The NRVC's Catalyst newsletter has alerted us that the USCCB published their annual report with the characteristics of the women and men making perpetual profession in 2022. Here are some of the characteristics the NRVC on review of the report: 

• On average, respondents report having known the members of their religious institute for three years before they entered.
• On average, respondents report that they were 18 years old when they first considered a vocation to religious life, with half being 18 or younger when they first did so.
• Respondents who reported educational debt paid down an average of $34,000 in educational debt before admission.
• 84% had work experience prior to entering their religious institute. The main work fields are business, education, and healthcare. 14% were Catholic school teachers.
• 12% report being raised by their grandparents during the most formative part of their childhood.
• 36% attended a Catholic high school, compared to 8% of U.S. adult Catholics.
• 93% report that someone encouraged them to consider a vocation to religious life.
• Women are more likely than men to report being discouraged from discerning a religious vocation (64% compared with 37% of men religious)
• 30% report having a relative who is a priest or a religious.

Read other studies on vocations to religious life here.

Many who join monastic and contemplative religious orders take a vow of stability, committing themselves to a particular community.

The vow of stability means that a monk stays put. Unless he’s sent somewhere else by his superiors, or gets a dispensation from Rome, a monk must remain in the monastery of his profession. [Cistercian writer Thomas] Merton explains: “By making a vow of stability the monk renounces the vain hope of wandering off to find a ‘perfect monastery.’”

There’s a lesson here for happiness. It’s often tempting to think that we’d be happy if only external circumstances would change. Sometimes it’s true that some external change would make a huge difference to our happiness . . . [But] sometimes we need to embrace a vow of stability and make our happiness in the situation in which we find ourselves, instead of searching restlessly for perfect circumstances.

From “Monks Take a ‘Vow of Stability.’ Maybe You Should, Too” by Gretchen Rubin, on Slate.com.

After 90 years on earth and 70 years as a Catholic sisters serving seven popes in the Vatican, Sr. Maria de Céu, a Franciscan Missionary of Mary, has learned the secret to a happy life: "A life given to others,"

In an interview in Rome Reports, Sr. Marie explains, "If we don't give ourselves to others, what's the purpose of living? The Lord always comes first."

Millennial sisters with many doors open to them chose religious life. That was the theme explored on a recent Tamron Hall Show, a new daytime talk show. The Catholic sisters featured on the show, Sisters Anne Marie Findlay C.S.S.F.; Elizabeth McGill, I.H.M.; Rachel Lauritsen, F.M.A.; and Boram Lee F.M.A. were brought to the attention of Tamron Hall producers by VISION publisher Patrice Tuohy, who worked closely with the show's producers to provide information on the contemporary religious life, Two of the sisters are also recipients of grants from the National Fund for Catholic Religious Vocations, established by the National Religious Vocation Conference to help alleviate the obstacle of educational debt to religious life. Patrice Tuohy and Phil Loftus, Executive Director of NFCRV, were in the audience to cheer the sisters on.

Serveral VISION sponsoring communities from New Jersey received a nice writie up in the North Jersey Record article "Number of nuns are dwindling, but these Jersey millennials are still hearing the call" by Deena Yellin.

And VISION got a mention too! 

As many orders are dwindling, some remain strong. The Salesian Sisters of Saint John Bosco . . . is among the largest women's orders in the world, with more than 13,000 sisters in over 90 countries. It is also among the few orders that are growing. This year, three new women joined the order in New Haledon.

Some women continue to feel the pull to the religious life, offering hope that nuns will continue to serve, perhaps in new ways.

The Felician Sisters in Lodi have four women in different stages of discernment, the multi-years process of considering religious life. The Sisters of St. Joseph of Peace in Englewood Cliffs had six women take vows over the past 15 years. The Discalced Carmelites in Flemington has two candidates this year, and Sisters of Christian Charity in Mendham has 12 women in various stages of formation.

Patrice Tuohy, publisher of Vision Vocation Guide, which provides information about religious communities, says an average of about 3,000 women fill out profiles each year, seeking to be matched to a religious community, but that number rose to 3,500 last year. "That surprised me," she said. "They were predominantly people under 30. There's definitely been an uptick of inquiries into religious life."

Thinking of consecrated life? Prepare for vowed life by incorporating simple practices into your daily life today. Read more here.

The Sisters of Charity of Nazareth featured Sr. Pat Haley, S.C.N. in a recent newsletter. This line caught our attention: "I will not work in a segregated dining room, obedience or no obedience . . ."

Sr. Pat explains, "When we got to Nazareth as postulants we were assigned duties. I was assigned to the white men’s dining room. I thought, ‘There’s no way I’m gonna do that.' Mother Lucille was coming down the hall, and although I knew I wasn’t supposed to, I stopped her. I asked for a meeting with her and her Council ‘because I am assigned a duty I simply will not do.’ The next day Sister Constance said that the meeting would take place that afternoon. I told the Council, ‘It is not right to be segregated in a place like this. I just spent my years in high school and earlier fighting segregation. I know I was coming into a white world, but there is no excuse for this.’ Sister Mary Ransom Burke, bless her heart, said, ‘What would you suggest we do?’ I looked at her and said, ‘It’s just a partition between two dining rooms. If you have a ladder and screwdriver, I’ll take it down….Mother Lucille said, ‘We will have to have a conversation with the workers.’ I said ‘You didn’t have a conversation with them before. It was decided by the Council. I will not work in a segregated dining room, obedience or no obedience.’ Nothing else was said but in a week the partition was down and I took the duty. Many of the workers did not like it but it was down. In the hallway there was a white water fountain and a colored fountain. I said you also need to do something about those two fountains. So they did. Sister Mary Ransom later said ‘Thank you’ to me and so did Mother Lucille.”

Learn more about the Sisters of Charity of Nazareth here.

Daughters of Charity Sister Liz Sjoberg and Sister Brenda Fritz love making music together. They've enjoyed themselves so much that they decided to invite other musicians to join in on the fun. Thus, after one week-end long session and lots of laughs, "Music Inspires: Beautiful Name" was born.

The documentary video attests to the joy and inspiration that went into this faith-filled work of art.

Sister Liz said in an interview that she "would love for other groups of religious sisters, brothers, and priests and young people to carry on the spirit of artistic collaboration." Consider this your invitation to let the music inspire you to act. 

The Adorers of the Blood of Christ, a vowed religious community of Catholic women, are preparing for the 25th memorial anniversary of the deaths of five of their American missionary sisters in Liberia. In October 1992, these "martyrs of charity" were killed by soldiers in the army of Liberian warlord Charles Taylor during a civil war that left hundreds of thousands dead. This coming October, the sisters are releasing two mini-documentaries about the martyrs.

