by Sr. Dolores Marie | May 25, 2021 | Newsletter
May is the month of Our Lady, a time of honoring her with special prayer, May crownings, and so on. Here at Marycrest, our motherhouse, the Sisters had a May crowning of Mary, and on another day a group of girls crowned Our Lady at our grotto.
These young girls have been meeting with our novices monthly for further growth in their faith, and over the past year this could only be done by zoom. How great to be able finally to be with them in person!
First Communions are always special times, especially Communions of children, teens or adults whom we have instructed. To prepare someone to receive Jesus is a very special privilege!
Here is Sr. Alina Marie with one of the First Communicants in her parish.
In other parishes we have often helped poor children prepare for the big day with dresses, shoes, ties, and so on. Of course the interior preparation is the most important, but the children also remember gratefully the attention we give to these external things.
Springtime is a time of planting and of new growth, and I’d like to share with you a reflection on Jesus’ parable of the sower and the seed (Mt. 13:4-23).
Some seed fell on the path and the birds ate it. Some fell on rocky ground. Some was choked by thorns and thistles. And some fell on good soil and yielded a very good harvest.
How beautiful when the seed, which is the Word of God, produces a bountiful harvest!
In our visitation of families, we are spreading God’s word. (Of course we’ve been hampered by COVID this past year, but hopefully before long we’ll get back to normal.)
In some people the thorns and rocks prevent the seed from flourishing, but other people actually tell us, “Wow, I never imagined that a Sister from the Church would come to visit me.” Or, “God must still be interested in me, He sent you to my door.” And good things happen!
And there are times when the results come later and we don’t see them. A priest once told one of our Sisters, “Sister, you don’t know how much good you’re doing. I can’t give you any details, but I see it in confession.”
However, what if no one answers the call to sow the seeds, that is, to go out to the people to tell them about Jesus and His Church? How then can the seed grow to harvest?
The people need someone to remind them of Jesus, to encourage them, to invite them to return. Are you the one they’re waiting for?
We can also apply this same story of the sower and the seed to discerning a vocation.
When Jesus calls, sometimes rocky ground–noise and distraction–blocks it out.
Sometimes the thorns–my fears and anxieties–choke it.
Sometimes the pleasures of the world drown it out.
And sometimes the answer is “yes!”
Which one applies to you? What kind of soil are you for His call?
May God bless you and guide you in your discernment!
Sister Dolores Marie
by Sr. Dolores Marie | Apr 19, 2021 | Newsletter
Just what is a Parish Visitor? What is she like?
She may be short or tall, young or not so young.
She may have light hair or dark, light skin or darker skin.
She may be slender or not so slender; she may be exuberant or quiet.
She may come from the East, the Midwest, the West, or overseas.
She might enjoy singing, or the beauties of nature, or a good book. She likes a good laugh and a good game at recreation.
She might live at our convent in the Bronx, in Pennsylvania or Arizona, at our motherhouse in New York, or in the Philippines, or in Nigeria.
The important thing is, she is a woman of God.
A prayerful woman, who has given herself totally to Him.
A woman who feels for God’s people—especially those who have strayed from Him.
And who feels for His children—especially the spiritually neglected ones who never learned about Him, who are starved for Him and don’t know it.
She feels for them, goes out to help them, prays and sacrifices for them.
She loves her vows of chastity, poverty, obedience; she loves her Sisters in community wherever they may be.
She is inspired by our foundress, Servant of God Mother Mary Teresa Tallon.
She loves the Church, the Eucharist, the Sacred Heart of the Good Shepherd, Our Blessed Mother, and Saint Joseph.
This is a Parish Visitor!
Many blessings from Our Risen Lord to all of you!
Holy Week and Easter at Marycrest, our motherhouse, were especially beautiful this year. We had all the Holy Week and Easter ceremonies! What a comparison to last year when we only had livestreaming.
Above shows a Sister in adoration at our repository on Holy Thursday.
At the Easter Vigil, our Pascal Candle, surrounded
by Easter flowers, proclaimed Our Risen Savior!
We had some fun, too. During the Easter octave, our novices gave an ice cream party to the Sisters, complete with an Easter bunny!
Preparing to serve the ice cream.
Yum!
The novices also planned a game evening and a “carnival” event.
As our foundress told us, “God expects us to pray well, to work faithfully, and to play cheerfully.”
May God’s guidance be with you as you as you continue to discern His will for your life. Feel free to email me. If you’d like to plan a phone chat to get better acquainted, just let me know. Our prayers are with you all!
In Jesus Our Risen Lord,
Sister Dolores Marie
by Sr. Mary Emmadona Lee | Feb 19, 2021 | Newsletter
Besides the pandemic, we also have a famine!
“There is a famine in the land—not for bread, not for water, but for the Word of the Lord.” (see Amos 8:11)
We are now in the holy season of Lent, a special time of grace. Jesus died for everyone, but so many people don’t know this!
So many souls are famished, are starving. They need to turn to Jesus, the Way, the Truth, and the Life, but many don’t know how, or don’t care.
