Mount Grace Convent and the Pink SIsters

 They have a convent in St. Louis.


The Congregation of the Holy Spirit Adoration Sisters (SSpSAP= Congregatio Servarum Spiritus Sancti de Adoratione Perpetua) was founded on December 8, 1896, by St. Arnold Janssen.

We are a cloistered-contemplative missionary Congregation, living in community, whose members are entirely dedicated to the contemplative life in the service of perpetual adoration of the Blessed Sacrament. The Church's missionary activity and the sanctification of priests are particularly remembered in our life of prayer, which includes the singing of the Liturgy of the Hours (Divine Office) in choir.
We carry out our service in close union with the Lord, whom we follow in a life of poverty, chastity and obedience. The Papal enclosure that we observe is a special way of being with the Lord, its totality signaling our absolute dedication. Freed from distractions, our hearts expand to include every need and distress. Before the Eucharistic Throne, we adore God on behalf of our brothers and sisters throughout the world.
The rose color of our habits, which we wear in honor of the Holy Spirit, symbolizes the joy of our dedication to the Third Person of the Blessed Trinity. Our way of life witnesses to the basic truth that God alone is the true center of being and the goal of history, that he alone can satisfy the longings of the human heart, and that every good thing comes from him.

Well, At Least She Wasn't Called A "Nazi".

Back in 2015, Katy Perry and the Catholic Church made headlines when she purchased the Order of the Most Holy and Immaculate Heart of the Blessed Virgin Mary's convent in the hills of Los Angeles from the L.A. archdiocese for $14.5 million.

The problem? The nuns who'd long lived there had already sold the 30,000-square-foot sanctuary located on eight acres in the Los Angeles hills to businesswoman Dana Hollister, a restauranteur, the previous year. The archdiocese insisted the sisters didn't have the right to make a sale though the nuns argued otherwise, a judge sided with the church an invalidated the sale in 2016.

The wild drama and the ensuing court battles have been brutal for all sides. But now, the only surviving nun from the holy order, Sister Rita Callanan, is speaking out about a devastating year she says has broken her body and her spirit.

"I really didn't like Katy Perry. I'm sure she doesn't like me," Sister Rita, 81, told the New York Post, adding that she feels the pop star and "American Idol" judge now has "blood on her hands" following the death of Rita's best friend, Sister Catherine Rose Holzman. The nun, 89, died at an L.A. courthouse last year as the Catholic nuns took on Katy's lawyers in another round. 

The Post reports that Sister Catherine Rose's last words were "Katy Perry. Please stop."

 Geez. Lighten up, Francis.

Sister Mary Card Shark - To the Tune of $500,000 or More

 READ THE WHOLE THING.



The first three cards were red, probably diamonds. Maybe hearts, but this was in the spring of 2011, years before anyone thought to make permanent note of such things. Definitely red, though, and definitely the same suit, and one was a queen, because Jack Alexander had a queen-high flush on the flop, which is the kind of hand a man remembers.
Jack was in Father Jim's Saloon, which was neither a fully equipped casino nor a permanent establishment but rather the function hall of St. James Catholic School in Torrance, California, tricked out for the evening with hay bales and such to give the place a country-western theme. Jack was playing poker for charity, the charity being St. James School itself. Raising money for the school was practically an obligation, like Communion or confession. On his tuition check, Jack had added $500 to the St. James School Education Foundation, a hundred dollars to the Big Red Raffle, a hundred to another raffle, and $225 so his three kids would be allowed to raise more money in a jog-a-thon. And that was just at the beginning of the school year.

Sister Mary Margaret was at the final table again. In fact, it was just her and Jack left, probably more than $1,000 of charity chips at stake, and Jack pulled his queen-high flush on the flop.
Jack did not bet aggressively. He slow-rolled the sister, tried not to spook her into folding. She called.
The dealer turned over an ace. At best, Sister Mary Margaret had three of a kind, and that was assuming she had a pair in the hole. Another bet, more aggressive, Jack thinking, I'm gonna flush her out.
Last card. Another queen. Maybe she had two pair, queens and whatever she might be holding. Or she had a third queen. Neither one beats a flush.
“I'm all in,” Jack said.
As Jack remembers it, the sister didn't even blink. She smiled. “Me, too.”
Jack showed his diamonds, started to reach for the chips.
Sister Mary Margaret turned over an ace and a queen. Full house, queens over aces.
Jack stared, slack-jawed, at her cards. Man, he thought, this lady is one hell of a poker player.