Sisters Barbara Ann Muttra and Mary Joel Kolmer were killed as they drove the convent’s security guard home to a neighboring suburb. Three days later, soldiers shot and killed Sisters Kathleen McGuire, Agnes Mueller, and Shirley Kolmer in front of their convent.

“We remember them as fellow sisters radically committed to their ministry. Their lives and martyrdom have left an indelible mark on us,” the community said in a statement. One current Adorer, Sister Elizabeth Kolmer, had a biological sister and a cousin who were among the five. Another current Adorer, Sister Mary Ann Mueller, had a biological sister in the group.

The Adorers of the Blood of Christ were founded in 1834 as a teaching order by Saint Maria De Mattias in Italy. The Adorers strive to be Christ’s reconciling presence in the world by responding to the needs of individuals and society. Diverse in their ministries and singular in their mission to be a compassionate presence wherever they are, Adorers serve as educators, justice advocates, health care workers, pastoral ministers, spiritual directors, and more. Worldwide they are 2,000 women strong, including more than 200 in the United States.

Read bios of the martyrs of charity.

Watch the final letters of the martyrs read by their sisters.

Watch a Frontline news segment on the martyrs: “Who killed the nuns?”

Sisterhood, a special, seven-part series produced by Canadian Salt + Light TV in collaboration with Loyola University New Orleans, gives viewers an exclusive look into the daily lives of sisters from around the world. As Salt and Light decribes the focus of the series: "Day in and day out, in every country, religious sisters provide an enormous service to the Church, giving life to the corporal and spiritual works of mercy. Without their prayer, their wisdom or their charity, the Church could scarcely begin to achieve its mission. Yet, the number of sisters in North America and in other countries is dwindling, and at a time when the world desperately needs their charisms."

The series, which already aired in Canada, is available for streaming  at  Salt + Light.

“If you feel that call, answer it!” Sister Imelda Cardona of the Carmelites of the Holy Trinity says in a general message to young Catholics. “God loves you, so you should answer.”

Sister Cardona is one of six Allied Discalced Carmelites, who have come to the U.S. from Mexico to open a convent in Denver and care for the archdiocese's Holy Trinity Center.  

The community, whose charism is to know and to make known the glory of the Holy Trinity, has arrived to Denver to care for the archdiocese’s Holy Trinity Center. 

Founded by Sister Martha Maria Ramirez-Mora on July 16, 1986, the order has 200-plus nuns serving in various apostolates – ranging from assisting at nursing homes to retreat centers – in Mexico, Italy, Rome, Argentina and Chile.

“It is by the grace of God,” Mother Martha Patricia Malacara, superior of the community, told the Denver Catholic that the sisters have made their way to the U.S.

Although they will be helping out in the archbishop's residency and caring for the sacristies on the John Paul II center campus, prayer is the primary ministry of this semi-cloistered, comtemplative community: “We want to let people know that we are praying for them.” Mother Malacara says. “Prayer is our main charism.”

Prayer requests may be emailed to Carmelites@archden.org or mailed to Allied Discalced Carmelites of the Holy Trinity, 1300 S. Steele St., Denver, CO 80210. Be sure to tell them VISION Vocation Network sent you!

Carmelite friars conducted a “ministry of presence” at Dulles International Airport in Washington, D.C. on Jan. 29, the day that protests erupted around the country over President Trump’s travel ban targeting seven majority-Muslim countries. The friars’ action segued into a spontaneous interfaith prayer service with a Muslim imam.

Brothers Matthew Gummess, Mikhail Woodruff, and Kevin Keller "wandered through the crowd to hear stories, share hope, and offer a friendly prayerful presence,” reports the Order of Carmelites blog. “Brother Mikhail was a voice of kindness and impartiality in conversation with reporters. Brother Matthew offered moral support and chocolates to travelers, airport staff, security, lawyers, and anybody who might need a little boost.”

After they met Imam Yahya Hendi, the Muslim chaplain at Georgetown University, who was also at the airport, the four agreed to hold an immediate joint prayer service.

“Together with the Imam, those present were called to prayer by Brother Matthew with some verses of 'Amazing Grace.' Brother Mikhail invoked the presence of God in a warm and hospitable prayer. Then Imam Hendi passionately prayed on behalf of the gathering—roughly 50 people from diverse faiths—offering words of peace, justice, and integrity,” the Carmelites report.

Photographer Toni Greaves spent seven years documenting the transformation of "Lauren" into "Sister Maria Teresa of the Sacred Heart," and her sensitive, beautifully rendered images reveal much about the usually hidden world of cloistered religious life.

Three weeks after Lauren joined the Dominican Nuns of Summit, New Jersey, Greaves began taking photos. They show her entry into a world very distinct from her full life as a college student who played sports, had a boyfriend, and once dreamed of marriage and children.  

"This story is a window into her early love of God," writes Greaves in the resulting photobook Radical Love. "The story also reveals her daily life over the years and her interactions living within a small community of nuns who are themselves in various stages of their own spiritual paths."

A Nun’s Life Ministry—an online initiative to help people discover and grow in their vocations—is celebrating its 10-year anniversary with a cross-country trip Oct. 15-22. 

The trip begins at A Nun’s Life headquarters in Toledo, Ohio and will end in Silicon Valley, a nod to the ministry’s use of technology, including anunslife.org and social media outlets ranging from Facebook to Snapchat.  

During the trip, the staff of A Nun’s Life will interact with its global online community and will sponsor two live-streamed public podcasts:

●  “Praying with the Sisters” will be broadcast from New Mexico on Monday, Oct. 17, at 5 pm ET. Viewers can join the sisters online for prayer and for conversation in the chat room.

●   An “Ask Sister - Motherhouse Road Trip” podcast will be broadcast from California on Friday, Oct. 21, at 5 pm ET. The podcast will feature guests Sisters Cynthia Canning and Sally Gunn of the Sisters of the Holy Names of Jesus and Mary.

The trip’s major stops will be in Chicago, Albuquerque, and three California cities: Cupertino, Campbell, and San Rafael.

Sister Maxine Kollasch, I.H.M., who co-founded A Nun’s Life with Sister Julie Vieira, I.H.M. in 2006, explained why they are undertaking the trip:  “We want to celebrate the 10th anniversary by sharing the joy, adventure, and innovative spirit that’s at the heart of A Nun’s Life.”

The October journey continues a tradition of outreach through travel for A Nun’s Life Ministry, which sponsored a series of “Motherhouse Roadtrips” starting in 2013 that involved broadcasts from convents around the country.

VISION Vocation Guide featured the ministry’s founders in 2015: "Online door never closes on discerners".

