All of us in the BIG convent, otherwise known as the IHM Motherhouse in Monroe, are very excited about this Sunday’s podcast which will include IHM sisters, Carol Quigley, Michele Denton, and Mary Bea Keeley as well as our two A Nun’s Life Ministry pros, Sr. Julie and Sr. Maxine. I (Sr. Mary Bea) have listened in to the podcasts a number of times and know that there’s a tremendous and varied community of persons who participate. I look forward to your questions and insights as well as getting to know some whom I only know from the names mentioned at the beginning of the podcast. ‘Talk to you tomorrow.
Categories: Uncategorized
Each month we post a new Ministry of the Month on our IHM website. This month features Sister Camille Brouillard, IHM.
In her ministry, Sister Camille Brouillard, IHM, makes connections – with people and with services. Sister Camille is the social work case manager for the IHM Motherhouse Health Care Center. Although the paperwork can be a challenge, the small events that let her know she’s making a difference offer enormous rewards.
Read more about Sister Camille and her ministry.
Categories: Ministry of the Month
Tagged: camille brouillard, health care, IHM, ministry, social work
If you are searching sites about discerning a religious vocation you surely are checking the website, www.anunslife.org regularly. Sr. Julie’s posts are always interesting, insightful and challenging. Yesterday’s post, “Is God calling me?” provides such helpful, provocative questions. If you haven’t read it yet I can’t encourage you enough to do so. In fact I recommend using her questions as discernment prayer starters. You might take one or two per day and spend some quality time letting the clarity emerge gradually. Sometimes it’s hard to focus and be quiet so that you can hear where God is leading. Good questions often help.
There are two other reasons why I specially appreciate yesterday’s post. Sr. Julie made such a good point. The beginning of a New Year can provide just the right nudge for getting down to business. Markers like a new year help us get to what we want to do but never quite get around to accomplishing. I know the markers of Advent and Lent always add help me be more serious in my search for God. And on a lighter note, let’s face it, the approach of summer often gets us thinking about exercising and losing weight. So it is a good idea to use the movement into a new year to get serious about a next step in discerning your call.
I guess my second reason is closely related. In any discernment you or I can go around and around in our heads waiting ’til we’re absolutely sure before taking a first step. Of course that only makes us dizzy and confused. It’s the beginning of a new year. Let’s take that step.
Categories: religious life · spirituality · vocation
Tagged: A Nun's Life, discernment, IHM, religious vocation, sister, Sr. Julie
During this last month I’ve so appreciated a reflection book for Advent and Christmas, Choose Life, published by our IHM sisters of Scranton, Pennsylvania. Today’s offering by Sister Paula Gallagher, IHM struck me forcefully and I just have to share it. The Gospel for today is John 1: 19-28 in which John the Baptist is asked if he is the Christ. In his answer he proclaims in the words of isaiah that he is a “voice that cries in the wilderness: Make a straight way for the Lord.” Later he points to Jesus as he says, I have seen and I am the witness that he is the Chosen One of God.” As Paula says, All John wants “for his followers is a straight, focused, unencumbered way to God.
Sister Paula reflects that John has emerged “from a long time in the wilderness scoured of any illusions. He knows who he is and who he is not… Life scours us too as we grow… It is only in the solitude of absolutely honest prayer we are taught directly who we are, whom we must become and how we’re meant to point to God.”
I believe that the above is a lifetime challenges all us, knowing who we are and how we’re meant to point to God. I share it today because it reflects what I hear women discerning religious life express in many different ways, that they want to give their lives to Jesus that they may lead others to God. In addition I’m caught by Paula’s insight that absolutely honest prayer scours us of illusions that we might know who we are and how we’re called to point to God. This is the bedrock of all discernment. I pray for that blessing for you and all of us as we move into this new year.
Categories: IHM · religious life · spirituality
Tagged: discernment, IHM, IHM sisters, John the Baptist, PA, religious life, Scranton
Advent longing
I had a great conversation with Sr. Gen Petrak at a time when she felt more caught in the busy-ness than in a contemplative Advent mode. I had asked my her to share about she entered into Advent this year. This is what Gen said:
“You don’t want to hear my thoughts on Advent. I’ve hardly had a chance to think about your questions.” I just sat expectantly so she continued, “Oh well I guess this is real. I started out well, relishing the consoling Scriptures, but then found my self caught up in the ‘messiness’ of so much to be done. I guess the question for me is how to bridge the gap between the deepest part of me, which is in the longing of Advent and the other part that is sometimes pretty consumed in my responsibilities, like planning liturgies.
In Advent we celebrate the already and the not yet. Christ responded to our human longing two thousand years ago–the already, but the human heart continues to long for something-the not yet. Maybe that’s what Advent is about, hanging in there in the midst of daily life, knowing the longing, and being open to the glimpses of God coming to us every day.
When I was a junior sister our director, Sr. Helene Berry, IHM quoted a passage from Janet Erskine Stuart that has never left me, ‘Holiness is in the now just as it is.’ Maybe my Advent isn’t as bad as I thought it was.”
Categories: IHM · Meet IHMs · religious life · spirituality
Tagged: Advent longing, IHM, Sr. Genevieve Petrak
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