The Peoria Franciscan Sisters

I am in East Peoria these days, giving a week long retreat to the Sisters of the Third Order of St.

Francis.  On August 21, 1875 a community of 25 Sisters and 4 Postulants left Germany because of the Bismark Laws which restricted religious freedom.  They ended up in Iowa City where a priest whom they had met in Germany helped them get settled.  About a year later six of the Sisters went to Peoria at the request of a local priest who asked them to start a hospital.  The first bishop of Peoria, John Spalding, promised his help to them if they would form a separate congregation. Thus began this particular community of Franciscans with Mother Mary Frances as the first superior.

Mother Mary Frances' last words to her community capture the spirit that is still very much alive among these Sisters: "Dear Sisters, live in meekness and obedience. Nurse the sick with the greatest care and love, then will God's blessing be with you."

Our retreat will end on Wednesday, the feast of Our Lady of Lourdes and the annual World Day of
the Sick.  In his message this year, Pope Francis wrote about "the wisdom of the heart."  What is this wisdom?  "It is a way of seeing things infused by the Holy Spirit in the minds and the hearts of those who are sensitive to the sufferings of their brothers and sisters and who can see in them the image of God."  He went on to say, "Time spent with the sick is holy time. It is a way of praising God who conforms us to the image of his Son, who 'came not to be served, and to give his life as a ransom for many' (Mt. 20:28)."

It strikes me that the Sisters are living proof of these words.  The gift the Sisters make of themselves in service of the sick gives praise to God and helps them grow in holiness.  I'm praying that more women will hear the call to join them because they are very stretched as they direct the operations of 9 medical centers throughout Illinois and in the upper peninsula of Michigan.  Please join me in that prayer.

On the Feast of St. Jeanne Jugan

August 30 was the feast of St. Jeanne Jugan, the foundress of the Little Sisters of the Poor. I celebrated Mass at St. Joseph’s Home in Palatine, IL. My homily was based on these special readings: Isaiah 58: 6-11; 1 John 3: 14-18; and Matthew 5: 1-12a.

We are celebrating a great saint today—Jeanne Jugan. Of course she would shudder at those words. She aspired not to be great but to be little.  She once said: “Be little, little, little; if you get big and proud, the congregation will fall.” And another time, “Only the little are pleasing to God.”

Why? Because this is God’s way. How did God choose to save the world? Not with worldly power and glory. Not with an army of angels that would force people to follow God’s way. God saved the world by becoming little—a little baby.

In his homily at Midnight Mass on Christmas 2008, Pope Benedict said that our first experience of God is one of distance. God seems so far above and beyond us. This transcendent God drew near, bridging the distance by becoming one of us. Pope Benedict went on to say that our experience of God is also one of glory and grandeur which provoke fear in us. So God became a tiny baby in order that we would no longer fear but love, for people love tiny, newborn babies. 

St. Paul wrote that the Son of God became poor in order to make us rich. He emptied himself and became little and in need of love and care. He shared our life with its sorrows and joys, its sufferings, both physical and spiritual when he felt totally abandoned as he hung dying on a cross. He shared in death itself.

The cross looks like a failure, but God’s ways are not ours. The failure of the cross is really a triumph in which the power of love wins over sin and death. 

“Love.” That word is used in so many different ways that it has lost its meaning. We talk about loving our pets and ice cream. We love whatever and whomever makes us feel good, gives us pleasure. It’s all about “me” and how I am feeling.

In our second reading St. John says that love is not about feelings and not about words, but about deeds and action.

This is why “hospitality” is such an important word. Hospitality is love in action.

It begins in hearts—hearts open to others, to all, especially the poor and the sick, the neglected and rejected of what Pope Francis calls our “disposable culture.”  We must open our hearts to them just as the Sacred Heart of Jesus is open to them.

This is what Jeanne Jugan did. Her heart was open to the elderly poor. She felt their need.  She had compassion and suffered for their sufferings.  And she responded. She not only opened her house to them; she gave up her own bed to that first poor blind woman that she carried into her home. 

This spirit of hospitality lives on today in the Little Sisters of the Poor. Their Constitutions state: “Consecrated hospitality is, in the midst of the world, a witness to the mercy of the Father and the compassionate love of the Heart of Jesus.”

Hospitality means opening our hearts, our doors, our wallets.  But ultimately the greatest hospitality is sharing the life of the other. Jeanne Jugan shared in the poverty of the poor, becoming a beggar for the beggars.  Her complete trust in Providence, not having endowments or investment income, continues today as the Little Sisters depend upon the generosity of others.

In his Lenten Message this year, Pope Francis said that Christ did not love us like someone who gives a little out of his or her abundance. He gave all and sacrificed his very self.

So did St. Jeanne Jugan who wanted to be known by her religious name Sister Mary of the Cross. She shared in the sufferings of the Crucified One as did His Mother who stood under the cross and suffered as only a mother could watching her son suffer and die. Mary joined her sufferings to those of Jesus for the salvation of the world. St. Jeanne also offered herself and sacrificed what was most dear to her, her own congregation. It was taken from her when she was relieved of any leadership position and lived a hidden life in the novitiate where the young did not even know who she was.

She was able to do this because she had become little. She had become the last and least. She found her strength and consolation in one place—in Jesus, who assured her that blessed are the poor in spirit, blessed are those who mourn, blessed are the meek, blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, blessed are the merciful, blessed are the pure of heart, blessed are the peacemakers, and blessed are those who suffer persecution.

When he canonized her in 2009, Pope Benedict said: “In the Beatitudes Jeanne Jugan found the source of the spirit of hospitality and fraternal love, founded on unlimited trust in Providence, which illuminated her whole life.”

He went on to say: “This evangelical dynamism is continued today across the world in the Congregation of the Little Sisters of the Poor, which she founded and which testifies, after her example, to the mercy of God and the compassionate love of the Heart of Jesus for the lowliest. May St. Jeanne Jugan be for elderly people a living source of hope and for those who generously commit themselves to serving them, a powerful incentive to pursue and develop her work!”

We gather for the Eucharist, a word that means “thanksgiving.” We are grateful for the Sisters who faithfully live the charism of St. Jeanne Jugan. We are grateful for the staff, workers, and volunteers who share in that charism. We are grateful for the benefactors who support the Sisters in following their charism of total trust in God.  But most of all, we are grateful for the residents who give us an opportunity to love and care for Jesus who said “Whatever you do for the least of my brothers and sisters, you do for me.”

The Sisters of Life

I am half way between New York City and Albany at St. Joseph Camp which the Sisters of Life are using for their retreat. I am with Fr. Christopher Collins, S.J., and Fr. Joseph Koterski, S.J. and we are directing 17 Sisters in their annual eight day retreat.  The Sisters of Life are a new religious congregation which John Cardinal O’Connor of New York City founded on June 1, 1991. 