To give some examples, Mike stopped going to church years ago. Now he says God would never take him back after so long and after so much sinful behavior.
Jen goes to get ashes as a custom, as something she’s always done, but then she goes on living her immoral lifestyle.
Anna is old enough for First Communion, but never even heard of Jesus, except hearing His name taken in vain.
Meg can’t be bothered getting her children to Mass and religious instructions. She doesn’t see the point of it and has other priorities, anyway.
Dave says his mom tells him Lent is important, but he says, “I don’t believe in God now, so why bother with Church?”
This list could go on and on.
All this must hurt the loving heart of Jesus.
These are the ones Parish Visitors were founded to help! We have been helping starving souls since we began, and this charism which our foundress, Mother Mary Teresa Tallon, handed down to us is more needed than ever!
“The Sisters are to have cloistered hearts, to be contemplatives for the street. They are to seek out, after the example of the Good Shepherd, those in need of spiritual and material assistance, the poorest and most neglected, those not practicing their Catholic faith. The union of contemplation and missionary activity is the essence of the Parish Visitor vocation.”
Yes, “There is a famine in the land….” Pope Francis has said, “Evangelization is the most important work of charity.” Combining evangelization with contemplative prayer, according to our charism, gives it its power! And, the more technology there is these days, the more powerful and needed our person-to person contact is!
Evangelization, of course, involves religious instructions–on the spot instructions as well as classroom instruction–as so many people know so little about God! Youth ministry, too, is a part of this apostolate.
Parish Visitors strive to instill in the children a deeper love of Jesus, to inspire the youth to love Him, to encourage the careless Catholics to come back to the heart of Jesus.
Those who are spiritually starving need Parish Visitors. Maybe they need YOU! Is the Good Shepherd calling you to help people like this, along with us?
Pray that everywhere we serve, our apostolate will be very fruitful for the Lord, in this Lenten time of grace and always.
We pray, too, that all of us will live this Lent the best we can for Our Lord, Who has done so much for us and loves us so much! God bless you all!
In Jesus,
Sister Dolores Marie
by Sr. Dolores Marie | Jan 10, 2021 | Newsletter
A happy and blessed new year 2021—all 365 days of it!
Advent and Christmas this year have been quite unusual for everyone, and here at Marycrest, our motherhouse, it was very unusual. COVID hit us! From the youngest to the oldest, most of the Sisters caught it, as well as most of our employees. In fact, our oldest Sister, Sr. Mary Elise, celebrated her 100th birthday while in quarantine! Everybody had ice cream in her honor, even the ones quarantined in their rooms. Three Sisters had to be hospitalized for COVID, some had it very mild (as I did), and some were in between.
The few Sisters who tested negative did much extra work, as well as decorating the Christmas tree and putting up other decorations. We were without Mass for two weeks; we didn’t want the priests to catch it. The Sisters who were up and around participated in the Mass by livestream, and the ones in quarantine were brought Holy Communion to their rooms.
Many friends brought us food, hand sanitizer, etc. One of our Bronx Sisters as well as our Pennsylvania Sisters were able to come to Marycrest to help out, and the Sisters of Life cared for night duty in our infirmary until our aides could return. (We helped the Sisters of Life in the beginning of their foundation, and now they were glad to return the favor.)
Those who had the virus ended their quarantine on Christmas morning, though a few Sisters still are a bit weak.
Our apostolate has, of course, been limited by the pandemic, but the Sisters are doing all they can by zoom, phone calls, and so on. Some religion classes are still being held in person, with masks and social distancing. Here is Sr. Alina Marie, of our Bronx convent, teaching Bible history through the Advent Jesse tree.
On January 4 our postulant became a novice. She received her habit and while veil, as well as our Constitutions and the Spiritual Directory of our foundress, and is now called Sister Debra Marie.
Recently the novitiate hosted a belated Epiphany party for all the Sisters, complete with the Three Kings and a marshmallow roast! It was great to have a fun evening together after so much sickness!
In the world, the pandemic continues. In this pandemic, people still need God. In fact, they need Him more than ever! And, God is still calling young men and women to give themselves to Him, to love and serve Him and His people.
The pandemic shouldn’t stop discernment. Discernment is not just making a decision, choosing what seems best for me, and so on; it’s trying to know what God wants for me.
This is not always easy. Many other things vie for our attention. We need prayer and silence to know what He is telling us. Before the Blessed Sacrament is the ideal place to pray, but you can pray anywhere where you can be quiet and undisturbed.
God will not fail you if you are sincerely trying to know His will. A prayer I found helpful in my own discernment was, “God give me the grace to know Your will, and the courage to do it!” These are two steps. Once we discern what God is showing us, we need courage to go ahead! And, who is the source of courage but God!
May God’s guidance and graces be with you! If you’d like to know more about the Parish Visitors, just contact me by email or phone. God bless you!
