Poor Clares with Traditional Latin Mass

[MarysLittleFlower]

"The greatest harm the devil can do to anyone is make her believe that her past is beyond repair, and that the opportunity has been let slip and it is too late."

A very wise religious wrote that - Mother Janet Stuart, who was the superior of the Society of the Sacred Heart in the early twentieth century.

There is no spirituality that is off-limits to someone. God doesn't make you thirsty for something and then tell you that you can't drink it. The greatest comforter of Christ was the woman with the alabaster jar, who came in and anointed his feet with oil and tears. Simon the Pharisee thought to himself, "If this man were a prophet he would know who is touching him and what sort of woman she is, a sinner." Jesus spoke up immediately in the woman's defence - "She has been forgiven much because she has loved much." In the gospel according to Mark, he says of the woman who anointed him, "Leave her alone. Why are you bothering her? She has done a beautiful thing for me. She has prepared my body for burial." This makes it clear that the anointing was intended as a gesture of love and comfort. He accepted it.

And thinking about it logically, why wouldn't he? Why would having had sex make someone unsuitable to comfort Christ, in a way that being a thief or telling lies wouldn't? This idea contributes to the common but unfortunately misguided preoccupation with sexual sin that exists in certain Christian circles. Jesus never said that sexual sin was harder to forgive than anything else. MLF, you have a very clear and wonderful love for Our Lord, and it's encouraging to see how determined you are to live faithfully, but you do seem to suffer from scruples a bit. I think it's possible that this causes you to worry too much and look for hard-and-fast rules where they don't exist. That website isn't an official website of the Sacre-Coeur community, it was probably written by someone completely unaffiliated to them who has their own perception of how the nuns live, and it isn't sensible to get anxious about whether you are 'suitable' for their spirituality on the basis of something so flimsy. Don't look at your past, but at your future; and concentrate on what you're being called to become, not on what you were.

Thank you so much Beatitude that really helps. I do get scruples easily. My favourite story in the Gospels is about the woman with the perfume jar - the typical Catholic view seems to be she is St Mary Magdalene... Im glad you mentioned it because I always found it so touching. The reason this has been a struggle for me is because its only recently that I realized how beautiful virginity is when offered to God and I read it does give the soul a special beauty... I mean St Thomas definition not limited medical one. And I just wish I always lived a pure life.  

Anyway I thinking about my past and how the Saint I most identify with is St Mary Magdalene because she committed sins but then loved Jesus... I read about how she onlythought about Jesus, followed Him everywhere - according to Blessed Anne Catherine Emmerich. She anointed Him many times. People often criticised her but she stopped caring what anyone thought. I read that and decided I want to be like her!

I began reading about religious life and in those descriptions the Saints often talk about Virgins. I got afraid that someone who didn't always live purely can't be a nun.. But I was told she could be... Even St Mary Magdalene lived like a nun - a type of penitent hermitess. So I think the Saints were talking about it for another reason? As the perfection of chastity... 

I read that Jesus told a mystic that in union with Him (I mean advanced union) He can somehow give His own virginity to a person though they have lost their own. I thought that is very beautiful. This mystic  is Conchita and she's venerable so had a holy life and a good relationship with the Church. The Church says about private revelations but there's nothing about Conchita that makes me doubtful so if this is true I'm really glad personally it makes sense to me and I don't have doubts. I thought I'd share that for anyone else   God bless!

Edited June 5, 2015 by MarysLittleFlower

[Graciela]

Blessings on you, Beatitude, for sharing Mother Stuart's quote. It is such a profoundly beautiful reminder, and your comments on it were very inspiring.

I also would like to mention much recent biblical scholarship that strongly questions the usual hagiography in which Mary Magdalene is characterized as a sexual sinner (often as a prostitute). There is well done work that rejects this characterization as a conflation of several unnamed women's stories with that of Mary Magdalene.  I offer this factoid only as a further support of Beatitude's point about historical tendencies to over-emphasize sexual sins.  It seems to me that the gracious mercy of God does not have a pecking order.

[MarysLittleFlower]

Blessings on you, Beatitude, for sharing Mother Stuart's quote. It is such a profoundly beautiful reminder, and your comments on it were very inspiring.

I also would like to mention much recent biblical scholarship that strongly questions the usual hagiography in which Mary Magdalene is characterized as a sexual sinner (often as a prostitute). There is well done work that rejects this characterization as a conflation of several unnamed women's stories with that of Mary Magdalene.  I offer this factoid only as a further support of Beatitude's point about historical tendencies to over-emphasize sexual sins.  It seems to me that the gracious mercy of God does not have a pecking order.