The Letters, a film about the life of Mother Teresa of Calcutta (1910-1997), portrays an intimate struggle with hope and despair by one of the most famous religious humanitarians of the 20th century. The story follows Mother Teresa's life as told through her revealing letters to her spiritual director Father Celeste van Exem. The reviews of the film were mixed, but the movie interestingly delves into many aspects of religious life and different types of religious communities.  

The film begins with Mother Teresa's first congregation, Loreto Sisters of Dublin, who served in Darjeeling, India, as cloistered teachers of girls. After 15 years of service teaching geography and history, Mother Teresa experienced "a call within a call." She desired to work with the poor, sick, and dying on the streets of Calcutta.

The movie highlights the challenges she faced to establish a new religious community, the Missionaries of Charity, that was fully recognized by the Vatican. Despite her desire to give dignity to those most vulnerable, Mother Teresa experienced deep spiritual darkness at times, which is well-depicted.

The Letters is available on DVD and Netflix. Mother Teresa's canonization ceremony will be Sept. 4, 2016.

A dictionary for discerners is a great reference resource to help understand parts of the film.

Holy Face cloistered nun Sister Benedicta was recently awarded a doctoral degree in aerospace engineering from India’s Defence Institute of Advanced Technology.

She previously earned an undergraduate degree at St. Xavier’s College in Mumbai and a master’s degree in aerospace engineering from Pune University. It was during her doctoral studies that she heard her calling to religious life, according to Crux. 

Sister Benedicta joined the cloistered Carmelite convent in Pune in 2015. Sister Benedicta's graduation was the very first time she had stepped outside the convent since entering.

The Carmelite provincial, based in Bangalore, emailed Sister Benedicta and the entire Carmelite community, saying: “You have made the order proud,” and “God bless you!”

Read more here.

In May, 61 cloistered nuns from six monasteries in Santiago, Chile, spent time with inmates at a local women's prison and attended Mass with them, as part of this Year of Mercy. Cardinal Ricardo Ezzati, who celebrated the Mass, shared with Catholic News Agency that the nuns requested the joint visit, “so the sisters who contemplate the face of God every day in prayer could contemplate him in the face of people who are suffering, going through a hard time in their lives.”

The nuns, who lead a traditional enclosed monastic life, sang a Chilean song and four even danced after they all celebrated Mass. "[It was] a grace to share with them, to really feel like a sister with them, to feel their sorrow, their joy and to become one with them,” said Sister Maria Rosa of the Discalced Carmelites from the San José monastery.

Read more here.

The Year of Mercy runs through November 2016.

A delegation from the School Sisters of Notre Dame attended the 66th annual United Nations Conference for Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) from May 30 to June 1 in Korea. The theme of the conference was “Education for Global Citizenship: Achieving the Sustainable Development Goals Together".

Sister Eileen Reilly, director of the SSND UN-NGO office, said, “We are hoping that our participation in this conference with more than 1,800 delegates from around the world will give us a deeper understanding of what it means to educate for global citizenship in our divided world.”

Along with Sister Reilly, Sister Gloria Hirai, of Japan, and Sister Lourdes Pangelinan, of Guam, also attended the conference and worked with diplomats, United Nations officials, policy experts, scientists, educators, businesses, trade unions, parliamentarians, and local authorities.

Throughout the conference, the sisters and their colleagues sought to promote change that empowers women, the young, and the poor and marginalized and addresses systems of poverty and injustice.

Read more here.

Father Sabino Maffeo, S.J., assistant to the director of the Vatican Observatory, recently discovered the names of four Sisters of the Holy Child who helped map a section of the night sky that was assigned, as part of an international project, to the Vatican Observatory in 1887. Italian Sisters Emilia Ponzoni, Regina Colombo, Concetta Finardi, and Luigia Panceri helped catalog nearly half a million stars. Using photographic plates, the Vatican Observatory, along with 19 other countries, mapped the entire sky.

In 1920 Pope Benedict XV received the sisters in a private audience and gave them a gold chalice. Pope Pius XI also received the "measuring nuns" eight years later, awarding them a silver medal.

Read the full Catholic News Service story here and the Smithsonian Magazine article here.

Over the centuries, there have been many monasteries that have made and sold wine and beer. In recent years, with craft breweries becoming all the rage in the United States, some beer-brewing monks are tapping into the trend, according to the Los Angeles Times, namely the American monks who produce a beer line called Birra Nursia at the Monastero di San Benedetto in central Italy.

“I knew the difference between craft beer and run-of-the-mill factory beer,” says Father Benedict Nivakoff, originally from Connecticut, who is proud of Birra Nursia’s two beers, a blond ale and a Belgian strong ale that hit the U.S. market in April. “Our life is mostly centered around prayer,” he says, “so we get up at 3:30 in the morning, we pray seven times a day, we’re in and out of the church every hour—there isn’t a lot else we can do, besides the brewery.”

Another popular beer brewed by monks is Ovila Abbey Saison—this one in the United States. Sierra Nevada Brewing Co. brews the Ovila Abbey Ales series in collaboration with the Trappist monks of Abbey of New Clairvaux. These Cistercian brothers harvest fruit for the beer from their orchards in Vina, California, where they also tend vineyards for wine-making.

Read more: "Raise a glass to the brewing monks!".

Portrait photos of Hawthorne Dominican Sisters were recently featured in the New York Times, profiling those who serve the dying at Rosary Hill Home in Hawthorne, New York. Founder Mother Mary Alphonsa, born Rose Hawthorne Lathrop, daughter of American author Nathaniel Hawthorne, said, "We cannot cure our patients, but we can assure the dignity and value of their final days and keep them comfortable and free of pain."

The photographer Gillian Laub learned of the sisters when her mother-in-law was suffering from terminal cancer and spent her final days with the sisters. Laub wanted to capture the tenderness and care in the eyes and faces of these Hawthorne Dominican Sisters in the 15 portraits of each woman.

View the slideshow of the portraits and original article here.

Discover more about Dominican Sisters (O.P.) here. 

The Dominican Sisters of St. Catherine of Siena have had a long, tumultuous history in Iraq, and now as many Iraqi Christians are fleeing the region, their role there has become even more important. Along with continuing their service work in the community, they are seen as a symbol of hope and resistance in an area full of violence. The mission of the sisters is to serve all Iraqis equally, no matter their religion. 

According to the Order of Preachers, the first Dominican priest visited Iraq in 1235, and in 1873, six French Dominican sisters set up a convent there. They've remained ever since--during World War I, when Christians were persecuted under Turks and their Kurdish allies, and after the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, when killing and looting became commonplace. Through it all, the sisters have not stopped serving the people 

They have set up schools, hospitals, urgent care centers, and maternity wards, and even trained nurses to work in the government health sector. While some of these buildings have been forced to close, others remain open despite constant bombing and ransacking.