In a retreat conference, Cardinal O’Connor spoke of the rationale for this new order: “Over the course of hundreds of years Almighty God has inevitably seemed to raise up religious communities to meet the special needs of the day. I am convinced that the crucial need of our day is to restore to all society a sense of the sacredness of human life. Basic to the worst evils of our day is surely a widespread contempt for human life.”

He went on: “Now it seems time for a religious community to pray each day at some length, by way of the Sacred Liturgy, the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass and the Divine Office, in contemplation before the Blessed Sacrament, in the holy rosary, in various other forms of prayer.  In addition, the community will engage in active ministries which will be an extension of contemplation.”

These Sisters are certainly prayer warriors in the cause of promoting a culture of life, a civilization of love.  Their annual, individually-directed eight day retreat, of which I am blessed to participate, is a prime example of this. 

On the day of their foundation, the Cardinal told them:  “It is your charism to plead for the protection of all human life at every level, with a special focus on those most helpless and unwanted, and to advance a sense of the sacredness of all human life.” 

Cardinal O’Connor told the first Sisters of Life that their consecration was a witness to sacrifice, the antidote to what St. John Paul II called “the culture of death.”  He said: “It will not be through your human persuasion, it will not be through your writings, it will be through your prayer, through your apostolate, through your example of consecrating yourselves that other women will come to understand and will consecrate themselves. It is imperative that you see the relationship between your laying down your life and your encouraging these women to be willing to sacrifice rather than to destroy or permit to be destroyed, the life of their unborn child. This is true not only for the unborn; it is true for all human life, human life which has come to be held in such contempt. The refugees in the Middle East at this moment are enduring unbelievable suffering, not simply because of the war but because the world has accepted this kind of contempt for human life. The world has accepted bombings and artillery fire which, even if destined only against a military adversary, by its nature is going to kill, to maim, to wound, to leave hungry and homeless hundreds of thousands of human beings created in the image and likeness of God.”

Those words were spoken in 1991, but could have been spoken today. Today there are millions “of human beings created in the image and likeness of God” who have been left “hungry and homeless” by war in the Middle East.  During this month of August Pope Francis has asked us to pray in a special way for them and for all refugees.

While reading Cardinal O’Connor’s remarks at the foundation of the Sisters of Life I discovered that another group of Sisters, to whom I gave a retreat acouple years ago, played a significant role in the early life of this new congregation.  They are the ParishVisitors of Mary Immaculate.  The Cardinal placed the early formation of the Sisters of Life in the hands of the Parish Visitors, saying: “I have known you since I was the Bishop of Scranton and Sister Mary played the same guitar for me that she played today. I have admired you. Your lives are contemplative, missionary. That will be the lives that these women will lead. I cannot, and I say this to you sincerely, I cannot think of a congregation anywhere in the world who will give them a better example, who will better model for them our Blessed Mother, who will give them a greater example of devotion to Our Lord and to the service of His people. They will see you as you pray, they will see you in many of your activities. They will learn from you. They will grow rapidly under your care, as Jesus the Christ Child grew in wisdom and grace under the tutelage of His mother and father.” 

The Sisters of Life. The Parish Visitors. One of the blessings of being the director of the Apostleship of Prayer in the U.S. is praying with these consecrated women who are true Apostles of Prayer and who are devoted to the Sacred Heart of Jesus as they live the Daily Offering. 

Venerable Nano Nagle

I have been giving a retreat this week to Nano Nagle’s Sisters in Aberdeen, South Dakota. They are known as the Sisters of the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary.  But who was Nano?

Honora Nagle was born in County Cork, Ireland in 1718 and was soon called by the affectionate name “Nano.” This was time of persecution for Catholics in Ireland. They were forbidden to teach, open up schools, or travel elsewhere for an education. Some of the Nagle family were merchants who had connections on the continent and Nano was able to travel to Paris to attend school. In 1746, after her father’s death, she returned to Ireland and, in violation of the laws, began teaching. She set up her first school in 1754 and very soon started seven more. She was never arrested and in 1775, with other women who joined her in the work, she founded the Society of Charitable Instruction of the Sacred Heart of Jesus which in time became the Sisters of the Presentation. She received the habit on June 29, 1776 and took the name Mother Mary of St. John of God after the 16^th Century Portuguese saint who had dedicated his life to the service of the poor and the sick. She died in 1784 and her cause for canonization was approved by Pope Francis in 2013. Today the Presentation Sisters teach and care for the sick in 23 countries around the world.

I’ve resonated with a number of Nano’s sayings. One—“Not words, but deeds”—reminds  me of something that St. Ignatius Loyola wrote in his “Spiritual Exercises,” that love shows itself best in deeds. Love is not so much a feeling or even the words that express a feeling. Love is action.

Her zeal for souls is seen in this quote: “If I could be of any service in saving souls in any part of the world, I would willingly do all in my power.”

Like so many saints from St. Paul through St. Margaret Mary to the present, Nano knew that any good she accomplished was not her doing but God’s.  She wrote: “The Almighty makes use of the weakest means to bring about his work.” We see her great trust in these words: “By degrees, with the assistance of God, we may do a great deal,” and “God is all-sufficient.”

In the Positio or testimonies gathered after her death we read: “Absorbed in wordless prayer, she carried in her heart those in need of compassion.” Her devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus made her heart go out to all those who were suffering. She carried them in her heart, prayed for them, and offered her life to help them. 

Cor Unum

I'm at my old "stomping grounds," the Jesuit Retreat House in Lake Elmo, Minnesota, located on Lake Demontreville and often referred to by that name. I gave my first retreat here in 1986 and was part of the staff from 2000-2003. Sixty-nine men from around the Twin Cities and as far away as Kansas and California are on retreat with me.

I've given several retreats this summer but have not been able to write about them because I didn't have the necessary computer access. Last week I was at Conception Abbey in the northwest corner of Missouri where I gave a retreat to members of Cor Unum. Though founded in France in 1790, the groups that comprise "Cor Unum" (One Heart), are secular institutes, a relatively new phenomenon in the Church. After Opus Dei, they were the second such canonically recognized group.

The year of their foundation was a difficult time for the Church in France. It was a time of revolution and suppression. The Society of Jesus or Jesuits had already been suppressed but one of their members, Fr. Joseph de Cloriviere, continued to function as a priest and imagined a new form of consecrated life. In a letter dated 1810, he wrote: "I conceived it would be the setting up of a sort of universal Religious Society that would be open to any kind of people, or any age, country or condition, being capable of the evangelical perfection. They would not separate their members from the ordinary faithful people...." This "Society" had shaky beginnings and was re-founded in 1918 by Fr. Daniel Fontaine, another French priest.