​ I don't know... to me if St Mary Magdalene committed sexual sins it's not a way to focus on them, but she's an example of a Saint who dealt with this and  became holy - and that can be an encouragement to many people. I read in Blessed Anne Catherine's visions that St Mary Magdalene did have this sort of past though it didn't say that she was a prostitute necessarily, if i understand correctly. I know this is a private revelation but i tend to just accept whatever the Church has accepted and her visions are not forbidden. Reading a book containing these visions was really inspiring to me and i tend to imagine it like that. 

I know there are two views of this... one view is the traditional Catholic view that the woman with the perfume jar is St Mary Magdalene and that she's also the Mary in the Mary and Martha story. Then there's the Eastern view that there were a couple women - someone correct me if i'm wrong. Then there's the new view that there were several women. I tend to just go with the traditional Catholic view and that's how I understand / imagine it myself. I just accept what i've read on the topic from the Saints and Blessed Anne Catherine  

God bless

[beatitude]

Thank you so much Beatitude that really helps. I do get scruples easily. My favourite story in the Gospels is about the woman with the perfume jar - the typical Catholic view seems to be she is St Mary Magdalene... Im glad you mentioned it because I always found it so touching. The reason this has been a struggle for me is because its only recently that I realized how beautiful virginity is when offered to God and I read it does give the soul a special beauty... I mean St Thomas definition not limited medical one. And I just wish I always lived a pure life.  

​Each one of us is special simply because God never created another person like us. You can't live exactly like St This or St That, and you aren't called to be a carbon copy of them anyway. Your own beauty comes from following and loving God in the way that only you can - He only made one MLF, and it is your offering of your own life that he is looking at. Every soul its beautiful in its own way, because every soul is unique and has a unique relationship with our Creator and Lover.

St Maryam Baouardy wrote, "He does not want plunder in sacrifices; give him all. In heaven the most beautiful trees are those who have most sinned; they have used their miseries like dung around their roots." We can all do this - use our sins and bad choices and the things we regret, the dung in our lives, to help us to grow. God can bring beauty out of bad. Trusting in His ability and eagerness to do that is an act of faith and this too is a sacrifice and an offering. Repenting your past is one thing, but mourning about it often and wishing you had done things differently is not - it shows lack of faith, as it means we believe in our heart of hearts that we are never going to be as lovely as we could have been. But we are made lovely by God's love for us, not by anything we do or don't do, possess or don't possess, for the simple reason that we have nothing that God doesn't already possess. It's not that some people have got lots of treasures to give and other people have got none at all, and Jesus is sitting there like an accountant with a spreadsheet, going, "Hmm, well, So-and-so has offered me X, Y, and Z, but she's not a virgin, so her soul is going to look less shiny than the soul of Such-and-such." This is not how he works. He told the people, "There is more joy in heaven over one repentant sinner than over ninety-nine who had no need to repent." And we have all needed to repent from something.

Gabriela is right that solid biblical scholarship today does not accept the idea that the woman with the alabaster jar was Mary Magdalene. Personally I value the fact that she's nameless, because it makes it possible for any reader of that scripture to identify with her. I think that's the point - she could so easily have been any one of us. As St Paul wrote, "All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God." But if you take comfort from the idea that she was Mary Magdalene, then I don't think God or anyone would have a problem with it.

The only thing to be careful about is that you don't accept the personal ideas of saints who grew up in a very different culture and time as somehow being sacred just because they were saints. Certain saints wrote things that would be unhelpful to anyone with a tendency to scruples, because that was the culture and climate in which they lived. Remember that canonisation according to the Church doesn't automatically mean that anything anyone ever said and did was right and holy. So if you read anything that makes you panic that you can't become a nun because you're not a virgin, then possibly your interpretation of what they're saying is off, or they're just not right on this one. I'm certain no community would refuse to accept you just because of that.

Edited June 6, 2015 by beatitude

[Yaatee]

Thank you!! I really think more of such orders should come to Canada! We have so few contemplative orders. I'm glad vocations are happening elsewhere but we need some too! lol.

​MLF, I think that if and when, in the future, you remain interested in religious life, (as I assume you well), it will be most helpful to you to discern in Canada, which is where I assume you live.  

The Sisters of Reparation are a diocesan community in Steubenville, Ohio, formed recently.  It is not clear how many members they have.  You would have to visit, perhaps more than once, and enter in Ohio.  The Daughters appear to be exclusively in Europe.  I could not find them (easily) on the web.  For them, you would have to visit and enter in Europe.  Most people don't want to be far from their families, don't have a lot of money available for multiple visits at a distance, and may prefer entering an established institute.

A number of communities, especially contemplative ones, have adoration and devotion to the Sacred Heart.  Among more active groups, the rscj, Society of the Sacred Heart was (obviously) named after the Sacred Heart.  These and other communities are well represented in Canada.  The EF may be less well represented, though in the larger cities, there would be EF available, though not necessarily within communities.

