me the question, a question I felt needed no immediate response; not because I had not yet considered the road I would have to follow, but so as not to disturb the plans you would eventually have to unveil before me. I had already decided. I will be a mother. The child will be mine and no one else's. I know that I could entrust him to other people, but he-though I neither asked for him nor expected him-he has a right to my love as his mother. A plant should never be torn from its roots. The grain of wheat fallen in the furrow has to grow there, where the mysterious, though iniquitous sower threw it.

I will fulfill my religious vocation in another way. I will ask nothing of my congregation, which has already given me everything. I am very grateful for the fraternal solidarity of the Sisters, who in these times have treated me with the utmost delicacy and kindness, especially for never having asked any uncareful questions.

I will go with my child. I do not know where, but God, who broke all of a sudden my greatest joy, will indicate the path I must tread in order to do His will.

I will be poor again, I will return to the old aprons and the wooden shoes that the women in the country use for working, and I will accompany my mother into the forest to collect the resin from the slits in the trees.

Someone has to begin to break the chain of hatred that has always destroyed our countries. And so, I will teach my child only one thing: love. This child, born of violence, will be a witness along with me that the only greatness that gives honor to a human being is forgiveness.

Through the Kingdom of Christ for the Glory of God."

Feast of St. John Mary Vianney - Model of the Diocesan Priesthood

From Catholic News Agency

Saint of the Day - August 04, 2008

St. John Mary Vianney

"We cannot comprehend the power that a pure soul has over God. It is not the soul that does God's will, but God who does the soul's will." -- Saint John Vianney.

Born May 8, 1786 in Dardilly, near Lyon, in a family of farmers, Jean-Marie Vianney started preparing his priesthood when he was 20 with Father Balley, priest of Ecully. He was ordained in 1815 and became Curate in Ecully. He was then sent to Ars in 1818. As soon as he arrived, he made the church his home. Night and day, there he was, in front of the tabernacle, praying the Lord for his parishioners'conversion. Little by little, he revived their faith through his sermons but above all through his prayers and his lifestyle. He restored and embellished his church, formed an orphanage : « La Providence » and took care of the poor. Very quickly, his reputation as a confessor drew to him many pilgrims seeking the pardon of God and the peace of heart.

Assailed by many fights and ordeals he kept his heart rooted in the love of God and his brothers ; his only concern was the salvation of the souls. His catechisms and his homelies mainly dealt with the goodness and mercy of God. This priest burning with love before the Blessed Sacrament, entirely devoted to God, to his parishioners and to the pilgrims, died August 4,1859, after having reached the limite of Love.

He practised mortification from his early youth and for forty years his food and sleep were insufficient, humanly speaking, to sustain life. And yet he laboured incessantly, with unfailing humility, gentleness, patience, and cheerfulness, until he was more than seventy-three years old.

On 3 October, 1874 Jean-Baptiste-Marie Vianney was proclaimed Venerable by Pius IX and on 8 January, 1905, he was enrolled among the Blessed. Pope Pius X proposed him as a model to the parochial clergy.

In 1925, Pope Pius XI canonized him. His feast is kept on 4 August.

"Questions about being a Passionist Nun"

Below is a wonderful post from the Passionist Nuns of St. Joseph Monastery blog - "In the Shadow of His Wings" The post itself is made up of responses to the questions of a nine year old girl name Teresa with regards to the nuns' life.

Dear Sponsa Christi,

My name is Teresa and I am 9 years old. I go to St. Paul school and, as you can tell, it is a Catholic school. I have some questions that I want to ask you about being a nun.

Firstly, do you think that being a nun is fun? At times we have a lot of fun at during our recreation periods. I would rather say that doing God’s will brings one an inner joy and peace, even if a person is going through a difficult trial. There are ups and downs, good days and hard days in the monastery just as there are “in the world”.

How old do you have to be to be a nun? To enter our monastery one has to be at least 18 years old

Can you tell me what an aspirant is? An aspirant is a woman who is living in the monastery for up to 3 months to live the life and discern if this is what God is calling her to do.