Today this group can be found around the world and calls itself "Cor Unum" or "The Family of the Heart of Jesus." A brochure describes them as follows: "The Family of the Heart of Jesus is comprised of three secular institutes (one for clerics, one for celibate laymen, and one for celibate laywomen) and an association of the faithful for married persons and others who wish to belong to the Family without taking vows. The secular institutes are a special structure within the Roman Catholic Church, a form of 'consecrated life,' designed to enable single lay people and diocesan priests to live and work in the secular world while consecrating themselves more fully to the Lord. However, members to do not live in communities (necessarily), and do not wear anything distinctive." The group shares a common spirituality of devotion to the Sacred Heart and of St. Ignatius Loyola. Before its members pronounce their permanent vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience, they make the full thirty day Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius.

On the retreat I gave there were diocesan priests, single lay men and women, and a married couple who had come together from both coasts and places in between. At the end of the retreat, two women pronounced their permanent vows in the Institute of the Heart of Jesus. As always, giving a retreat like this was a blessing for me and another opportunity to learn more about the wonderfully diverse Catholic Church.

Carmelite Sisters of the Divine Heart of Jesus

I am in Kirkwood, Missouri, a suburb of St. Louis, where I am in the middle of a retreat for the Carmelite Sisters of the Divine Heart of Jesus. The Central Province is headquartered here and I gave the sisters a retreat back in December, 2005.  I know this religious order which unites two of my loves--Carmel and the Sacred Heart--not only through this particular community but also because I've given retreats to the Sisters of the Northern Province in Wauwatosa, Wisconsin and the Canadian Province in Missassauga, Ontario.  Whenever I'm in the Milwaukee area for the feast of Our Lady of Mt. Carmel (July 16), I celebrate it with the community in Wauwatosa and I was privileged to be there for special celebrations of the beatification of their foundress, Mother Maria Teresa of St. Joseph, in 2006 and for the 100th anniversary of their foundation in the U.S.A. in 2012. 

Bl. Maria Teresa was an amazing woman. She was born in East Prussia in 1855, the daughter of a staunch Lutheran minister.  She decided to become a Catholic on June 17, 1887 without knowing that this was the feast of the Sacred Heart that year and was received into the Church on October 30, 1888. Prior to this she had spent some time in a convent in Cologne where a deep love for the Eucharist grew.  She wrote about this in her autobiography:

"During the first days of my stay at the convent, the Forty Hours' adoration was observed. It was the first exposition of the Blessed Sacrament and the first nocturnal adoration I had ever attended. I cannot find words to describe my feelings. I was so filled with holy joy that I knelt before the Blessed Sacrament from nine o'clock in the evening until two o'clock in the morning without realizing the time. God inflamed my heart with such fervor that later on, all the sorrows sent to me, or allowed to happen to me by His grace, seemed to be only a drop of water on a glowing iron. They can only cause a momentary flare,  a human twitch of nature, and nothing else. The real fervor stays like the real heat of the iron. When I awoke in the morning, my heart was filled with a burning love for God."

This love impelled her to follow God's will at all costs.  One of my favorite stories of Bl. Maria Teresa is how shortly after this experience in adoration and before she had become a Catholic she, in her words, "desired to become a holocaust of love for God."  She concluded all her prayers with the following words: "O Lord, send me wherever You will, to work for the salvation of souls. Fulfill the ardent longing of my soul, O God, to prove my love and gratitude to You. But if it is possible, do not send me to Berlin. However, Your will be done, not mine."  And where did God send her? That's right. To Berlin, where she began her work of caring for abandoned children and also encountered much opposition.

Pope Pius XII said the following about her: "Never in the history of humanity have events required on the part of a woman so much initiative and daring, so much fidelity, moral strength, spirit of sacrifice and endurance of all kinds of suffering--in a word, so much heroism."

A Croatian Jesuit, Fr. Mihaly Szentmartoni, in his book Even Then Will I Trust, compared her to a locomotive: "As I read the autobiography of the Venerable Anna Maria Tauscher/Mother Mary Teresa of St. Joseph, the image of a hurtling locomotive appeared before my spiritual eyes. This fairly frail woman rumbled through this world like a hurtling locomotive, not only in the figurative sense. She actually crisscrossed old Europe who knows how many times, and also went to America. Travel became a symbol of her life. Like the good old steam locomotives of her time, she whizzed by, overcoming every obstacle in her path, pulling her train, i.e., her associates, candidates, nuns and thousands of impoverished children, old persons and others who suffered from spiritual or physical misery.  Like a good old locomotive, she could fume at those who tried to block her path. No one and nothing could stop her until she reached her final destination, the last station on her journey."

The Eucharist was clearly the fuel for this locomotive of a woman.  When she was finally able to establish her first convent and received permission to have the Blessed Sacrament there, she wrote about that first night in which the Eucharistic Presence of our Lord was in the building:

"Joy filled the hearts of all the guests.... At last they were gone, and I was alone. No, not alone, and as I believed, I would never again be alone. I was with Him whom I had longed for so ardently, and over whose absence I had shed so many tears since leaving the convent in Cologne twenty-five years ago. He was here now, the great King, hidden in the Most Blessed Sacrament. Oh, I felt unutterable bliss; He was mine, and I was His!"

The locomotive kept racing along until September 20, 1938. Her last words to those gathered around her deathbed were: "All that God does is good! Always praise and glorify God!"

For more about Blessed Maria Teresa of St. Joseph, foundress of the Carmelite Sisters of the Divine Heart of Jesus, see the St. Agnes Home website. 

Happy Solemnity of the Visitation!

For most of the world, today is the Feast of the Visitation, but here, at the Toledo Visitation Monastery, it's a Solemnity, the highest rank for liturgical celebrations.  Thus besides singing the Gloria at Mass today we also prayed the Creed and at the end of Mass had a special Papal Blessing.  That's because this is the patronal feast of the Visitation Order. 

Writing about the Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary to her cousin Elizabeth, Wendy Wright captures well the spirit of the Visitation Sisters.  The following passage from her book Heart Speaks to Heart: The Salesian Tradition speaks of the place that the mystery of the Visitation held for the founders, St. Jane Frances de Chantal and St. Francis de Sales:

"It was the Virgin, dear to Jane's own heart since childhood, who was the patroness of the fledgling foundation. And it was the biblical image of Mary's visit to her cousin Elizabeth (Luke 1:39-56) that summarized in iconic fashion the spirit of the new congregation. The mystery of the Visitation for Jane and Francis summed up all the Christian mysteries, and as such it was first and foremost a mystery that expressed the dynamics of love. ... Since love wants to be shared, it likes to visit. Indeed, the mystery of the Incarnation, captured in the biblical scene of the Annunciation, was seen as God's 'kiss' to humanity, God's loving union with humankind through Mary, the spouse and lover. ... Having been visited and prompted, Mary in her turn recapitulates this loving dynamic: she hastens to the hill country and the house of her cousin Elizabeth. There, these two pregnant women meet--one older, long barren and now expecting, the other young and ripe with Love's own longing for the world" (pp. 52-3).

