Sr. Alina Marie and Sr. Marie Meaghan, now in their second year of novitiate, will be making first vows before long. I asked them to share some of their thoughts for this newsletter. (Sr. Maria Rowena‘s vows will be a few months later.)
Sr. Alina Marie remembers the day she began her novitiate. “I cannot express what joy filled my heart! When I put on the habit and the white veil for the first time, what awe of God filled my soul. It was real! It had happened! I was actually a novice! With the veil upon my head, it was as though God had covered me with His love.
“Since that day, the novitiate has been a very special time for my relationship with the Lord. It has been all about learning the intimate love of Our Lord and how I can respond to it by seeking to give myself completely to Him through the evangelical counsels of chastity, poverty and obedience.
“The evangelical counsels are beautiful. Chastity is about striving to have a single-hearted devotion to Christ and seeking to give my whole being to Him in response to His total gift of self to me.
“Poverty is about placing myself in complete dependence on and trust in God for everything I need, and seeking to have a spirit of simplicity, gratitude, and attachment to God alone.
“Obedience is about seeking to abandon myself totally to the will of God through my lawful superior, with confidence that God will assuredly bring me to a closer union with Him through my obedience.”
Sr. Marie Meaghan adds, “The novitiate is a time of further discernment and going deeper in prayer with the Lord, in preparation for what He has in store for you. This is similar to when Jesus went into the desert for a special time before He started His public ministry.
“As I look in awe and excitement to professing my first vows, it is so amazing! And, ‘Only by the grace of God, go I.’”
The novices recently helped these little girls to put on a skit about St. Catherine Laboure. You’ll see the Blessed Mother, St. Catherine, and her guardian angel.
The other little girls are St. Catherine’s fellow novices. Perhaps one or more of them will be a real novice one day!
Events
Our Philadelphia convent opened on February 1 with a beautiful Mass, the enthronement of the Sacred Heart, and a blessing of the entire convent. It’s great to have another convent home from which the Sisters will go out to bring Jesus’ love, and it’s great to have another tabernacle home for Jesus.
We have participated in several vocation events, in parishes and at a college, spreading the word about consecrated life and our beautiful charism.
In our last newsletter I told of our plans to have World Youth Day here at Marycrest this August. Plans have changed, due to various circumstances, and we won’t be having it this summer. Instead, a number of the Sisters will be taking part in other youth events in the area, such as Camp Veritas, Camp Spiritus, and others.
Lent is upon us, and the Sisters have been finding many people in need of Jesus! This holy season is a special time of grace; please pray with us that many whom we find who have been away from confession for years will seek His mercy and return to Him. This is also a time for preparations for those who will be received into the Church, for those who will make their First Communions in May, and for those who will be confirmed. Pray for them all, and ask the Lord if He wants you to help with this beautiful contemplative-missionary apostolate!
Keep close to Jesus, trusting in Him, and He will never fail you! God bless you!
Sr. Dolores Marie