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Here is an email from the Sisters of Life I received re: vows and the new novices. I have a pic of the new novices with their new names but I cant seem to post it :(

Dear Friends,

We hope you are having a blessed summer! We'd love to know how things are going. Life continues to be exciting around here. With joy we celebrated the investiture of our seven new novices this past Friday, July 23rd (attached is their picture and religious names). As Mother Agnes described, for the first time in their lives the exterior appearance of these seven young women will reflect what is happening to them interiorly. For as blessed as this day was, though, the day every novice longs for is the day of her religious profession.

As these seven Sisters begin their novitiate, ten of our apostolic novices will unite themselves more intimately to our Divine Lord through their first profession of vows on the Feast of the Transfiguration. At that same mass, one of our professed Sisters will make her definitive commitment to her beloved spouse as she professes her perpetual vows. Cardinal O’Connor would compare the consecration that takes place at profession to that of the consecration during the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. He once said,

“We speak of religious life as the consecrated life. Anything which is taken from the world and reserved for the use of God is sacred, consecrated. The very word ‘consecrated’ comes from the same word as ‘sacred.’ We take a piece of bread and say over it, ‘This is My body,’ a cup of wine, ‘This is My blood.’ It then becomes the Body and Blood of the Son of God. It is changed from what it was. It has the appearance of what it was, but it has gone through a change, it is now sacred, it is now consecrated. It is taken from the ordinary things of the world and reserved for Almighty God, for our use, so that we can feed on the Son of God, on the Word of God taken from the world for our salvation. The consecrated life, by definition, is a life of sacrifice. In the Eucharist, the bread must die as bread, the wine must die as wine. As our Lord describes, the seed must fall from the tree into the ground and die if new life is to spring forth. Our Divine Lord Himself did not make possible the salvation of the world through His teaching, through His preaching, but through His sacrifice, His suffering, His death on the Cross.”

What happened at the Last Supper? Christ took the bread, said the blessing, broke the bread, and gave it to the disciples. What happens at every mass during the Liturgy of the Eucharist? During those intimate moments when the priest consecrates the simple, ordinary gifts of bread and wine – He takes it, blesses it, breaks it, and gives it.

This is what happens to the soul of each religious. Christ takes her - the simple, ordinary woman that she is. Blesses her - that is, consecrates her, makes her sacred for His desire. Breaks her - not in order to incapacitate her, but that it is no longer she who lives, rather truly Christ who lives in her. Then He gives her - to those in the world, in order that she might be the channel by which others might come to know Him. Consecrated and bound to Christ, religious actually become the means through which the salvific action of God Himself flows out into the lives of those she encounters.

This is what it means to be a religious, to do God’s work, not one’s own work, really—to allow the Father to actualize her potential. But it means even more, that she takes Jesus with her. Think about it, just as a priest takes a chalice and consecrates it with a special prayer because it’s going to be set aside for a sacred use, for the Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of our Lord, so the religious is set aside for sacred use, to be the bearer of the Christ Child. The religious is His consecrated vessel. She is the chalice on the altar. Without Jesus, she is empty.

The mass of profession on August 6 will be celebrated by Archbishop Charles Chaput at the Basilica of St. John the Evangelist and can be viewed online through live streaming via the basilica’s [url="www.stjohnsstamford.com/video/index.html"]Website[/url]. The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass will begin at 11:00am preceded by a choral prelude at 10:30am.

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The new names are:

Sr. Virginia Joy
Sr. Cecilia Rose
Sr. Annunciata Maria
Sr. Avila Marie
Sr. Mariana Benedicta
Sr. Mary Sophia
Sr. Faustina Maria Pia (my fav name of the bunch!)