Are You Smarter Than a Nun?

Here's your chance to find out.

Catholic IQ.

Speaking of Benedictines....

 Father Z tells us what they have been up to...


Over the years, I’ve written often of the great Benedictines of Mary, Queen of Apostles, in Gower, MO near Kansas City.   They record wonderful music discs.  They make vestments. They, above all, pray for priests and bishops.   This is a traditional Benedictine community, using the traditional Roman Rite.  They have so many postulants that they will soon have to found daughter houses.
Tomorrow, Sunday 9 September and Monday the 10th mark great days for this faithful Benedictine community of nuns and for the whole Church.
On Sunday, their new monastic church will be solemnly consecrated using the traditional Pontificale Romanum.
On Monday, their superior Mother Cecilia, will be consecrated as their community’s first Abbess!

Buy a Nun a Book Day, September 17!

The Benedictines would like to remind you....

International Buy a Nun a Book Day, on 17 September, the feast of St Hildegard of Bingen, Doctor of the Church and Benedictine polymath. The idea behind the day is simple. Nuns and Sisters (especially missionaries) often don’t have the opportunity to choose a book for themselves. They have to rely on what is already in the monastery/convent library, if they have one, or on what they are given (which is why you will often find lots of lives of St John Paul II on religious bookshelves!).
This is YOUR chance to show a nun or sister that you value her by delighting her with a book. So,

• find a nun or sister
• ask her what book or ebook she would like
• present her with a copy on 17 September
• pray for her.

Drop Kick Me, Jesus, Through the Goalposts of Life

Toronto, Ohio, Jun 18, 2018 / 03:26 am (CNA).- Every single vocation story is different, but Sr. Rita Clare (Anne) Yoches is probably one of the more unusual.
Sr. Rita Clare, who this month will profess final vows with the Franciscan Sisters T.O.R. of Penance of the Sorrowful Mother, was a four-time national champion professional football player.prior to entering the convent.
Yes, that’s American football. (She was a fullback.) Nowadays, the only football Yoches is playing is the annual two-hand touch game she organizes with the 38 T.O.R. sisters she lives with in Toronto, Ohio.
Although she was raised Catholic and attended Catholic schools, Yoches said she never once considered becoming a nun. Her family attended Mass each Sunday, but that was about it in terms of her faith life. A talented athlete, Yoches earned a full basketball scholarship to the University of Detroit-Mercy, where she played for four years.
After college, she began her football career in 2003 after a successful tryout with the Detroit Demolition, a now-defunct women’s professional team. She left the team in 2006, and in March of 2007, the former self-described party girl experienced a calling to enter religious life. She ended her relationship with her boyfriend, and entered the Franciscans shortly after.

A Nun? At a Jesuit School?

 Next thing you know, they'll have a real priest.


Chicago, Ill., Mar 22, 2018 / 10:55 am (CNA).- In the first weekend of the March Madness tournament, the most tweeted-about person might not have been a basketball player, but a 98-year-old religious sister.
Sister Jean Dolores-Schmidt, BVM, is the chaplain of the Loyola University Chicago Men’s Basketball team, and the unlikely breakout star of the college tournament.

Sister Jean burst onto the scene when her beloved Ramblers upset the University of Miami in the first round of the tournament with a down-to-the-wire three-point basket.

Following this win, Twitter featured Sister Jean in a Twitter moment, and she received shout outs from high profile accounts including ESPN and former President Barack Obama. The New York Times also ran a profile on her.
Sister Jean leads the team in prayer before each game, and she prays for her players to be safe, for the referees to be fair, and for God’s assistance during the game. She also admitted to praying for the opposing team, but “not as hard."