Sister Maryanne Pierre, the manager of St. Raphael Hospital in Baghdad, said in an interview with CBS News, "This is my job to stay here to help people. ... It's our duty to stay here for all the people."

The Benedictine Monks of St. John's Abbey in Collegeville, MN, led by Fr. Columba Steward, O.S.B. and the staff at the Hill Museum and Manuscript Libray, are helping to preserve precious Islamic literary works that were threatened with destruction by militants in Mali, reports The Economist.

The secret evacuations began at night. Ancient books were packed in small metal shoe-lockers and loaded three or four to a car to reduce the danger to the driver and minimise possible losses. The manuscript-traffickers passed through the checkpoints of their Islamist occupiers on the journey south across the desert from Timbuktu to Bamako. Later, when that road was blocked, they transported their cargo down the Niger river by canoe. 

The man behind the project was Abdel Kader Haidara. In 2013 he put out a request for help to digitize the more than 370,000 manuscripts, including Korans, Hadiths, and studies on grammar and rhetoric, that were brought to safe houses. He received an answer from a monastery on the other side of the world.

Father Columba sees digitizing these sacred texts as part of the Benedictine tradition of literary preservation dating from the sixth century when St. Benedict of Nursia set down his Rule. “We had scriptoria for very practical reasons,” referring to the “writing places” of medieval European monasteries. “You can’t do theology without philosophy,” he says, standing in his own 21st-century equivalent. “You can’t try to be a self-sustaining monastery if you can’t take science seriously.” So, as a policy, any relevant text was copied. Over one and a half millennia, knowledge has been a matter of survival for the Benedictines, allowing one collective to pick up where another left off, in low times and in high. Today, thanks to machines, the library is copying more efficiently.

“Benedictines are fundamentally optimistic about the human project, says Fr. Columba. "That’s why we’re not frightened by science or novelty. When people look at what we’re doing with Muslim communities, they say, why do you do this? I say, this is the time God has given us. We can’t pretend we live in the sixth century when Benedict wrote his rule, or the 13th, or the 1950s. We live now. And part of the reality is cultures which are threatened trying to figure out how to work together on this fragile planet.” 

And so, "guided by a Christian teacher from the sixth century, monks of the 21st century archive texts about an Arabian prophet from the seventh." 

Founded in 1991 by the late Cardinal John J. O’Connor, the Sisters of Life are an emotional and spiritual outreach to pregnant women in crisis in New York City. As a contemplative and active religious community, the sisters' charism is to “protect and enhance the sacredness of human life.” Pregnant women are welcome at the congregation's Visitation Mission and its Holy Respite residence at Sacred Heart Convent, and some are permitted to stay in the residence until their babies are one year old.

“One of the reasons for the joy in the community is we believe each person has some beautiful, unique goodness and we have the joy of discovering that in them and reflecting it back so she has the experience of her own dignity, goodness and strength,” Sister Mary Elizabeth said. “That person becomes a gift to us in our recognizing her for who she is. She reveals to us the splendor and beauty of God.”

The sisters do not advertise and rely on word-of-mouth from friends and former clients to share the mission of their community.

Read more from Catholic News Service here.

The 7.8-magnitude earthquake that struck Ecuador on April 17 has taken the lives of more than 400 people, including Servant Sisters of the Home of the Mother Sister Clare Theresa Crockett, age 33, and six others of the order.

According to Catholic News Agency, Sister Crockett, originally from Derry, Northern Ireland, once said she felt there was "no room for God" in the Catholic-Protestant tension and violence of her youth. At 18 she was an aspiring actress, but a free trip to Spain that turned out to be a 10-day pilgrimage, which she tried to get out of, changed her life. "It was Our Lady’s way of bringing me back home, back to her and her Son,” she said. “I was not a very happy camper. Nevertheless, it was on that pilgrimage that Our Lord gave me the grace to see how He had died for me on the Cross. After I had received that grace, I knew that I had to change." Sister Crockett entered the Servant Sisters in August 2001 and made her perpetual vows in 2011.

Spiritual director Father Roland Calhoun told BBC Radio Foyle (Belfast Telegraph) that Sister Crockett was "a young girl who gave her life to God and died for the gospel. She was a joyful girl, I've known her since she was a teenager. A beautiful person. I'll remember the joy that she brought to her youth group and the enthusiasm she showed for her vocation to religious life."

The Sisters of Bon Secours have launched an amazing, eye-catching, heartstring-pulling app, Imagine a Sister's Life, to explore what religious life is all about and what it would be like to be a sister. The free app includes daily reflections, blogs, news and views, faith sharing, virtual retreats, upcoming events, and stories about how sisters were called and their passion for their vocation.

The sisters developed the app to create a place "where a busy young seeker of truth can pause to reflect on the meaning of life, pray in silence, and read articles and thought-provoking commentary on world conditions and social justice efforts."

What's more, "Young adults can share their thoughts online and share opportunities to get involved in helping those unable to help themselves. The application gives them a gentle reminder of the presence of God in their life and provides many areas of support and knowledge as they continue to grow through their life experiences. For those interested in learning more about religious life there are a variety of professional videos that give them a sense of what an active life in community and ministry looks like as a sister."

Check out this app with these download links: 

ImagineASistersLife APP on iPhone:

https://geo.itunes.apple.com/us/app/life-as-sister-sisters-bon/id933221111?mt=8&uo=6 

ImagineASistersLife APP on android phone: 

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.lifeasasister.app

The sisters said, "Based on current world conditions, the millennials will be called upon over the course of their lifetime to make many serious moral and ethical decisions both in their own lives and in protecting the health and well-being of others globally. It is hoped that this application proves to be a strong support for young adults, creating an online community that enriches their journey of faith."

According to the Amsterdam News, the Franciscan Handmaids of the Most Pure Heart of Mary are celebrating a century of service in Harlem, New York, with a gala at the New York Academy of Medicine in Manhattan. One of only three orders of black nuns in the United States, they established one of the first preschool educational programs in New York in 1923 and feed more than 20,000 families annually at the St. Edward Food Pantry on Staten Island.

With six new sisters in formation and the opening of a new convent in Nigeria, the sisters believe, as shared by congregation minister Sister Gertrude Lilly Ihenacho, that “the mission of the order has not yet ended, and the spirit informed us to wake up and revive what is left before we die.”

Essence magazine editor-in-chief emerita and founder and CEO of the National CARES Mentoring Movement Susan L. Taylor will present the Centennial Award to the Franciscan Handmaids of the Most Pure Heart of Mary at the gala, which Sister Ihenacho hopes will have a wonderful turnout as the proceeds benefit scholarships for children to attend St. Benedict Day Nursery with the next generation of FHM sisters.