Do you have parties for holidays like Christmas parties? We have wonderful celebrations for different feast days throughout the year…which includes more time for prayer and then also more times for recreating together. On Fourth of July and Thanksgiving Day we have a Gaudeamus day. On these days we can recreate all day! These days kind of have the spirit of a family reunion - festive meals, all helping out in the kitchen, doing various activities together and so on. But we are always happy to get back to our regular monastic routine.

Are you really married to Jesus? Do you wear a wedding ring for Jesus? Yes, we are really married to Jesus (although by civil law we are single). I refer to myself as being a ”spouse of Christ”. In fact, that is the Latin translation of “Sponsa Christi”. and yes, we do wear a wedding ring. This reminds me that I must nurture my intimate relationship with Christ…as Psalm 63 says “as the deer longs for running streams so my soul is yearning for you my God.”


How long can someone stay with you before they decide to become a nun? Does that person get a room and a bed? The aspirancy is up to 3 months. Then if one feels this is God’s will they enter the monastery and become a postulant which last from 1 year and can go as long as 18 months. Then one receives the holy habit and her new name and becomes a novice. This lasts 2 years. Then she professes her vows. These are renewed 6 years. Then she makes perpetual profession of the vows. So all in all it is a 9 year process. But to become a postulant the young woman is very serious about seeking to become a Passionist Nun. Yes, she always gets a private room and bed – she doesn’t have to sleep on the floor ;).

Do you have a room? What is it like? Yes, each Sister has her own room. We call it a cell. We don’t go in each other’s cells. These are our private rooms for prayer, study and rest the place where the nun dwells in a special way with Jesus, her Divine Bridegroom. I like to think of the similarity between the word cell and the Latin word caelum which means “little heaven”.

Do you get to study about the Church? Are there classes of any kind? Oh yes! You better believe we study about the Church. When a woman enters the monastery there are classes on an almost daily basis for the first 3 years. We study church history, catechism, spirituality, liturgy, prayer, decorum (good manners!), Scripture, religious life and the vows, etc.

Is there a priest or priests there? We have a chaplain who lives in a modular home just outside our front gate. He has daily Mass for us in our monastery chapel. He is a diocesan priest and has many other ministries.

Do you have television and watch movies or shows? We do watch certain movies on dvd or video and record programs off of EWTN. We are very selective.

Do you have board games and other games? YES! We have recreation 2 times a day. The time in the evening is when we usually do activities together, i.e. play cards, go for a walk, work on a puzzle, play piano, guitar and sing, etc.

What are the biggest rooms in the monastery and what are the smallest? Biggest - Chapel obviously. Then our recreation room and refectory (where we eat). Smallest - I guess those would be the phone rooms. Our phones are in small rooms the size of a closet so that a Sister can have privacy and also so that her voice does not echo down the hallway and disturb the prayerful silence of the other Sisters who might be working, rest, studying or reading in that area.

How often do you get to see your family? Ordinarily three times per year visit with family in here at the monastery in the parlor. We can also have a private visit with our parents

What is contact like with your friends? Our contact with friends is limited. We can write them at Christmas and a few at Easter. Beyond that one has to have permission to write to their friends. This is to help us really focus on our mission of being prayer warriors in the Church. I recently came across a great quote from St. Teresa Benedicta (Edith Stein). She wrote this to her Jewish friend when she entered the monastery. “Whoever enters the monastery is not lost to her own, but is theirs fully for the first time; it is our vocation to stand before God for all.” We are a close community. We have lots of time in prayer, solitude and silence but we are also together as true friends in the Lord.

Do you remember the time you first became a nun? Yes, I was on “cloud nine” with joy when I realized Jesus was calling me to be a Passionist Nuns yet it was very difficult to leave my family and friends. I was homesick but Jesus gave me the grace to persevere and it has been 13 grace-filled years. One has to leave home at some point. Perhaps there is a special poignancy to it because I am the oldest child in my family and was the first to leave home - and enterd a cloistered monastery!

What do you do during the day? Here is a quick summary! pray, eat, spiritual reading, class, work, pray, eat, recreate, rest, study, work, pray, eat, recreate, pray, sleep!

How often does a nun go to confession? About once every 2 weeks.