Movie Review

From a review of a new movie, "Novitiate" on the National Review site::

 

 

What caused the ranks of these women (nuns and sisters)of deep devotion so rapidly to diminish after that 1965 peak? American life certainly started changing rapidly in the 1960s, but factors such as the sexual revolution, the explosion in drug use, and the Vietnam War didn’t apply so much to the Catholic sisters. What did apply to them — what tore the foundations out from under them — was the 1962–1965 work of the Second Vatican Council, known as Vatican II, which ordered several steps meant to moderate and modernize Church practices. Henceforth, Mass would be celebrated in English or any other contemporary language rather than Latin, by a priest facing the congregants instead of standing with his back to them. And nuns learned that they could no longer consider themselves closer to God than anyone else. Their lifelong devotion to sacrifice seemed to be rendered moot.

Good Advice from Florida

What a Great Name for a Band...Chainsaw-Wielding Nun

The cleanup after Hurricane Irma is a massive undertaking, after the destructive storm hit Florida and neighboring states over the weekend. In Miami, a nun chipped in to clear trees in her neighborhood — and no one, it seems, can resist a story about a chainsaw-wielding nun.

Sister Margaret Ann was spotted at work by an off-duty officer of the Miami-Dade Police Department, which posted video and images from the scene in the community of Kendall West Tuesday.
The department calls the sister's work another sign that Miami's community will work together to repair what Irma broke, writing on its Facebook page, "Thank you Sister and all of our neighbors that are working together to get through this!"
Sister Margaret Ann is the principal of  Archbishop Coleman F. Carroll High School, southwest of downtown Miami, which wrote on its Facebook page early Wednesday, "We are so blessed to have her and the Carmelite Sisters at our school. We are proud of the example they show for our students and other members of the community every day."
The phrase "chainsaw-wielding nun" is one we didn't know we would need to use in the wake of Irma, but it shows the breadth of the work it will take to recover from this storm — in Florida, in neighboring states and in the Caribbean.

Holy Snakes!

Athens, Greece, Aug 15, 2017 / 03:03 am (Church Pop).- Every year, on the Orthodox feast of the Dormition of the Theotokos, a monastery on a Greek island experiences a miracle – dozens of snakes come to 'venerate' an icon of Mary.

In a phenomenon that has reportedly been happening for hundreds of years, black snakes begin appearing on the Greek island of Kefalonia between Aug. 5 and Aug. 15, the days when the Greek Orthodox Church celebrates the dormition of the Theotokos (Mother of God).
According to tradition, the miracle of the snakes began in 1705, when nuns of the monastery were about to be attacked by pirates. 

 

Legend has it that the nuns prayed fervently to the Virgin Mary, asking her that she turn them into snakes to avoid capture. Other versions say that the nuns prayed that the monastery be infested with snakes so as to scare away the pirates. Either way it happened, they were spared.
Since then, the small black snakes, known as European Cat Snakes, appear every year just before the feast, and make their way to the walls and entryways of the Church to 'venerate' the silver icon of Mary known as the Panagia Fidoussa, or the Virgin of the Snakes.

Nuns Against Progress

This sad story features courageous nuns fighting Big Oil, a chapel, and social justice.  Or something. I suggest the "nuns" read what the definition of a chapel really is (according to the Catholic Encyclopedia).

The sisters of the Adorers of the Blood of Christ may lead simple lives of service to God, but their lives have been complicated recently. The proposed construction of a natural gas pipeline would cut through the farmland the order owns just outside of Columbia in Lancaster County, across the river from York County. 

They are in the middle of a fight to prevent the pipeline's developer, the Williams Company, an energy infrastructure firm headquartered in Tulsa, Oklahoma, from seizing the right-of-way through their land to build a 120-mile-long pipeline that cuts through central Pennsylvania.  

The chapel is part of the fight, built on land Williams has gone I court to seize through eminent domain. It is more than a place of worship and prayer. It is a symbol of the order's resistance to the construction of the pipeline. 

The order, which has 2,000 members worldwide and more than 200 in the United States, has a lengthy history of activism and fighting for social justice and seeking, according to its mission statement, "to educate ourselves and the others on important issues of social justice in our world. Tragedies such as poverty, war, racism, and global warming separate us in a way that does not mirror our hope for the Kingdom of God." 