The Press of Atlantic City reports that Father Krzysztof Wtorek brings together God and music with his rock-gospel choir at Epiphany Church in Longport, New Jersey. With six women singers, he transforms traditional hymns into rockin’ beats with programmed bass and drum sounds. He also uses a keyboard and a Fender Stratocaster to move parishioners and touch their hearts with music.

Father Wtorek was a musician as a teen, but when he came to the United States in 1988 and entered the seminary, he thought his life as a musician was over. Instead, he has found himself creating updated arrangements of hymns, using a variety of instruments and computer software.

He will lead an international rock-gospel group of singers and musicians from the United States, Germany, and Poland this summer. The group will perform for Pope Francis at World Youth Day, which will be held July 25-31, 2016.

"This is really evangelization," he said of his music. "You can be happy. You can be peaceful. You can be meditative. I believe in that. I put my life into that."

During the third annual National Catholic Sisters Week (March 8-14), women religious are being celebrated in a series of events at St. Catherine University in St. Paul, Minnesota, and beyond. NCSW is a week-long chance to recognize, focus on, and honor the lives of women religious and the incredible example and difference they have made in the world in a variety of online and local events; check out the entire list here.

According to the Global Sisters Report, co-executive directors of NCSW Molly Hazelton and Dominican Sister Mary Soher said NCSW is an opportunity for the larger community to get to know about the sisters all around them.

"We have found again and again . . . young women—whether they consider themselves religious or not—they're just in awe of these sisters," said Christina Capecchi, a spokesperson for NCSW. "They're blogging about their relationships with them, they just admire the sisters so much. . . . Of course, their work with social justice, that really excites the young women we work with. To these girls, they're heroes."

Brother Joseph Maria, of the South Bend, Indiana, Franciscan Brothers Minor, jogs around town in his brown woolen robe and sandals, sporting a beard and shaved head, according to the South Bend Tribune.

This friar, along with five others, are among the subgroup within the Franciscan order established by Bishop Kevin C. Rhoades (Diocese of Fort Wayne-South Bend) six years ago. The brother friars are fully recognized by the church but are going through the steps to gain more jurisdiction over themselves. Like Saint Francis of Assisi, living simply to focus on service to the gospel, these brothers focus on prayer, work with a Mishawaka youth group, and religious education at a nearby parish.

Brother Joseph struggled with whether to continue jogging as a friar, but decided that running in his robe is an outward sign that the brothers continue the "walk" of Saint Francis. As they have no income, the brothers walk for transportation and beg for what goods and foods they need.

Learn more about the Franciscans Friars here. 

WUSA9 News profiled Father Joseph Jensen, a 91-year-old monk at St. Anselm's Abby in Washington, D.C.. He is an author and teacher who has given his all to his faith. Father Jensen says, "God expects us to be doing something good in the world. All of us are given gifts and the gifts are not for ourselves; they're for other people, and we should be using them for that."

Learn about his way of life in the full video segment above.

According to The Global Sisters Report, when Pope Francis visits San Cristobal de las Casas, Mexico, he will read from scripture and pray in the languages of the Tzotzil and Tzeltal, two ethnic Mayan groups, and he will address issues of inequality, indigenous rights, and migration, in what is Mexico’s poorest state.

Sister Manuela Hernández Núñez, a nun with Misioneros Crecares Diocesanas, says the pope's outreach to indigenous people is important since many have left the Catholic Church in recent years.

Sister Nora Gonzalez, a Tzotzil and a member of the order Hermanas de la Caridad de la Presenacion de la Santisima Virgen, adds, "If the people listen to him, maybe they will change and return to church because he has made it clear he is open to anyone. If they hear his call, their faith will get stronger. Right now there are many divisions and differences of opinion. Right now, I think everybody fights over everything. I believe the main message of the pope will be compassion and peace and coming together of both men and women of all faiths." 

Sister Núñez is inspired by the pope’s inclusiveness and hopes that his visit will help inspire others to come back to the church. "His visit will be a confirmation of faith," she says. "In that way, we will get stronger."

The Global Post profiled Sister Mary Dillon, a a 70-year-old nun from Ireland, who has been caring for HIV/AIDS patients in Kachin, Myanmar for more than a decade. Since the country held democratic elections, there have been promises of peace and justice, but for the Kachin people, these promises seem empty.

As an ethic minority in the north, many from Kachin turn to one of 40 camps for internally displaced people (IDPs). Among these is The Hope Center, a shelter for impoverished people with AIDS and HIV. It currently provides care and medicine to nearly 80 people, ranging in age from 1 to 54. The center serves about 520 people a year.

“Life is very hard; very cruel here,” says Sister Dillon, who opened the center in 2005 after two years of making house calls. “[Myanmar's government] is not a government for the people—it's a government for themselves.”

Along with little government support, the lack of medicine and health education as well as high rates of drug addiction in the area are worsening the problem. With stigmas surrounding HIV and AIDS, Sister Dillon has created her own "don’t ask, don’t tell" policy at The Hope Center. She seeks to help anyone and everyone who comes through her door.

“We don't ask questions here. This is not a hospital. This is a home where people who are discriminated [against] are welcome,” she says. “Whether you are KIA [Kachin Independence Army] or Burmese army or Christian or Buddhist, we are all one here.”

On Jan. 20, six novices of the Sisters of Our Lady of Sion pronounced their first vows in Jerusalem as the Year of Consecrated Life concluded (officially on Feb. 2). Novices Alejandra, Clara, Joey, Victoria, Rozeni, and Arlyne are originally from Costa Rica, Brazil, the Philippines, and Egypt.

In taking these three-year vows, the novices embrace the Sisters of our Lady of Sion charism: "to work against all forms of racism, oppression, and marginalization." In each of its ministries, particularly Jewish-Christian and other interfaith relations, the sisters seek to respond to the biblical call to freedom and the imperative to “hear the cries of the poor."

View the celebration and commitment to consecrated life in the Christian Media Center's video below: 

A new play, "The Glory of the World," by Charles Mee, being staged at New York's Brooklyn Academy of Music, explores the life of Trappist monk, mystic, and philosopher Thomas Merton. The New York Times reports that the play is set at a 100th birthday party for Merton, where the guests take turns arguing about how to describe the life and works of "a prolific writer, a champion of nonviolence, and a friend to Eastern religions before dying at 53 of an accidental electrocution in Thailand."

A former Episcopal monk and lottery winner, Roy Cockrum, of Knoxville, Tennessee, is financing the production. During his time as a monk, Cockrum lived a vow of poverty and always said if he were to come into money, he would donate to theater.

Read more here about this production celebrating Thomas Merton, who, along with Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King Jr., and Dorothy Day, was the subject of Pope Francis' recent address to Congress.

Discover more about Trappists monks and nuns here.