Two hallmarks of the spirituality of the Visitation are humility and gentleness.  God visited Mary with humility and gentleness as the Holy Spirit overshadowed her. Divine humility and gentleness are seen in how God comes to us: not with an army of angels to force the divine plan of love on the world, but as a tiny baby to attract and invite humanity's loving response.

I've often said that humility is not thinking less of oneself but thinking of oneself less.  It's not putting oneself down but taking the attention off oneself.  We see this in Mary after the Annunciation.  She does not think of herself but of her elderly cousin and so she races to her.  At their meeting, Elizabeth praises Mary as "most blessed ... among women."  Mary accepts this praise, recognizing that "all generations will call me blessed," but then she humbly gives credit where credit is due saying, "the Almighty has done great things for me." True humility is truthful and it involves getting the focus off  oneself and onto God and neighbor. 

Mary carried Jesus to Elizabeth. In doing so she was, as Blessed John Paul II put it, "the first tabernacle in history."   He wrote the following in his last encyclical: "When, at the Visitation, she bore in her womb the Word made flesh, she became in some way a “tabernacle” – the first “tabernacle” in history – in which the Son of God, still invisible to our human gaze, allowed himself to be adored by Elizabeth, radiating his light as it were through the eyes and the voice of Mary."

Pope John Paul also wrote that Mary's "Fiat" at the Annunciation--"let it be done to me according to your word"--is echoed in the "Amen" spoken when we receive Holy Communion. In the Eucharist we receive the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ into ourselves. He joins Himself to us in an intimate union in which the two become one flesh (see Ephesians 5: 31-2).  In that sense we too, one with the Body of Christ, become tabernacles carrying Christ into the world. We become "monstrances" who radiate His light through our eyes and voices. 

But it takes great humility to do this.  It means, in the words of St. John the Baptist, "He must increase; I must decrease" (John 3: 30).  This is the goal of every Christian and the Visitation Sisters embody this ideal in a special way for us.

Sacred Heart Novena in Toledo

The first novena or nine day period of prayer took place in the first century (see Acts of the Apostles 1: 4, 13-14). After rising from the dead Jesus told His followers "not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for 'the promise of the Father'"--the Holy Spirit.  Then, after Jesus' ascension, "they entered the city" and "went to the upper room where they were staying" and where they "devoted themselves with one accord to prayer, together with some women, and Mary the mother of Jesus...."  These nine days of prayer culminated in Pentecost and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit.

Since then novenas of one kind or another have been offered and today the Church begins the Novena of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.  I am privileged to be participating in it at a special place--the Visitation Monastery in Toledo, Ohio.

According to these Visitation Sisters: "Through our Sister, Saint Margaret Mary, we have received the mission to love and make others love the Sacred Heart of Jesus."  One of the ways in which they do this is through the annual celebration of the Novena of the Sacred Heart.

For the next nine days I will celebrate Mass for the Sisters and visitors to their chapel at 7 AM and 7:30 PM.  The novena prayers are recited during the Prayer of the Faithful and after Communion. I'll preach and also celebrate the Sacrament of Reconciliation after each Mass. 

As the followers of Jesus entered upon the first novena with trust and confidence, so do we enter upon this novena.  "Sacred Heart of Jesus, I trust in Thee!" 

Today's Gospel (Mark 10: 46-52) is a perfect beginning for our novena.  The blind man Bartimaeus cries out to  Jesus, asking him to "have pity."  The crowd tries to silence him, but he continues to cry out.  Jesus stops and tells them to call the blind man over. They say these most consoling words to Bartimaeus: "Take courage; get up, Jesus is calling you."  But then, when he comes to Jesus, he is asked a question: "What do you want me to do for you?"  It seems odd that Jesus would ask him that.  Isn't it obvious to anyone with common sense much less to one who, as the first reading from Sirach 42 says, "plumbs the depths and penetrates the heart?" The man is blind and he wants to see. But Jesus, with utmost respect, does not make assumptions about the man's desires. He invites him, and us, to be in touch with the deep desires of our hearts and to put words to those desires.  Only after the man states clearly "I want to see" does Jesus heal him.

And so, as we begin this Novena of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, we, like Bartimaeus, hear the words of the crowd echo in our own hearts: "Take courage; get up, Jesus is calling you."  We hear Jesus ask, "What do you want me to do for you?"  What is it we want Jesus to do for us and our loved ones and our world during this powerful period of prayer?

"A Stupendous Gift"

I am blessed to be in the second day of an eight day retreat that I am giving to the Carmelite Sisters of Flemington, New Jersey.  So far I have been reflecting with the Sisters on a beautiful 1999 document, "Verbi Sponsa"--an instruction from the Congregation  for Institutes of Contemplative Life and  for Societies of Apostolic Life.  From beginning to end this document, subtitled "Instruction on the Contemplative Life and on the Enclosure of Nuns, is filled with gratitude for this special vocation.

The first section says that "cloistered nuns" are "a unique grace and precious gift within the mystery of the Church's holiness."  And the conclusion contains this tribute which contains a quote from the Apostolic Exhortation Vita Consacrata: "The intention of this Instruction is to confirm the Church's high esteem for the wholly contemplative life of cloistered nuns, and to reaffirm her concern to safeguard its authentic nature, 'that this world may never be without a ray of divine beauty to lighten the path of human existence'."

Next week, using the writings of St. Teresa of Avila, the Catechism of the Catholic Church, and excerpts from Pope Benedict's first volume of Jesus of Nazareth, I will reflect with the Sisters on the Our Father. The Sisters live a cloistered life, apart from the world for which they offer intense prayer. I celebrate Mass and present my conferences through a grill.

I'm especially blessed to be here today, the World Day for Consecrated Life. In 1997 Blessed John Paul II called for this special day on which to remember and pray for all those who are called to the consecrated life like these Sisters and like myself, a Jesuit.  In his Message for the first such World Day, Pope John Paul gave three reasons for instituting this special day.

First, to give praise and thanks to God for the vocation to consecrated life which the Holy Father called a "stupendous gift." He followed these words with a quote from the autobiography of St. Teresa of Avila, the foundress of these Discalced Carmelites: "What would become of the world if there were no religious?"

Secondly, Pope John Paul wrote, "this day is intended to promote a knowledge of and esteem for the consecrated life by the entire People of God."  From such "knowledge" and "esteem" it is hoped that many more young people will hear God calling them to this life.

The third reason for this special day concerns consecrate people themselves. Blessed John Paul II hoped that this celebration would help them "to acquire a more vivid consciousness of their irreplaceable mission in the Church and in the world."  He wanted them each year "to return to the sources of their vocation, to take stock of their own lives, to confirm the commitment of their own consecration." Doing this, the pope was convinced, "they will be able to give witness with joy to the men and women of our time, in diverse situations, that the Lord is the Love who is able to fill the heart of the human person."

What a blessing it is for me to celebrate the "stupendous gift" of a religious vocation at the Carmel of Mary Immaculate and Saint Mary Magdalen in Flemington, NJ! What a blessing it is to give a retreat to these Sisters during the Year of Faith!