Do you have a pet? We have one cat – “Danny Boy”

I’m asking these questions because Mom asked me if I would like to be a nun in the world or in a cloister and I am thinking I would like the cloister because I want to be closer like a family with other nuns. If you tell me the answers to these questions I can share them with the kids at St. Paul school. I know my teacher will let me. Thank you very much for reading my questions and for praying for me and my family.

Love,

Teresa

Sisters of Mary Mother of the Church

While I'm linking to great websites, take the time to visit the beautiful new site of the Sisters of Mary Mother of the Church. They are a public association of the faithful approved in 2008 by Bishop William Skylstad of Spokane, Washington.

Great website for the Cause of Canonization of Fr. Capodanno

Whether you know Servant of God Fr. Vincent Capodanno, or you do not, please take the time to visit this great website set up for his Cause of Canonization.

Great pictures, videos, and stories of this heroic Priest and Congressional Medal of Honor recipient make up the numerous pages found at the site. While your there, take the time to offer up a prayer for his cause.

You can see it in his eyes.

“The pastoral care of vocations needs to involve the entire Christian community in every area of its life. Obviously, this pastoral work on all levels also includes exploring the matter with families, which are often indifferent or even opposed to the idea of a priestly vocation. Families should generously embrace the gift of life and bring up their children to be open to doing God's will. In a word, they must have the courage to set before young people the radical decision to follow Christ, showing them how deeply rewarding it is.”

Pope Benedict XVI

(Sacramentum Caritatis, 25)

Finally, I'm back up an running after the blogging perfect storm.

Well it appears my blog has been a victim of both the "random" flagging of numerous Catholic blogs on Blogger as "spam blogs" (guilty until proven innocent) and the "Sitemeter effect" that was causing websites using Sitemeter (being viewed with versions of Internet Explorer) to crash.

However, as of a few minutes ago, it seems that both problems have been resolved and I'll soon be back to posting after the Blogging Perfect Storm of '08.

"It is a pity the world has lost all sense of God."

Profound excerpt of the blind Carthusian Monk from "Into Great Silence".

Franciscans of Primitive Observance - Community and Vocations Information

The information included in their tri-fold brochure is as follows:

Vocation Director
Franciscans of Primitive Observance
Co-Redemptrix Friary
30 Trinity St.
Lawrence, MA 01841-2644

FRANCISCANS OF PRIMITIVE OBSERVANCE

St. Francis of Assisi lived the Holy Gospel of Our Lord Jesus Christ in a radical and courageous way. He captured this way in the Rule of Life which the Lord have him. Toward the end of his life, St. Francis stated in his Testament that his brothers should live the Rule "simply, plainly, and without gloss."

As the Order grew, some embraced relaxations for the sake of higher studies or apostolic work. This legitimate development of a modern observance has borne much good fruit. However, from the beginning, there have always been those called to a strict, or "primitive" observance of the Rule. The Capuchin reform of the 16th century is the classic example of such movements.

Our community of priests and brothers was formed with the conviction that the Holy Spirit is calling us to wholeheartedly embrace a strict observance of the Rule of St. Francis. We began in January, 1995 under the auspices of Bishop Sean O'Malley, OFM Cap. We are again under his jurisdiction in the Archdiocese of Boston.

The Second Vatican Council called for religious institutes to return to their "primitive inspiration, ... The spirit and aim of each founder should be faithfully accepted and retained" (Perfectae Caritatis, 2). Such is our intent.

We are inspired and guided by the heroic early Capuchin reformers and their Constitutions of 1536. Like them we propose to observe St. Francis' Testament, and take his words and example as sure guides of discernment. By the grace of God we hope to imitate these holy men, who so captured the heart of our Seraphic Father, who so captured the Heart of Jesus Christ.

This way of life is first of all one of radical poverty in imitation of, and union with, Christ Crucified. By this we witness to His Kingdom and the Father's Love, which provides for all of our needs. In addition, we give priority to contemplative prayer, as St. Francis did, and to a life of penance, fraternity, minority, and manual labor. The silent testimony of a holy life of total renunciation, for the "one thing necessary" is our primary apostolate.