According to the New York Times, Sister Elisabeth Anne has visited the Hunts Point Produce Market in the Bronx every Wednesday for the past 35 years. The 76-year-old squeezes fruit and greets the workers as she shops for food to prepare at the Queen of Peace Residence in Queens Village, where she lives and works. There is one difference to this shopping though: Sister Elisabeth Anne does not pay for the food. Instead, she solicits donations from the businesses that sell their goods at the market.

She remembers the first time, in 1979, she was told to ask for the generosity of others. “To go out and be a beggar was the worst thing you could ever ask me to do,” she said. “I cried my heart out for two weeks.”

She is now a regular and rarely misses a trip to the market, where she has become a favorite. “It’s got a bad rap, it’s tough down here, it’s the Bronx,” said one of the marketing directors for D’Arrigo Brother’s Company of New York, “but she makes people rethink what kind of community it is. Everybody loves dealing with her.”

Donations from businesses, parishes, and foundations help to keep the Queen of Peace Residence going. The home shelters and feeds 85 low-income older adults and 19 nuns, who also live in the building serving the residents. It is one of 197 homes around the world run by the Little Sisters of the Poor, an order whose mission is to support the elderly poor.

Resident Winnie Valcancick, 78, moved in recently and is very grateful to have a safe and friendly environment to live in. “It’s very scary as you get older and you’re not financially equipped to pay the rents that New Yorkers have to pay,” she said.

As Sister Elisabeth Anne walks around the dining room, she smiles and says she has learned to love her role. “I’m the last on the ladder; I’m the lowest,” she said. “I’m the director of nothing except my life. Beggar. That’s my title.”

Don't miss your chance to learn about the newest generation of Catholic sisters and why we need them now more than ever at one more upcoming gathering. Hear remarkable stories from these modern women who have answered the call, and learn how they perceive their mission. 

The fourth and final "Today Catholic Sisters" symposium will be held on Jan. 23, 2016 from 9 am to noon at the Rose Hills Auditorium,  on the Doheny Campus, Mount Saint Mary’s University, in Los Angeles, California.

The National Religious Vocation Conference organized the "Today's Catholic Sisters" events taking place across the country over the past several months. Featured speakers include various young sisters as well as the authors of New Generations of Catholic Sisters: Sister Mary Johnson, S.N.D.deN.; Sister Patricia Wittberg, S.C.; and Dr. Mary Gautier. A Q&A session and raffle follows the main presentation, and refreshments are served.

All are invited to attend. RSVP here. 

Questions? Call the NRVC offices at 773-363-5454 or email Julie Montague at jmontague@nrvc.net.

According to ABC News, Sister Mary Mark of St. Paul, Minnesota, just celebrated her 105th birthday and has no intention of slowing down her ministry of sending letters to inmates in correctional facilities, which she has been doing for more than 20 years.

She said she enjoys writing the letters and explains, "They're in prison, but they're working. They hope to make it.”

Kathleen Conrad, the pastoral care coordinator of Carondelet Village in St. Paul, said, "I think at one point she was writing to about 50 prisoners. When she was 89 years old, she was called down to Oklahoma to testify on behalf of a prisoner on death row because she had been writing to him for such a long time."

Sister Mark offers love and encouragement to the inmates, letting them know that someone is thinking about them. Each of them sends her photos, which she hangs on her bulletin board. She has no plans to stop writing, saying, “As long as I can write, I’ll do it.”

The Sisters of the Good Shepherd Maria Droste Contemplative Community is one of six contemplative communities invited by the Archdiocese of St. Louis to open their doors as a pilgrimage site during the Year of Mercy.

Sister Elizabeth Garciano, the local leader for the Maria Droste Contemplative Community in St. Louis recently blogged about the official blessing by Bishop Edward M. Rice and the great opportunity and privilege it is for them to serve the community at large during this Jubilee Year.

Being a pilgrimage site near Ferguson, Missouri, "in the midst of racial tension" allows the sisters to continue to be an affirmation of missionary life as well as a witness to God's mercy and reconciliation, Garciano says. Additionally, she shares, being a pilgrimage site allows people to get closer to God through Mass, morning and evening prayer, Stations of the Cross, praying the Rosary, and eucharistic adoration. 

The Sisters of the Good Shepherd Year of Mercy pilgrimage site event is listed on the VISION Events Calendar. Join the sisters at the Maria Droste Contemplative Community for prayer and Mass during the following times throughout the Year of Mercy:

Weekly Sunday morning prayer 9 a.m.

Sunday Mass 9:30 a.m.

Daily Monday to Friday Mass 7 a.m.

Daily Monday to Friday morning prayer 7:30 a.m.

Bart Zavaletta teaches "Theology 12: Responding to the Call of Jesus Christ" at Skutt Catholic High School in Omaha, Nebraska, and he learned about VISION Vocation Match, a tool that connects vocation discerners with religious communities that match their interests, through a simple Google search. He was looking for resources for a career connection project he assigned to his class of seniors. Vocation Match turned out to be a great tool for them to learn about religious life and discerning vocation. 

Zavaletta had his students go through the VISION Vocation Match process in class so he could answer their questions about types of communities. Zavaletta had the students chose one of their matches and create a marketing poster for that community, which focused on its charism. 

Check out some of VISION's other resources for teachers, youth ministers, and DREs here.

The cloistered Holy Spirit Adoration Sisters of Philadelphia have worked in shifts to ensure nonstop prayer for more than 100 years, according to The Huffington Post, but now, with the numbers entering their order declining, the sisters have been reaching out to the community at large to recruit members for the next 100 years.

From banners outside the convent to interviews with news reporters to invitations to schools, the order is working to see growth in new, younger members. "We rarely reached out for vocation promotion before the centennial. But now we want young ladies to see how beautiful the life is and how truer the joy when it is without the trappings of material things," said Holy Spirit Adoration Sister Maria Clarissa.

The order began in Holland in 1896. In 1915, nine of the original sisters in Holland left the motherhouse to come to Philadelphia. Currently there are about 420 Holy Spirit Adoration Sisters living in 22 convents in 12 countries, including three convents in the United States: St. Louis, Missouri; Corpus Christi, Texas; and Lincoln, Nebraska. The sisters wear rose-colored habits, which are meant to call attention to the joy they feel honoring the Holy Spirit and the Blessed Sacrament, the focus of their perpetual adoration.

While they live a life of private prayer, the sisters also manage a hotline where people can call in for advice. It helps many on the other end to know that there are people praying for them and people who care, "no matter what their need may be."

Although they live a simple life, they do indulge a bit sometimes. "We try to be as simple as possible so we can focus on the Lord," explained Sister Mary Angelica. "We are simple in everything, even meals—though on special occasions, we have ice cream."