Fr. Guanella and the Daughters

On December 15, 1912, Fr. Luigi Guanella boarded a ship to take him across the Atlantic to the United States.  He was 70 and the winter seas were rough.  He spent most of the time sick  in his cabin and as the ship was tossed around he probably thought about another ship named "Titanic" that tried to make this same journey only eight months earlier.  He was on his way to Chicago where the archbishop had asked for the help of a community of Sisters which he had founded.  He carried a letter from his friend, Pope Pius X, which read:

"Fr. Guanella undertakes this journey to explore the possibility of beginning a foundation directed by his Sisters to assist the mentally and physically disabled of every age and social background in order to care for them and look after their needs.  We bear witness that these dear Sisters here in Rome and anywhere else are very appreciated because of their committed ministry and obedience to the holy charism of their institute.  They perform miracles of true charity."

On December 23 the ship carrying Fr. Guanella docked in New York.  Over the next one and a half months he visited Boston, Providence, St. Louis, Cincinnati, Buffalo, Utica, New Haven, Baltimore, and Washington, as well as Chicago where he laid the groundwork for the first Sisters to follow him.  He would have liked to have gone to Genoa City, Wisconsin where some of his relatives had lived and died, but he did not have time to make that trip.  He left the U.S. in early February and arrived back in Naples on February 22, 1913.

Who are these Sisters about whom Pope St. Pius X spoke so highly?  In 1871 two sets of siblings, the Bosatta sisters and the Minatta sisters, came together with the encouragement of their pastor to care for the orphans and the sick in their village.  They were called the "Pious Union of the Daughters of Mary Immaculate."  In 1881 Fr. Guanella was sent to take the place of their deceased pastor and in time they changed their name to what it is today--the Daughters of St. Mary of Providence.  From this small beginning they have spread throughout the world in order to create, in their words, a "culture of charity," by caring for the poor and abandoned, the elderly, and especially the developmentally disabled. 

One of the original four, Clare Bosatta (1858-1887), was beatified in 1991.  Fr. Luigi Guanella, who was himself beatified in 1964 and canonized in 2011, was amazed at her deep spirituality and took it upon himself to read St. Teresa of Avila and St. John of the Cross, the great Carmelite mystics and doctors of the Church, in order to be a better spiritual director for her.  He wrote the following about her.  His words are a reminder to us that because the Son of God united in himself a divine nature and a human nature, and because he said that whatever we do for the least of his children we do for him, our own longing for God is partially satisfied on earth not only in prayer but in our service of our least brothers and sisters.

"Clare wanted God; she wanted to be able to hug Him physically and see His face if she could, but not being able to do that, she extended her hugs to the creatures who could attract her to Him and from whom she could draw a drop of water that could quench her heart which was always thirsty for God."

Mount St. Joseph

I'm in Lake Zurich, Illinois these days, at a place called Mount St. Joseph.  It's a care facility for developmentally disabled adults that is run by the Daughters of St. Mary of Providence.  I've written about them and their recently (October 23, 2011) canonized founder St. Louis Guanella in other blog posts.  I'm giving a retreat to a dozen Sisters from various parts of the U.S., using their small community chapel where we meet for Mass, adoration, prayers, and my talks.  I was happy to find that they include the Daily Offering in their morning prayers and even explicitly recite together the pope's monthly intentions. 

On Tuesday afternoon I took a walk around their spacious grounds and entered the large church that serves the care center.  I didn't go beyond the vestibule because I didn't want to distract or disturb the residents who were praying the rosary together.  I couldn't help thinking how pleasing to God are the prayers of these people whom St. Louis Guanella called "good children." And how powerful they are!

The world doesn't understand the developmentally disabled.  Through testing and abortion it wants to rid itself of any "imperfect" human beings.  But I have found--through my high school classmate's Down Syndrome sister, through my work as a Jesuit novice at Cambridge State Hospital in Minnesota, and through Andy, the son of one of our volunteers--that the disabled, the mentally and physically challenged, are gifts from God.  All life is a gift and these particular gifts are given to us so that we may have the opportunity to love God by loving them in their weakness.  As God told St. Paul when he asked that his particular weakness might be removed so that he would be a better and more effective apostle: "My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness."  (see 2 Corinthians 12:9.)

Mother Mary Teresa Tallon

The woman who founded the Parish Visitors of Mary Immaculate with whom I've been on retreat this week is Mother Mary Teresa Tallon.  She was born on a farm near Utica, NY in 1867, the seventh of eight children of her Irish immigrant parents.  At 19 she entered the Daughters of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul but left after a few months.  Shortly thereafter she entered the Holy Cross Sisters in South Bend, IN where she stayed for 33 years.  She felt a strong call to start a new congregation that would go into the streets and homes and, like the Good Shepherd, find those who were drifting away or had left the faith.  The Parish Visitors were founded on August 15, 1920 and Mother Mary Teresa died on March 10, 1954.

She gave many talks to her Sisters which were taken down in short-hand, typed, and published in a series of books.  During this week, I've found myself resonating with her words and quoting her frequently.

In the Sisters' Constitutions, describing the spirituality of the congregation we read: "Parish Visitors of Mary Immaculate are to be contemplatives for the street.  They are to have cloistered hearts, safeguarding a faithfilled contemplative spirit in the midst of the world, and bringing to the people they serve the fruits of their contemplation."  This sounds very much like the Jesuit ideal of being "contemplatives in action."  The Parish Visitors do not live in a cloister away from the world.  In fact, Mother Mary Teresa said to her Sisters: "Your cloister is the Sacred Heart."

In my work with the Apostleship of Prayer I often speak about Pope Benedict's Apostolic Exhortation Sacramentum Caritatis where he calls the Eucharist a mystery to be believed, celebrated, and lived.  Mother Mary Teresa's spirituality was very Eucharistic.  She said:

"In the holy Sacrifice of the Mass, every morning, we offer Jesus, the Divine Victim, to His Father, in union with the priest, and as we do so we offer ourselves with Him and our poor, needy people as well.  The best prayer is the liturgy of Holy Mass, therein we ask that all may be saved--through the power of Christ in His Holy Church.  This thought strengthens our faith, sustains our hope, augments our love.  We pray the Mass; we live the Mass...."

In every Mass we offer ourselves with Jesus to the Father.  But we need to be conscious of this, as Mother Mary Teresa said:

"Offer yourself in sacrifice during Holy Mass, every day; ... lift and offer yourself up to God with Jesus at the Elevation--a complete holocaust."

Though this offering is made with Jesus at Mass, it is then lived throughout the day.  I was pleased to find Mother quoting a version of the Child's Daily Offering Prayer that we use in the Apostleship of Prayer and telling her Sisters to renew their offering throughout the day with this simple prayer.  She said:

"She may unite her heart, a seemingly small offering, to the infinite offering of Christ, by frequently saying the following simple verse that she may have learned as a child:

My God, I offer Thee this day
       All that I do, or think, or say,
Uniting it with what was done
       On earth by Jesus Christ, Thy Son."