At the time of profession each friar vows to live "in total consecration to the Immaculate Virgin Mary, in obedience, without property and in chastity." Our Marian vow of total consecration therefore governs our entire religious life. Union with Our Lady is our path to holiness.

The community is governed by traditional religious obedience, including unswerving loyalty to our Holy Father the Pope and all Church Teaching. The Holy Eucharist is the center and source of our life.

SOME PRINCIPLES GUIDING OUR POVERTY

· Strive for immediate and total dependence on Divine Providence both communally and individually.

· Only those items will be kept which are strictly necessary (i.e., no TV, stereos, computers, musical instruments, washing machine, refrigerator, telephones, etc...)

· Travel is by walking, hitchhiking, public transportation or begging for rides. No air travel for the apostolate or ownership of cars.

· As far as possible, money is not accepted or used. No bank account is held individually or communally.

· Brothers are sent out to beg or work for food and supplies.

· No item may be kept for the apostolate that we would not have for ourselves. Buildings may not be established for apostolic work.

DAILY PRAYER SCHEDULE

2:00 AM Office of Readings

6:30 Morning Prayer

7:00-8:00 Mental Prayer

8:00 Holy Mass

12:00 Noon Midday Prayer

4:45 PM Evening Prayer

5:00-6:00 Eucharistic Adoration

9:00 Night Prayer

9:15 Holy Rosary

· A respectful silence is kept in the friary apart from breakfast and dinner in order to cultivate an atmosphere of prayer.

· Fridays are set aside as a strict day of prayer, silence, and solitude.

· All friars go regularly to remote mountain hermitages for periods of solitude and recollection

· The various communal fasting requirements include a bread and beverage fast on Wednesdays and Fridays and no eating between meals.

THE APOSTOLATE

Without any material means of his own, St. Francis zealously sought to spread the Gospel of Our Lord Jesus Christ by preaching and caring for lepers and the poor. Likewise, the early Capuchins were noted for evangelical preaching and generous service to plague victims. Herein lies the model of our apostolic mission in the Church today.

Thus we seek to evangelize through parish missions, youth and other retreats, hearing confessions, spiritual direction, door-to-door evangelization and catechetical instruction. We also strive to serve those in need by pro-life work, food distribution, visiting the sick, elderly and imprisoned, and assisting at existing shelters, soup kitchens and hospices.

MORE POSTS ON THE FRANCISCANS OF PRIMITIVE OBSERVANCE

“Elected Silence, sing to me”

From First Things
By Amanda Shaw

Joy isn’t the first word that comes to mind when most people think of cloistered nuns. For that matter, most people don’t think of cloistered nuns at all, or when they do cobwebby, claustrophobic choir stalls and deafening silence and penitential potatoes form their image of the strange world of enclosed religious. And there is little to dispel the shadows from this haunted-house portrait—for cloistered life is inherently hidden, and it isn’t often that the outside glimpses in.

I recently came across a small, yellowed volume that I first read over a decade ago: A Right to Be Merry by Mother Mary Francis P.C.C. First published in 1956, this delightful book takes the reader into the close quarters and ancient Franciscan traditions of a convent of Poor Clare nuns. Grim and musty it is not: The joy of St. Francis’ spirituality—even, or especially, embraced in this most radical form—is unavoidable.

“What do they do all day?” friends and acquaintances often wonder, and one of Mother Mary Francis’ goals is to explain. After she takes us through the jam-packed day—with communal prayer seven times a day beginning just after midnight, and monastic meals, artistic and domestic work, and an hour of recreation squeezed in between, a very different question arises: “How do they accomplish all that?” The answer comes in love and silence, in silent love:

It has sometimes been said that St. Clare was a missionary at heart and became a cloistered contemplative only because that was the sole kind of religious life for women known in her day. This never fails to make her daughters bristle! If St. Francis had wanted his Second Order to be a missionary order, he was just the man to have made that fait accompli in no time at all. No one was ever more “original” than the saint who walked at right angles to everything characteristic of his age. What he founded was a Second Order of enclosed, praying nuns, because that is what he wished to found. St. Clare, on her part, did indeed have a missionary heart. That is why she entered the cloister, to be a missionary to all the world.
. . .
St. John of the Cross says something to the effect that one act of pure love is worth more than a hundred years of activity. It is likewise true that love ennobles activity, just as prayer nourishes it. Mere activity of itself is quite meaningless in the eyes of God; but the meanest tasks done out of love for Him burst in glory on His vision. Perhaps the silent Sister-cook taking the fat brown loaves from the oven, or canning the pickles which will be sold in the city to help defray our expenses, is tipping the scales of the world in its own favor and in God’s. Her sweat and her love and her labor pull their weight in the mystery of salvation as sure as the writings of philosophers or the wonder-revealing beakers of the scientists.

We live in such a noisy world that many of us have come to be afraid of silence. We think that if only we do a great deal, it does not much matter what we are. In fact, we seldom stop to investigate what manner of man we are. The hero of the hour is the one who can accomplish the greatest number of things in the shortest possible time. But he makes a sorry monastic hero. It is not what our Lady did which made her the Queen of heaven and earth, but what she was.

St. Clare is a true mirror of Mary. She built no hospitals made no political pronouncements, inaugurated no new systems of pedagogy and wrote no books. In the world’s eyes, she did just nothing at all. But what was she? Holy Church declares that she was and is a light more shining than light itself. . . . She was a citadel of silence, and that is why she answers a crying need of our time. We have forgotten how to be silent; we have grown afraid. Yet nothing truly great or enduring was ever yet or will ever be achieved without silence. “While all things were in quiet silence, thy almighty Word, O God, leaped down from heaven.” In the singing silences of eternity that Word was begotten in the bosom of the Father, and the Holy Spirit proceeded as their mutual Love ablaze with silence.

I am reminded of Mother Teresa’s prayer, “The fruit of silence is prayer…” and of Pope Benedict’s probing questions to American youth: “Have we perhaps lost something of the art of listening? Do you leave space to hear God’s whisper, calling you forth into goodness? Friends, do not be afraid of silence or stillness, listen to God, adore him in the Eucharist. Let his word shape your journey as an unfolding of holiness.”

A sign of contradiction to the busy world, the silence of the cloister preaches boldly indeed. But have we lost something of the art of listening?

What vocations crisis?

I couldn't agree more...

"In which I Rant about Vocations and End on a Positive Note"

From the blog "Future Priests of the Third Millennium"

By Deacon Tyler

I have long held that the Church does not face a "vocations crisis." It is true that there are fewer priests now than there were fifty years ago. There are fewer sisters as well. What is not so clear to me, though, is that fewer men are being called. I think that a whole multitude of men are called to the priesthood, but they are not hearing that call, some by design and others by accident of their environment. I have talked to young men who KNOW that they are being called to the seminary, but who refuse to go. They have all sorts of creative excuses. Here is a sampling:

1) Well, I might have a vocation, but I am still discerning whether or not to go to the seminary, so I will just go to college for a few years until I figure it out.

To which I respond (inaudibly, of course), "Good luck. That gnawing pain in your stomach every time you think about priesthood isn't going to go away until you go to the seminary. Enjoy your ulcer."

2) I'm called to the married life.

Really? To whom do you intend to be wed? A call to marriage is a call to lifelong union with a specific other. Who is that lucky lady? At best he can say, "I am not called to the priesthood," but to know that requires that one actually first consider that one is called to the priesthood.

3) I am not worthy to be a priest.

Neither am I. And I never will be. I don't know why God calls who he calls. "It is not you who chose me, but I who chose you." (John 15:16)

4) I think it would get too redundant for me.

Redundant like going home to the same wife in the same house with the same kids and the same ugly couch every day for sixty years? Or redundant like working at a job you don't especially enjoy because the benefits are good, the job is secure, and you will be able to put your kids through college? At the very least, the priest changes assignments every six years or so. And there is nothing redundant about the adventure to which Jesus invites us when he invites us to draw close to himself. (Yes, what life lived in this world is not, to some extent redundant? Who of us does not do almost the same thing everyday. This was a question that used to come up when I took youth on a retreat to the Trappist Monastery - "How can they do the same thing every day for the rest of their lives?" There are many things to say in response to this type of question. In the end it's easy when it is what God is calling you to, because there will be much peace and joy in doing it - if you are not called to it, it will probably be pretty miserable. The reality is that almost everyone I know does the same thing everyday. I do the same thing everyday, but I love it, because it is what I am called to. And truth be told, the Diocesan Priesthood is for some a real challenge, because it is often times so "inconvenient" and unpredictable.)