The order's motto is "You will lack nothing if God is with you. Be a woman of great courage."  

I guess depriving poor people affordable gas is part of the whole "social justice" thing.

Stuck On Stupid

Vatican City, Jun 5, 2017 / 03:47 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Pope Francis on Monday challenged the Consolata Missionaries to give a “new impetus” to their missions work, including by inculturation of the Gospel, promoting family values, and dialogue with Islam.

Don't get stuck on stupid.

Merry Christmas! Rejoice!

Like these Columbian nuns!

The Eucharistic Communicators of the Heavenly Father are a community of nuns from Colombia who have a great passion for music and an intense desire to announce God through the gifts he has given them.

Sister María Victoria de Jesús told CNA the mission of their apostolate “is to evangelize through as many means of communication as possible,” and added that the charism of the sisters “is to communicate the love of God the Father.”

They have released a Spanish-language album Yo le Canto, or “I Sing”, as well as numerous music videos online.

A New Carmelite!

Father Z shares a video of a woman entering into the Carmelite community. Fast-forward to the 2:30 mark as the gates of the convent open and the Carmelites line up inside.

FORMATION Postulancy:
6 months to 1 year, during which the candidate learns and experiences the cloistered Carmelite life
Novitiate:
1 year, beginning with the reception of the traditional Carmelite habit; continued training and formation in the spiritual life and Holy Rule of St. Teresa of Avila
Temporary Profession:
3 years under the religious vows of poverty, chastity and obedience
Perpetual Profession:
Reception of the black veil...a bride of Christ forever!

R.I.P, Mother Angelica

HANCEVILLE, Alabama –  Mother Mary Angelica, a Roman Catholic nun who started a global religious media empire in a garage in Alabama, has died. She was 92.
EWTN Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Michael P. Warsaw said Sunday that the founder of the Eternal Word Television Network died at the monastery where she lived about 45 miles north of Birmingham.
Mother Angelica had been in declining health after suffering a series of strokes over the last 15 years.
Mother Angelica was born Rita Rizzo in Ohio in 1923. She entered the Poor Clares of Perpetual Adoration monastery in Cleveland at age 21 and joined other nuns at a new monastery in Alabama in 1962.
The nun began broadcasting a religious TV show from the monastery garage in 1981. That grew into Eternal Word Television Network, a worldwide TV, radio and publishing operation.

 Watch and listen as Sister Angelica lowers the boom when she finds a woman played Christ in a reenactment of the Stations of the Cross.

Smithsonian Photo Contest

 Some beautiful pictures, including this one:

 The description:

The Martyr and the Wrap White

I shot this photo in August 2015 in Rome. My girlfriend and my little son were far from Rome so I had free time for me, for my passion. I decided to have a small tour of some churches in Rome (where I've lived since 2005) because the temperature was too high to spend some time outside under the sun. I took some photos in Basilica di San Giovanni and after that, I went to the Scala Santa which is close to the San Giovanni Basilica. Inside the Scala Santa there is a holy stair (scala) used by pilgrims, who ascend the steps on their knees. Light at that hour (about 6:30 PM) was perfect. I saw this nun going out downstairs towards the light of the sun, and I shot.

Read more: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/photocontest/detail/people/the-martyr-and-the-wrap-white/#5KAp11jiEt5zvlWH.99

I believe the white habit is used by many orders that do nursing as part of their ministry. The on;y order I know that uses white consistently is the Dominicans.

 

The Benedictines of Mary, Queen of Apostles

 Why you should always have a Catholic on your staff....someone would have thought it great that the Director of Music is Sister Cecilia.

St. Cecilia, Patron Saint of Musicians

No Good Deed Goes Unpunished

India's government has given a one-year visa to a Catholic nun who had faced expulsion from the country after serving for 44 years working with lepers, the AsiaNews service reports.

  
Sister Bertilla Capra, a member of the Missionaries of the Immaculate, had been told that she would be required to leave India when her current visa expired. But the government relented and granted her a visa that will be valid until November of this year. She has been told that she will now need to renew her visa each year.