What inspired Mother Mary Teresa to found a new congregation and what continues to inspire her Sisters is the love the Sacred Heart of Jesus.  It is what inspires the daily offering of all Apostles of Prayer as well.  Mother wrote:

"The Sacred Heart's inspiration of charity caused this Community to be established, and it will be the same inspiration that will perpetuate it successfully."

The fire of love within the Heart of Jesus set Mother Mary Teresa's heart on fire with love for all those who were at risk of not knowing or rejecting the love of God.  She encouraged her Sisters:

"Rise to the height of the true spiritual standard: the very Heart of the Good Shepherd."  And she said that "the Parish Visitors of Mary Immaculate ... take the message from the Heart of Jesus, that was lit at His Heart's flame and fostering the grace, they ignite other souls, that these may be brought to share in the favors that they themselves possess. ... Through all their activity they carry with them the light and heart of divine love."

The Sisters publish a quarterly magazine called The Parish Visitor which contains many more of Mother Mary Teresa Tallon's writings.  An annual subscription is only $5 and it can be obtained at:

The Parish Visitor Magazine

P O Box 658

Monroe, NY   10949

The Parish Visitors

I'm in Monroe, NY these days, giving a retreat to the Parish Visitors of Mary Immaculate.  This group of consecrated women was founded in 1920 in New York City by Mother Mary Teresa Tallon.  They call themselves "contemplative-missionaries in the midst of parish life."  They are dedicated to family ministry through prayer, the visitation of homes, and religious education and they serve in the U.S., Nigeria, and the Philippines.  Here is something their foundress wrote about their charism in 1930.  Her words and the goal of the Parish Visitors are as important today as they were then.

"The trend of the day is toward materialism, overindulgence, luxury, amusement.  Many families, caught up in the whirl of the times, or through poverty, change of residence, or some unfortunate mistake, have let slip the precious heritage of the True Faith which once was theirs.  Many, caught up in the mad seeking for pleasure or the blind battle for the almighty dollar, have forgotten their Creator or, entangled by spurious reading, have denied Him entirely.  All these cases cry loudly for help--for some apostle of holy charity to alleviate, to rectify.  This is where the Parish Visitor of Mary Immaculate comes in; one who can enter homes and seek for the Shepherd's lost sheep, who is consumed with a divine thirst for souls--'Souls!  Souls!  Lord, give me souls!' must be her cry.

On August 15 the Parish Visitors celebrated the 92nd anniversary of their founding with a special guest, Cardinal Timothy Dolan.  I was able to concelebrate Mass with this friend of the Apostleship of Prayer whom I first met when he was Archbishop of Milwaukee.  After Mass we went to visit the nearby grave of Mother Mary Teresa Tallon whose cause for beatification the Sisters hope will soon be opened. 

Praying with the Sisters

While giving a retreat to some Religious Sisters of Mercy of Alma Michigan, I've been privileged to share in their prayer life.  While these Sisters are very active around the world, prayer is certainly a big part of their lives.  It's clear that prayer has a very apostolic dimension for them.   For example, every day the Sisters make a Holy Hour in front of the Blessed Sacrament.  They begin by naming many intentions and people for whom they are offering their Holy Hour.  I was happily surprised to hear, at the top of the list, the Holy Father's two monthly prayer intentions which we in the Apostleship of Prayer publicize.  That the Holy Hour has a strong apostolic dimension can be clearly seen in the prayer which the Sisters recite as they begin:

O Jesus, Son of God, You Who are to bestow Your blessing upon us assembled here, we humbly beg You that it may impart to each and all of us the graces we need.  Let Your blessing extend to places far and wide.  Let it be felt by the afflicted who cannot come here to receive it personally.  Let the weak and the tempted feel its power wherever they may be.  Let poor sinners come under its influence prompting them to turn to You.  Let it reach the missionaries who work for Your people, whose God You are.

Lord, we humbly beg Your blessing for us here and for all those dear to us, and may it effect that secret purpose for which, O Lord, You always generously impart it.  Amen. 

The Sisters also pray Acts of Faith, Hope, and Charity every time they gather for prayer.  Here are these very simple and beautiful prayers:

My God, I believe in Thee and all Thy Church doth teach, because Thou hast said it and Thy Word is true.

My God, I hope in Thee, for grace and for glory, because of Thy promises, Thy mercy and Thy power.

My God, because Thou art so good, I love Thee with all my heart, and for Thy sake, I love my neighbor as myself.

After Mass the Sisters pray the Prayer to St. Michael, the Suscipe of Venerable Catherine McAuley, a prayer for her beatification, and the following prayer which Blessed John Paul II wrote as an Act of Consecration of the Modern World to our Lady of Fatima. 

Prayer for Peace to Mary, the Light of Hope

Immaculate Heart of Mary, help us to conquer the menace of evil, which so easily takes root in the hearts of the people of today, and whose immeasurable effects already weigh down our modern world and seem to block the paths towards the future!

From famine and war, deliver us.
From nuclear war, from incalculable self-destruction, from every kind of war, deliver us.
From sins against the life of man from its very beginning, deliver us.
From hatred and from the demeaning of the dignity of the children of God, deliver us.
From every kind of injustice in the life of society, both national and international, deliver us.
From readiness to trample on the commandments of God, deliver us.
From attempts to stifle in human hearts the very truth of God, deliver us.
From the loss of awareness of good and evil, deliver us.
From sins against the Holy Spirit, deliver us.

Accept, O Mother of Christ, this cry laden with the sufferings of all individual human beings, laden with the sufferings of whole societies.  Help us with the power of the Holy Spirit to conquer all sin: individual sin and the "sin of the world," sin in all its manifestations.  Let there be revealed once more in the history of the world the infinite saving power of the redemption, the power of merciful Love.  May it put a stop to evil.  May it transform consciences.  May your Immaculate Heart reveal for all the light of hope. Amen.

As I get ready to return home to Milwaukee, I'm consoled by the thought that the Religious Sisters of Mercy of Alma are offering these prayers every day.

Venerable Catherine McAuley's Sisters

Since last Tuesday I've been in Alma, Michigan where I began a retreat for some of the Religious Sisters of Mercy of Alma-- 2 novices about to make their first profession, 9 Sisters in temporary vows, and 2 perpetually professed Sisters.  It has been a retreat for me as well because I've participated in their celebration of the Liturgy of the Hours, their daily Holy Hour, and the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.  I've also enjoyed getting to know a bit about their foundress, Mother Catherine McAuley, whom Blessed John Paul II declared "Venerable" in 1990, the first step toward her beatification.