Other young men give me much more compelling answers.

1) I'm afraid. I don't think I can do it.

Well, alone you can't do it. But, "I can do all things in Christ who strengthens me" (Phil 4:3). Do you really suppose he would call you to this and leave you ill equipped to do the job he sets before you? "Cast out into the deep" (Luke 5:4).

2) I want to be a father.

Good! So do I. So should all men. We are all called to fatherhood. It is a question of how we are called to fulfill this vocation to be caretakers, spiritual leaders, and heads of a family. Priesthood is not exclusive of fatherhood. It is fatherhood lived differently.

Indeed, there are a whole variety of excuses, and after you have talked to a certain number of young men, they can begin to get discouraging. So, it is always a great relief when some asks something like, "Hey, Deacon Tyler, were you serious when you told me that you thought I should think about the seminary?" You're darned tootin' I was. When I get a response like that, it typically indicates that this fellow has already been mulling the idea over in his own mind, and is a bit taken aback to hear someone else verbalize his own thoughts to him. In this case, I am always quick to assure him that no one is asking for a lifetime commitment immediately. Just talking out loud about the idea will not prompt the Bishop to lay hands on him the following day. He need not panic. There is lots of time to figure out if the call is authentic. Feel free to call me or ask me about anything. Here is the phone number for the director of vocations.

World Youth Day allowed me to have experiences of both sorts, the encouraging and the discouraging. I suspect that at least one of these young men will be off to the seminary in the fall of 2009. Another may stop going to Church altogether because he is so afraid of the prospect. Nevertheless, to have talked to them was worthwhile. As I mentiond, many young men are trying hard not to hear the call. If someone speaks to them, it is hard to ignore it. Likewise, other young men may not know how to hear the call, and will not until someone speaks to them and suggests that they consider priesthood. So, here are my suggestions for ways that you can help them hear, dear readers.

1) Pray for vocations every day.

2) Look around your parish (the boy servers are a good place to start). If you sense that a particular young man (of any age) might make a good priest, tell him so.

3) Let your sons know that you are open to the idea of them pursuing a vocation to the priesthood. This is especially important for fathers. Your son is unlikely to consider priesthood unless he knows that his dad is going to support the idea.

4) Talk positively about vocations to the priesthood and your own priest(s).

5) Don't be afraid to ask young men if they have thought about entering the priesthood. If you notice something special about them, chances are, they are hearing it too and are doing their best to ignore it. Help them hear. Be persistent, but don't nag. Statistics suggest that a young man needs to be asked at least six times before he will even consider going to visit the seminary. Don't be afraid to say something more than once even though he tries to rebuff you at first.

There is no vocations crisis. There are lots of vocations around. We all have a role to play in helping men realize it.

A New Consecrated Virgin in the Diocese of Richmond

The following story is a slight reworking of the original UPI story:

For the first time in its 188 year history, a young Virginia woman has made her vows as a consecrated , perpetual virgin in the Roman Catholic Diocese of Richmond.

Bernadette Snyder, 29, made her vows before Bishop Francis X. DiLorenzo in the rite of Consecration to a Life of Virginity of Women Living in the World, The (Norfolk) Virginian-Pilot reported Sunday.

As a part of the ceremony in May, Bishop DiLorenzo gave her a gold band as a symbol of her spousal relationship with Jesus Christ.

"He completes me," Snyder told the newspaper. "I don't even know if marriage is the proper term; I feel like he's my husband."

According to the article, the rite fell into disuse by the eighth or ninth century. The Vatican restored it in 1970.

The U.S. Association of Consecrated Virgins estimates there are 200 consecrated virgins nationwide. Most of those consecrations have come in the last decade, said Judith Stegman, the group's president.