In December, former gang member Brother Cesar John Paul Galan made his perpetual profession of vows as a member of the Friars of the Sick Poor of Los Angeles at St. Francis Medical Center in Lynwood, California, surrounded by his proud family and friends, according to the Tidings. St. Francis Medical Center is also where, in 2001, his brother Hector died from gun violence and Galan himself was left a paraplegic. 

Because of this tragedy, Galan experienced an 'aha' moment of realizing what God intended for him: consecrated life. A few months later during a journey to Lourdes, France, he asked people there, “Am I ever going to get out of this wheelchair? Am I going to go back home walking?” He started praying for that miracle to happen but received an unexpected blessing instead: forgiveness of the person who killed his brother and hurt him, and he left the gang life of his adolescence behind.

Brother Galan will continue studying to become a priest at St. John's Seminary and preparing to serve in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles.

On Monday the Vatican’s Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life released a 54-page document, “Identity and Mission of the Religious Brother in the Church,” that "addresses the identity of the religious brother in three ways: First, as a mystery of a gift received; second, as a communion of a gift shared; and, third, as a mission of a gift to be given away," according to the National Catholic Reporter.

Although not ordained as priests, brothers serve priestly roles in their ministries to the sick, the youth in schools, and the poor in body and spirit. It is important to note that these sentiments about brothers apply to religious women, too, as their consecrated lives are similar.

Crux reports that worldwide there are about 55,000 brothers in the Catholic Church today, a much smaller total than either priests (415,000) or nuns (705,000), though roughly comparable to the number of permanent deacons (42,000).

In this way of consecrated life of service, religious brothers become part of various communities of different orders, societies, or congregations, fulfilling the title of "brother" Jesus preached for himself and his apostles. 

Read another report on the Vatican document from Vatican Radio here. 

For further information and reflection, read VISION's current and archived articles on Brothers.

The Telegraph reports that Sister Rita Lee is set to star in her own five-part BBC One series, "Sister Rita to the Rescue." To locals in Manchester, England, Sister Rita is known as “Attila the Nun” because of her strength in advocating for those often forgotten in society, especially in her inner-city neighborhood, Collyhurst.

Originally from Cork, Ireland, Sister Rita, 70, characterizes her adopted community as “real life at the raw edge” but see strength in it, too, saying, “People here are the salt of the earth.” When asked if she is ever fearful in her neighborhood, she explained, “If anyone said boo to me, they’d all be at the door, reassuring me. I know the Collyhurst people inside out. They’re wonderful.”

Her leadership style is fair but firm, and based in her Catholic faith. She says, “We must help one another in this life. It’s the commandment. We can’t just go on our own. 'Take the shirt off your back and give it to somebody.' That’s where I come from.”

At the age of 13, she began to hear her call when two nuns from Manchester came to her school in Cork to discuss vocation. They talked about Manchester, the poverty there, and a nursery in which they cared for children. At the age of 18, Rita joined a convent in Manchester and went on to work in the convent school. When the school closed, she worked in various other charitable organizations and eventually ended up in her current home of Collyhurst.

She is excited about the show airing but hopes viewers understand the message. "There’s a bit of a hype about all this, and there’s nothing hype about here," she said. "There’s nobody here above anyone else. We are all on the same level. And that’s it."

Sister Mary Killeen, R.S.M., an Irish Sister of Mercy, who has been working in the slums of Kenya for the past 30 years, was chosen to address Pope Francis during his visit there this past week. Sister Mary told the Pontiff of the adversity the people of the slums face to achieve an education and self-sufficiency, not the least of which is rampant corruption and landgrabbing. Sister Mary thanked Francis for visiting their poor community, "Your visit gives us courage. By coming here, you shine a light on the challenges. Your meeting with us gives us dignity."

Follow Sister Mary's blog of her life in Kenya. Or better yet, join her in her work among the poor!

The Wall Street Journal recently profiled Sister Jannette Marie Pruitt, who is now a nun, but also the mother of three, grandmother of seven, great-grandmother of two, and one of two black Catholic nuns in the order of the Sisters of St. Francis.

She was educated by nuns and always active in her parish, even as she got older. Pruitt knew she wanted to become a nun when she was younger, but growing up in Mississippi in the 1950s her race was a factor and she was discouraged from joining an order.

When she was 47, she reconsidered this calling. At first, she thought it was a crazy dream, but when she saw an announcement in her parish bulletin calling for members of the black community who were interested in religious life to attend a weekend retreat and meet different orders. She went and spoke with Sister Marge Wissman who is a member of the Sisters of St. Francis in Oldenburg, Indiana.

She explored other orders as well, but eventually she knew she had found the right fit with them, explaining, “The Sisters of St. Francis were very fun-loving and outgoing,”

The process of becoming a nun took years, which was good, says Sister Jannette, because she needed time to adjust to the vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience. She explained she needed to adjust her lifestyle a bit because she loved shoes, clothes, and spoiling her grandchildren and great-grandchildren, but she gained much more than she gave up.

She is now a coordinator of the Black Catholic Ministry for the Archdiocese of Indianapolis, which helps organize programs for black Catholics. She also sits on the board of the National Black Sisters’ Conference and was twice nominated for the Harriet Tubman award, honoring a sister who is “Moses of Her People.”

The balance between religious life and family life may seem daunting to some, but Sister Jannette finds joy in both, saying, “I have two vocations. My life is full.”

The Catholic News Service reports that Pope Francis urged priests and their superiors to remember their roots and acknowledge the families and communities that support them throughout their spiritual journeys. Addressing a group of priests and bishops, he said, “You cannot be a priest believing that you were created in a laboratory. No, it begins in the family with the tradition of the faith and all the experiences of the family."

The pope also reminded them of their central mission of ministering to the faithful, saying, "I tell you sincerely: I am afraid of rigid [priests]. I am afraid. Rigid priests, keep them far away, they bite! The words of St. Ambrose come to mind: 'Where there is mercy, there is the spirit of God. Where there is rigidity, there are only his ministers.’ And a minister without the Lord becomes rigid. This is a danger for the people of God. Be pastors, not officials.”

The priests and bishops were gathered for a conference sponsored by the Congregation for Clergy to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Vatican II decrees on priestly formation and on priestly ministry and life. 

The Order of Preachers (Dominicans) began their year-long Jubilee marking the 800th anniversary of the order (1216-2016) this past Sunday. Vatican Today reports that Pope Francis "has granted the possibility of receiving a plenary indulgence for all the faithful" taking part in the celebrations. The specific terms and conditions to receive the indulgence are outlined in a document sent by the Apostolic Penitentiary. 

Pope Francis encourages all Dominican priests to make themselves available to celebrate the Sacrament of Reconciliation in all Jubilee places to which the faithful may pilgrimage as well as administer Holy Communion to the infirm frequently throughout the Jubilee year.