Catherine McAuley was born in Ireland in 1778 and died in 1841.  In 1827 she used an inheritance to open a home for poor girls, the first "Home of Mercy."  The archbishop encouraged her to start a religious congregation to continue this good work and in 1831 the Sisters of Mercy began.  In contrast to the cloistered contemplative nuns with whom most people were familiar, they came to be known as "the walking sisters" because they went through the streets helping the poor and sick.  Today, in addition to the three vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience, they take a fourth vow of service to the poor, sick, and ignorant. 

St. Ignatius, the founder of my religious order, the Jesuits, wrote a prayer of offering ("Suscipe") at the end of his "Spiritual Exercises."  When one comes to know the love of God and the gift of Himself that He makes in Jesus and the Eucharist, one wants to return love for love by making of gift of oneself.  I was delighted that Venerable Catherine McAuley also wrote an offering prayer which the Sisters pray together every day after Mass.  Here is Mother Catherine's "Suscipe:"

My God, I am Thine for time and eternity.
Teach me to cast myself entirely
Into the arms of Thy loving Providence
With the most lively, unlimited confidence
In Thy compassionate, tender pity.
Grant me, O most Merciful Redeemer,
That whatever Thou dost ordain or permit
May be acceptable to me.
Take from my heart all painful anxiety,
Suffer nothing to sadden me but sin,
Nothing to delight me but the hope of
coming to the possession of Thee,
My God and my all,
In Thine everlasting kingdom.
Amen.

St. Jeanne Jugan's Sisters

I walked past this triptych of St. Jeanne Jugan several times a day for the last week.  It's on a wall in the St. Ann's Novitiate for the Little Sisters of the Poor in Queens Village, New York.  I've known the Little Sisters, the order which St. Jeanne Jugan founded, since I was a Jesuit novice in St. Paul, Minnesota from 1971-3.  Some of my fellow novices worked at the Sister's home for the elderly poor in St. Paul and we all used to visit a Jesuit, Brother Emil, who lived there.  This is my second retreat at St. Ann's and my fourth retreat with Little Sisters.  With each retreat I learn more about them, their foundress, and their spirituality. 

In my retreat conference this morning I talked about the Eucharist and afterwards we celebrated the votive Mass of the Most Holy Eucharist.  The Gospel of the day was perfect: Matthew 11: 28-30, where Jesus says, "Come to me all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest.  Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart; and you will find rest for yourselves."  The Sacred Heart of Jesus is present in the Eucharist.  Like John at the Last Supper, we can draw near to the Heart of Jesus in adoration and find within that Heart the rest and peace that we need. 

St. Jeanne Jugan, like so many saints, knew this.  Born during the terrible days of the French Revolution in 1792, she died in 1879.  She was declared venerable one hundred years later and was beatified in 1982.  Pope Benedict XVI canonized her in 2009.  Some of her sayings have been collected and the following is one that fits today's Gospel well:

"Jesus is waiting for you in the chapel.  Go and find him when your strength and patience are giving out, when you feel lonely and helpless.  Say to him: 'You know well what is happening, my dear Jesus.  I have only you.  Come to my aid...'  And then go your way.  And don't worry about knowing how you are going to manage.  It is enough to have told our good Lord.  He has an excellent memory."

The Spirit of Jeanne Jugan

I'm finishing my retreat with the Little Sisters of the Poor whose foundress was canonized in 2009. St. Jeanne Jugan, also known as Sister Mary of the Cross, was born in France in 1792. We celebrated her birthday yesterday with special prayers at Mass and a birthday cake for dinner. Her spirituality includes the Sacred Heart and Immaculate Heart devotion of St. John Eudes whose congregation for lay women--the Third Order of the Admirable Mother--she joined. She was also deeply influenced by the Brothers of St. John of God who cared for the sick and took a vow of hospitality in addition to the vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience. After caring for a homeless elderly woman, even going so far as to giving up her own bed, she was joined by others who wanted to help and by 1847 they had started four houses for the elderly poor. By 1851 there were 300 Sisters serving more than 1,500 people in 15 houses. Blessed Pius IX approved them as a religious congregation in 1854. Today the Little Sisters of the Poor keep the spirit of their foundress alive in 32 countries on 5 continents.

When the canonization of Jeanne Jugan was announced, Francis Cardinal George, then president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, said: "As the Church anticipates the canonization of Jeanne Jugan ... we might recall the words of Pope John Paul II at her beatification: 'God could glorify no more humble a servant than she!' The quiet but eloquent radiance of her life continues to shine out in the lives of the Little Sisters of the Poor today.... These residences are icons of mercy where Christ is welcomed and served in the elderly poor with the utmost respect for their dignity."

Last Sunday, Saints John and Paul Parish in Larchmont, NY blessed an icon of St. Jeanne Jugan and began a new ministry called "Family Jeanne Jugan." I've always thought that our local parishes should be places where people care for one another's needs. When people find themselves in need the first place that they should think of looking for help should be their parish. This would give tremendous witness to the world: "See how they love one another." Taking their inspiration from St. Jeanne Jugan, who gave up her own room and bed to help a poor woman, this Larchmont parish has committed itself in the following way:

"We will identify the elderly among us who are most in need. These individuals will then be matched with three volunteer families who will coordinate assisting with doctor visits, weekly errands and attendance at Mass, or Communion in the home. Together, these families and seniors will form a small community rooted in Trinitarian Love."

May this new initiative bear good fruit and inspire many others to follow the example of this parish and the Little Sisters as they reverence the dignity of people whom society at large is increasingly viewing as burdens.

Apostle of Prayer Canonized

Blessed Luigi Guanella is being canonized in Rome today. When he was a seminarian he enrolled in the Apostleship of Prayer which he saw as the perfect way to live out his devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus.

The Mass readings for today, the 30th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle A, are perfect for this great event. In the Gospel (Matthew 22: 34-40), Jesus gives the Great Commandment: "You shall love the Lord, your God, will all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and the first commandment. The second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself."

Jesus tells us to love as God has loved us--completely. God has not only given us everything--our life and health, our talents and gifts--he has also given us his very self in giving us his Son Jesus who shared our life with its joys and sorrows. Jesus gave his life for us on the cross, offering everything for our salvation. This offering becomes present in every celebration of Mass where Jesus gives us everything of himself--his body and blood, soul and divinity, and his heart. Knowing this, our response is to love as God has loved us--totally, loving with our heart, soul, and mind, with our entire self.

Loving God so totally means that we will love what God loves. And what God loves is humanity, all his children, our brothers and sisters. Having received the heart of Jesus in Holy Communion, our hearts are moved as the heart of Jesus was moved when he saw those in need.

Matthew's Gospel speaks of the heart of Jesus being moved several times:

Matthew 9: 36 "At the sight of the crowds, his heart was moved with pity for them because they were troubled and abandoned, like sheep without a shepherd."

Matthew 14: 14 "When he disembarked and saw the vast crowd, his heart was moved with pity for them, and he cured their sick."

Matthew 15: 32 "Jesus summoned his disciples and said, 'My heart is moved with pity for the crowd, for they have been with me now for three days and have nothing to eat. I do not want to send them away hungry, for fear they may collapse on the way.'"