Edited by Piobaire
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OnlySunshine

Aw, I really wish you could post the picture as I would love to see my friend in the habit! I have been dying to know what her new name is. Could you post it perhaps on Photobucket and then link it here? :blush:

I'm betting that my friend is the new Sr. Annunciata Maria. She loved the mystery of the Annunciation. :)

Edited by MaterMisericordiae
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TeresaBenedicta

[quote name='Piobaire' date='29 July 2010 - 06:08 PM' timestamp='1280437724' post='2149638']
The new names are:

Sr. Virginia Joy
Sr. Cecilia Rose
Sr. Annunciata Maria
Sr. Avila Marie
Sr. Mariana Benedicta
Sr. Mary Sophia
Sr. Faustina Maria Pia (my fav name of the bunch!)
[/quote]

:clap:

Yay!! I wonder if Sr. Mariana Benedicta is my friend Mariana? She was one of the FOCUS missionaries at my university two years ago and I knew her fairly well.

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TeresaBenedicta

[quote name='Piobaire' date='29 July 2010 - 06:27 PM' timestamp='1280438835' post='2149648']
[IMG]http://i930.photobucket.com/albums/ad147/piobaire/newnovices.jpg[/IMG]
[/quote]

Even more yay!! Thank you!! It [i]is[/i] my friend Mariana-- how neat!!

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laetitia crucis
:yahoo:

How absoluuutely wonderful and exciting!!!

Thanks for posting the e-mail and the picture, Piobaire!

(And really, can I just saw how awesome I think it is that Sr. Faustina Maria Pia was already named "Faustina"?? How cool to have such a beautiful given name!)

Also, I thought this was quite beautiful:

[quote]
“We speak of religious life as the consecrated life. Anything which is taken from the world and reserved for the use of God is sacred, consecrated. The very word ‘consecrated’ comes from the same word as ‘sacred.’ We take a piece of bread and say over it, ‘This is My body,’ a cup of wine, ‘This is My blood.’ It then becomes the Body and Blood of the Son of God. It is changed from what it was. It has the appearance of what it was, but it has gone through a change, it is now sacred, it is now consecrated. It is taken from the ordinary things of the world and reserved for Almighty God, for our use, so that we can feed on the Son of God, on the Word of God taken from the world for our salvation. The consecrated life, by definition, is a life of sacrifice. In the Eucharist, the bread must die as bread, the wine must die as wine. As our Lord describes, the seed must fall from the tree into the ground and die if new life is to spring forth. Our Divine Lord Himself did not make possible the salvation of the world through His teaching, through His preaching, but through His sacrifice, His suffering, His death on the Cross.” -- Cardinal O'Connor[/quote]

I think I just might have to copy that into my notebook.
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  • 1 month later...
LaPetiteSoeur

I know I'm late on this post...

Anyway, last Saturday a few new postulants entered the Sisters of Life! I'm not sure how many, just that my coworker's twin sister entered!
:nun2:

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What do these sisters do all day? Run homes for unwed mothers? Retreats? I know they have a pro-life apostolate but what exactly does that mean?

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[quote name='ksterling' timestamp='1283886679' post='2169251']
What do these sisters do all day? Run homes for unwed mothers? Retreats? I know they have a pro-life apostolate but what exactly does that mean?
[/quote]

They provide support for single mothers, especially expecting mothers who do not have the support of their families and are being pressured to have an abortion. The Sisters provide a safe shelter for the mother and get her ready for motherhood by helping her find a job, attend school, etc. Once the baby is born, the mother can elect to stay with the Sisters for up to 6 months. At that time, they help the mother find a place to live such as a new apartment or make arrangements for the mother to return with her child to her family.

They also have retreats for women who have had abortions to provide healing and support for these distraught women. Click on links below for further information:

[url="http://sistersoflife.org/holy-respite"]Pregnancy apostolate[/url]

[url="http://sistersoflife.org/hope-and-healing-after-abortion"]Abortion healing apostolate[/url]

**I know I said I wouldn't be posting for a while, but I happened upon this website today and I felt I had to answer. Re-entering radio silence now. :)

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