Our 100th anniversary! That’s quite a milestone! When Mother Mary Teresa Tallon began our community in New York City on August 15, 1920, she began with only three members. The seed grew and spread, and besides our “community in heaven” rejoicing there with our foundress, we now have convents in New York, Pennsylvania, Arizona, the Philippines and Nigeria. Only God knows how many thousands and thousands and thousands of persons have been brought back to Him, and learned to love Him, by Parish Visitors over the years!
One of the Sisters recently made a cutout of our foundress. Our centenary celebrations originally planned for August 15 and 16 have been postponed for now because of the pandemic, but our anniversary will be very special nevertheless!
During the pandemic we have continued to reach out to people in whatever way we could, as our last few newsletters told—phone, email, May devotions, zoom, and so on. Our Pentecost novena is now on our website; you can access it there. We also had a livestreamed Holy Hour for Corpus Christi, praying for all the continents of the world. Hopefully before long everything will be more normal. First Communions, though delayed, took place recently, and more will be held in the fall. Here are a few photos.
What a privilege to instruct others in the faith, and especially to prepare children for First Communion!
Two of our junior professed Sisters, Sr. Alina Marie and Sr. Marie Meaghan, moved to our Bronx convent to begin their new apostolates.
Here they are pictured with Sr. Mylene Rosemarie at the convent.
Our annual eight-day retreat was in early July. Retreat is always a beautiful time of many graces from the Lord, as well as a preparation for the year ahead. I’ll share with you this quote from our retreat master:
We are brides of Christ.
We serve Jesus for those who do not.
We worship Him for those who do not.
We are pure for those who are not.
We are brides of Christ.
A few years ago Sr. Maria Leah was recorded singing “I Am Your Bride” for a youth conference. You can listen to it on this link:
Si Sr. Lea Japos ng Parish Visitors of Mary Immaculate, kasama si Mr. Philippe Toda ng Youcat Phils at Kuya Roberto Bahia ng TV Maria ang mag share naman ng kanilang talento sa pagkanta. Tara! pakinggan po natin sila. 🙂
Posted by TV Maria on Wednesday, May 24, 2017
I’ll close with a quote from our foundress about her inspiration to begin our community:
“God revealed to me clearly, at Holy Mass…what it was He wanted. I must establish an Institute where women would be trained to greater spiritual perfection and, being formed in the contemplative spirit, go out in search of the lost lambs and bring them back to the fold by means of Christian instruction. I saw God’s will clearly and received strong assurances of His powerful protection.”
Please thank God along with us for Servant of God Mother Mary Teresa Tallon and for the foundation of the Parish Visitors of Mary Immaculate! And, if God is nudging you in this direction, be not afraid! Come!
In Jesus,
Sister Dolores Marie