As the heart of Jesus was moved with pity for the crowds of people--poor, hungry, abandoned, troubled, disabled--so was the heart of Fr. Luigi Guanella. That makes sense. Totally in love with God, he shared God's love for those who were most abandoned by their families and society. The Daughters of St. Mary of Providence and the Servants of Charity now carry on Fr. Guanella's work.

Congratulations to them on the occasion of their founder's canonization! The Apostleship of Prayer shares the joy that one of its own has attained this glory. The recognition of Fr. Luigi's holiness and his powerful intercession inspires us to follow his example.

For more about St. Luigi Guanella, see this earlier post.

The Thief

I've heard that the earliest known image of Jesus depicts him as the Good Shepherd. Today's Gospel (Luke 12: 39-48) gives a very different image of Jesus. After warning his disciples that "if the master of the house had known the hour when the thief was coming, he would not have let his house be broken into," he goes on to talk about the Son of Man coming "at an hour you do not expect." Like many of the parables which are designed to startle us into deeper reflection, so this comparison which Jesus makes is shocking.

Yet many people do think of God as a thief. There is a tendency to think of our lives as our own, not God's. Our gifts and talents and hard-earned possessions are our own, not God's. We see death as God stealing what is rightfully ours. The reality is that everything we are and have belongs to God. This was the meaning of last Sunday's Gospel (Matthew 22: 15-21). Jesus says to give the Roman coin back to the one whose image is on it and to give "to God what belongs to God." We who are made in the image and likeness of God and bear that image belong to God, not ourselves.

Our lives are a series of exercises in letting go. We practice surrender, preparing for the ultimate surrender when God will ask of us our very lives. Our practice of making a daily offering can help us. What also helps is the example of saints, like the North American Jesuit Martyrs whom we honor today, or St. Jeanne Jugan.

I'm giving a retreat to 17 Little Sisters of the Poor at their retreat house and summer vacation facility for seniors in Flemington, NJ. St. Jeanne Jugan, their foundress, was canonized by Pope Benedict in 2009. When Blessed John Paul II beatified her in 1982, he said: "Jeanne invites all of us, and I quote here from the Rule of the Little Sisters, to share personally in the beatitude of spiritual poverty, leading to that complete dispossession which commits a soul to God."

"Complete dispossession." This is not something we like to hear. In our "super-sizing" age where "more is better", St. Jeanne Jugan, like the Gospel, is counter-cultural. We tend to fool ourselves, thinking that we are in control. The reality is that God is God and we are not. We are God's creatures and beloved children. We and all we have belong to God.

The Feminine Genius

Blessed Luigi Guanella is going to be canonized on October 23 this year. I first made his acquaintance last year when I gave a retreat to some Sisters of one of the congregations he founded. Last Friday and Saturday I was in Chicago for their "community days," an annual gathering which brought together 43 women from around the U.S., as well as from Mexico and the Philippines. I gave six talks and one of them was entitled "The Feminine Genius."

Today is the Feast of the Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary when we remember how Mary, after receiving the news that she was to be the Mother of God, went to her kinswoman Elizabeth, an older woman whom Mary had just found out was pregnant. Her love and sensitivity to her relative's need overshadowed the shock of her own situation. She saw the need of another and responded to it.

That is the "Feminine Genius." It's no surprise that when Fr. Guanella saw the needs of the developmentally disabled people of Nineteenth Century Italy, as well as orphans, the poor, senior citizens, and whomever was marginalized, he turned to women for help. He founded the Daughters of St. Mary of Providence before he founded his congregation for men, the Servants of Charity. Though he may not have used these words of Blessed John Paul II--the feminine genius--he knew their reality.

Here are some excerpts from Pope John Paul II's writings about the feminine genius:

In our own time, the successes of science and technology make it possible to attain material well-being to a degree hitherto unknown. While this favors some, it pushes others to the margins of society. In this way, unilateral progress can also lead to a gradual loss of sensitivity for man, that is, for what is essentially human. In this sense, our time in particular awaits the manifestation of that "genius" which belongs to women, and which can ensure sensitivity for human beings in every circumstance: because they are human! --and because "the greatest of these is love" (1 Cor. 13: 13). [1988 Apostolic Letter Mulieris Dignitatis (On the Dignity and Vocation of Women on the Occasion of the Marian Year), #30.

[W]omen have the task of assuring the moral dimension of culture, the dimension, namely, of a culture worthy of the person.... How great are the possibilities and responsibilities of woman in this area, at a time when the development of science and technology is not always inspired and measured by true wisdom, with the inevitable risk of "de-humanizing" human life, above all when it would demand a more intense love and a more generous acceptance. [1988 Apostolic Exhortation Christifideles Laici (On the Vocation and the Mission of the Lay Faithful in the Church and in the World), #51]

Progress usually tends to be measured according to the criteria of science and technology. ... Much more important is the social and ethical dimension, which deals with human relations and spiritual values. In this area, which often develops in an inconspicuous way beginning with the daily relationships between people, especially within the family, society certainly owes much to the "genius of women." ... Perhaps more than men, women acknowledge the person, because they see persons with their hearts. They see them independently of various ideological or political systems. They see others in their greatness and limitations; they try to go out to them and help them. [1995 Letter to Women, #9, 12]

In a word, we can say that the cultural change which we are calling for demands from everyone the courage to adopt a new life-style, consisting in making practical choices--at the personal, family, social and international level--on the basis of a correct scale of values: the primacy of being over having, of the person over things. This renewed life-style involves a passing from indifference to concern for others, from rejection to acceptance of them. Other people are not rivals from whom we must defend ourselves, but brothers and sisters to be supported. They are to be loved for their own sakes, and they enrich us by their very presence. ... In transforming culture so that it supports life, women occupy a place, in thought and action, which is unique and decisive. It depends on them to promote a "new feminism" which rejects the temptation of imitating models of "male domination", in order to acknowledge and affirm the true genius of women in every aspect of the life of society, and overcome all discrimination, violence and exploitation. Making my own the words of the concluding message of the Second Vatican Council, I address to women this urgent appeal: "Reconcile people with life". [1995 Encyclical Evangelium Vitae (The Gospel of Life), #98, 99].

The concluding message to which Pope John Paul II refers was part of the solemn closing ceremony of the Second Vatican Council on December 8, 1965. The bishops addressed special messages to various groups including the women of the world. Here is part of the message which once again makes clear how essential the feminine genius is for the good of the world:

Reconcile people with life and above all, we beseech you, watch carefully over the future of our race. Hold back the hand of man who, in a moment of folly, might attempt to destroy human civilization. ... Women, you who know how to make truth sweet, tender, and accessible, make it your task to bring the spirit of this Council into institutions, schools, homes, and daily life. Women of the entire universe, whether Christian or non-believing, you to whom life is entrusted at this grave moment in history, it is for you to save the peace of the world.