In Jesus,
Sister Dolores Marie
by Sr. Dolores Marie | Nov 21, 2020 | Newsletter
God is good! All the time! And we have so much to thank Him for, not only now but always! Here are some of the many, many things we Parish Visitors are grateful for:
Jesus in the tabernacle, all the time, and being able to praise Him daily.
The opportunity to spread God’s word.
The foundation of our community 100 years ago by Servant of God Mother Mary Teresa Tallon, and God’s call to us to love and serve Him here!
The opportunity to serve our Sisters.
The beauty of God’s creation.
Keeping safe in this pandemic.
The joys of community life.
And our Catholic faith, our health, our families, food every day, our education, living in a free country, and so much more!
May you have a grateful heart always!
If you haven’t yet seen the vocation videos done to commemorate the centenary of our community’s foundation, go to the vocation section of our website. There are other videos there as well, including vocation stories of some of the Sisters.
May God continue to guide you in your discernment of His will for your future. God bless you!
In Jesus,
Sr. Dolores Marie
by Sr. Dolores Marie | Oct 5, 2020 | Newsletter
Every vocation has its own story. Each Sister could tell you how she happened to enter the convent. There are some similarities but some differences. When did Sister realize that God was calling her? How did she decide on the community? Were there difficulties to overcome? How did her family react?
Our website has a number of vocation stories, and now, in this 100th anniversary year of our foundation as a community, I’d like to tell you about our foundress’ vocation journey.
Mother Mary Teresa Tallon (who was then Julia) lived on a farm in upstate New York. Julia had one brother and three sisters; several other siblings had died in infancy and her father died when she was young.
She went to the local public school, where she and her younger sister Jane were the only Catholic students. This is the schoolhouse she and Jane walked to each day.
In her childhood Julia had never met a Sister, yet “at the age of 12, I knew just what I wanted. I wanted to be a religious. I wanted to give myself to God and work for souls for Him.”
Perhaps she had heard of Sisters from her grandmother, who lived with the family? When she told her mother of her desire, she was laughed at. “It’s only a childish idea.”
She took advantage of the opportunities available to her to spread the faith to others. When families from the city came at harvest time to help with the harvest, Julia gathered the children and informally instructed them in the faith. In addition, she helped arrange for her home to be a mission station for occasional Masses for those who could not get to the parish church three miles away.
Her desire to be a Sister didn’t go away, and when she was in her teens her mother realized that her daughter was serious about this. Despite being a churchgoing Catholic, her mother did not want her daughter to enter a convent. As with many mothers, “It’s fine for someone else’s daughter, but not for my daughter.”
Her mother decided to squelch the idea. After sending Julia for a dressmaking course, she sent her off with a new wardrobe to distant relatives in the city for a winter vacation, so that Julia would be exposed to young people, parties and dances. In addition, a daughter in that family had been in the convent a short while and left, thinking convent life was too hard, and Julia’s mother thought this would be the final blow to Julia’s dream.
God had other plans, however. When Julia arrived at the home she was visiting, the local parish was hosting a parish mission. Julia spent all her free time in church instead of at social events. She spoke with the mission priest, who encouraged her in her vocation.
She later wrote, “After two weeks I returned to my home, a failure in the eyes of my family. They never thought I would amount to much. I was too shy, they said.”
Julia, however, was more determined than ever to be a Sister. Her mother then let her know she was on her own for any travel expenses or other things she would need if she entered a convent. Of course Julia had no money.
After a little time passed, she gained permission from her mother to go to another city, with her younger sister Jane, boarding there and getting a job. The two girls found employment in a dressmaking factory, saving their scant earnings so Julia could become a Sister. Fortunately her sister Jane was “on her side.”
While in the city, Julia was able to attend daily Mass, which had not been possible at home, and she met the Sisters who worked in the area and did some volunteer work with them.
She turned to the parish priest for spiritual direction, and he encouraged her vocation. She also joined the Sodality of the Blessed Virgin. This is the only photo we have of Julia before her entrance to the convent, taken when she was received into the Sodality.
After the local parish priest visited her mother and explained her duty to allow her daughter to enter religious life, her mother reluctantly gave permission.
Julia still had to decide on an order. After considering the Sisters she had volunteered with, she applied to the Holy Cross Sisters, through the encouragement of her spiritual director, and was accepted. Her family was upset and in tears at her leaving, but she did not back down. She entered just before her 20th birthday, and she was a Holy Cross Sister for many years before God gave her the call to begin the Parish Visitors of Mary Immaculate.
We are so grateful for her YES to Him to enter religious life, and for her further YES to Him to found the Parish Visitors of Mary Immaculate 100 years ago!
God still calls! On October 1 we received a new postulant, Debbie Comins, from upstate New York, and on the same day postulant Sally Yu, from California, began her novitiate. Sally is now Sister Sylvia Marie. (Sylvia is her baptism name.) Here is a photo of Sister Sylvia Marie and one of her with Debbie, Sr. Mary Beata, the novice director, and Mother Maria Catherine.
May God bless you as you continue to discern His will for your life. Keep praying and trusting in Him and He will never fail you!
In Jesus,
Sister Dolores Marie