Once you start to visit communities, a lot of this will become clearer.

[Yaatee]

Blessings on you, Beatitude, for sharing Mother Stuart's quote. It is such a profoundly beautiful reminder, and your comments on it were very inspiring.

I also would like to mention much recent biblical scholarship that strongly questions the usual hagiography in which Mary Magdalene is characterized as a sexual sinner (often as a prostitute). There is well done work that rejects this characterization as a conflation of several unnamed women's stories with that of Mary Magdalene.  I offer this factoid only as a further support of Beatitude's point about historical tendencies to over-emphasize sexual sins.  It seems to me that the gracious mercy of God does not have a pecking order.

​V good point, Graciela.  Also the historical tendency to over-emphasize sexual sins committed by women.

 

 

[MarysLittleFlower]

​Each one of us is special simply because God never created another person like us. You can't live exactly like St This or St That, and you aren't called to be a carbon copy of them anyway. Your own beauty comes from following and loving God in the way that only you can - He only made one MLF, and it is your offering of your own life that he is looking at. Every soul its beautiful in its own way, because every soul is unique and has a unique relationship with our Creator and Lover.

St Maryam Baouardy wrote, "He does not want plunder in sacrifices; give him all. In heaven the most beautiful trees are those who have most sinned; they have used their miseries like dung around their roots." We can all do this - use our sins and bad choices and the things we regret, the dung in our lives, to help us to grow. God can bring beauty out of bad. Trusting in His ability and eagerness to do that is an act of faith and this too is a sacrifice and an offering. Repenting your past is one thing, but mourning about it often and wishing you had done things differently is not - it shows lack of faith, as it means we believe in our heart of hearts that we are never going to be as lovely as we could have been. But we are made lovely by God's love for us, not by anything we do or don't do, possess or don't possess, for the simple reason that we have nothing that God doesn't already possess. It's not that some people have got lots of treasures to give and other people have got none at all, and Jesus is sitting there like an accountant with a spreadsheet, going, "Hmm, well, So-and-so has offered me X, Y, and Z, but she's not a virgin, so her soul is going to look less shiny than the soul of Such-and-such." This is not how he works. He told the people, "There is more joy in heaven over one repentant sinner than over ninety-nine who had no need to repent." And we have all needed to repent from something.

Gabriela is right that solid biblical scholarship today does not accept the idea that the woman with the alabaster jar was Mary Magdalene. Personally I value the fact that she's nameless, because it makes it possible for any reader of that scripture to identify with her. I think that's the point - she could so easily have been any one of us. As St Paul wrote, "All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God." But if you take comfort from the idea that she was Mary Magdalene, then I don't think God or anyone would have a problem with it.

The only thing to be careful about is that you don't accept the personal ideas of saints who grew up in a very different culture and time as somehow being sacred just because they were saints. Certain saints wrote things that would be unhelpful to anyone with a tendency to scruples, because that was the culture and climate in which they lived. Remember that canonisation according to the Church doesn't automatically mean that anything anyone ever said and did was right and holy. So if you read anything that makes you panic that you can't become a nun because you're not a virgin, then possibly your interpretation of what they're saying is off, or they're just not right on this one. I'm certain no community would refuse to accept you just because of that.

​I agree that each saint (and in general each soul) is unique I do believe that there's something beautiful in virginity however - I see what you mean about God making repentant souls beautiful too - like the Saints who were penitents. I sometimes can't relate to even my favourite Saints because they at most ever committed slight venial sins. This is why like examples like St Mary Magdalene, St Margaret of Cortona, Blessed Charles de Foucauld, and others are encouraging for me.. because if this happened with them, maybe me too, though of course I'm different than them too I do personally believe though that the woman with the alabaster jar is St Mary Magdalene because of the way the three women are described in the Scriptures.. Latin Fathers have typically seen them as one woman. (Eastern Fathers saw it differently). http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/09761a.htm  I'm not sure which Biblical scholars today say otherwise, but I tend to often just go with the Church Fathers and not Biblical scholarship because sometimes it's too secular for me - not saying about these particular scholars since I don't know who they are. I tend to side with the Latin Fathers in this question because I think it's logical, since St John says Mary of Bethany was the woman who anointed Christ's feet. The above link mentions this.. also it could be that other Gospel writers didn't want to say that it's St Mary Magdalene to protect her reputation, whereas St John was writing his Gospel later. That's just my understanding not to debate this.. I see there are different views but I wanted to explain why I tend to see her this way. The reason it's been significant for me is because even though she sinned, she went on to love Our Lord so greatly and even saw the Resurrection.. it just helps to be encouraged anyways... God bless!