Here is a short list of the many Dominican communities:

• Dominican Sisters (O.P.)
• Dominican Sisters (O.P.)--Adrian, MI
• Dominican Sisters (O.P.)--Grand Rapids
• Dominican Sisters (O.P.)--Mission San Jose
• Dominican Sisters (O.P.)--Racine, WI
• Dominican Sisters (O.P.)--San Rafael, CA
• Dominican Sisters (O.P.)--Sinsinawa, WI
• Dominican Sisters (O.P.)--Springfield, IL
• Dominican Sisters of Divine Providence
• The Dominicans (O.P.) [Order of Preachers]
• Dominican Sisters (O.P.)--Amityville, NY
• Dominican Sisters (O.P.)--Blauvelt, NY
• Dominican Sisters (O.P.)--Caldwell, NJ
• Dominican Sisters of Hope
• Dominican Sisters (O.P.)--Sparkill, NY
• Dominican Sisters (O.P.)--Houston, TX
• Dominican Sisters of Peace (O.P.)
• Dominican Sisters of Our Lady of the Springs of Bridgeport (O.P.)
• Dominican Sisters of St. Catherine of Siena, Newcastle, Natal
• Dominican Friars of England and Scotland
• Dominican Sisters of St. Joseph, UK

"A Dominican’s day—timeless and timely," a recent VISION article about the daily life inside the church, office, and home of a Dominican priest. 

There are many Catholics who have not been called to vowed consecrated life but rather as formal associates of religious communities. These lay men and women, often called associates, consociates, oblates, or companions, share a commitment to living a particular religious order’s charism, or spirit. These communities invite associates into their ministry and way of thinking.

Most associates choose religious communities because they have been exposed to the community before, such as in school, or they have a strong will to share in the ministry of a particular community.

In a recent article in The Catholic Spirit, Bruce Labno, a 66-year-old Ignatian associate, said,  “Ignatian spirituality helps [people] focus on finding God in all things, at any moment, in so many different ways, all of which is called awareness. I have become aware of God around me, of my humanness, my brokenness and the many gifts given that are to be passed on to others. Ignatian spirituality is my way to actively live Christ in the world as it is today.”

Many orders invite associates from all walks of life to join them in ministry and prayer. Men, women, singles, couples, Catholic and non-Catholic, working and retired, may share in the religious community.

For many, such as Mary Ann Pearson, the communities offer a way to connect with God on a different level. “The important thing is this has deepened my relationship with God,” she said. “I think communities like this provide a far richer, deeper way to enhance our relationship with God than just going to church or meeting with a group regularly.”

Jesus, his mother, and his disciples once passed through the ancient town of Anjara, located in Jordan in the hills east of the Jordan River Valley, and rested there in a cave, where now stands the Church of Our Lady of the Mount, a site of Christian pilgrimage and an example of community between Christians and Muslims in the area.

The pastor, Father Hugo Fabian, 46, is Argentinian but has lived in the Middle East for 18 years, including in Egypt and Syria. He is fluent in Arabic and has studied Islam. A priest of the Religious Family of the Incarnate Word (IVE), he has worked in Anjara for the past decade.

“Thank God we are able to help many families in Anjara because so many of them need help,” Father Fabian said.

Anjara, population 20,000, is a particularly poor town, even for the poor country of Jordan. The parish’s weekly collection is about $50. The church and its school and mission are largely supported by Arab Christians in the United States and by donations from pilgrims who visit the shrine. And the parish has much to support.

There are about 220 students at the school, about half are Christian and half are Muslim. As part of the comprehensive curriculum, classes in Islam are taught to the Muslim students and catechism is taught to the Christian students. All are taught religious tolerance.

Of the king of Jordan, Abdullah II, Father Fabian said, “Thank God we have this open-minded man,” who promotes religious acceptance of the minority Christian population in this predominantly Muslim country.

The parish also runs a mission that takes in children of all ages and religions, who are in need of refuge for a variety of reasons including poverty and problems at home, providing them with food, clothing, shelter, and education. The mission regularly has about 30 kids in its care. Additionally, the church ministers to prisoners and prostitutes. And it wants to do more, including housing and other support for Syrian refugees.

In this place that is a sign that love and unity is possible among all people, a miracle occurred. On May 6, 2010, the statue of Our Lady of the Mount wept tears of human blood. Many believe the tears showed her sorrowful solidarity with the poor of Anjara. "The Virgin Mary cries with us and for us,” Father Fabian said.

There are 250 families in the parish, served by three priests and seven sisters, who belong to the Religious Family of the Incarnate Word, founded in Argentina in 1984. The order has missionaries all over the world and began working in Jordan in 2004.

In a recent article in the Angelus, Sister Cecilia Canales, O.P., Vicar for Women Religious of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, gave a breakdown, with her personal perspective, of the many forms of consecrated life and the great cultural diversity now present in religious life in the Los Angeles area.

Canales shared that the sisters who serve the Archdiocese of Los Angeles come from Africa, Armenia, India, China, the Philippines, Haiti, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Korea, the Middle East countries, Poland, Slovakia, Vietnam, and almost every nation in Latin America. In addition to the cultural diversity, the religious women are part of a variety of consecrated communities including cloistered Carmelites, Dominicans, and Poor Clares as well as apostolic communities that have been in Los Angeles for a few hundred years. Some of the earliest groups in foundation who minister there, Canales said, were the Sisters of the Company of Mary (1607), Daughters of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul (1633), and the Sisters of the Good Shepherd (1641). The first of the sisters to come to Southern California were the Daughters of Charity in 1856, to open hospitals, and the Dominican Sisters of Mission San Jose and the Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet, both in 1889 to open schools. Additionally, Canales explained that secular institutes, as well as newer communities, are establishing themselves and ministering to those in need in the archdiocese.

Discover more about religious communities becoming more culturally diverse in this recent VISION 2016 article: ¡Viva la diferencia! The colorful future of religious life.

In honor of National Vocation Awareness Week (Nov. 1-7), the annual celebration that promotes and encourages prayer for religious vocations, the Brothers of Christian Schools have produced a short documentary-style video that follows a group of brothers and young men discerning religious life who walked the pilgrimage route Camino de Santiago, or the Way of St. James, in Spain this past summer. Together on a Journey explores the discernment and reflection opportunities they shared on their pilgrimage. 



Discover more about vocations by exploring our many Year of Consecrated Life resources here.

The third of four events in the "Today's Catholic Sisters" series will be held in Alumnae Hall at Immaculata University in Immaculata, Pennsylvania, on Saturday, Oct. 10 from 1-4 pm, with Mass to follow. 

The National Religious Vocation Conference is organizing the "Today's Catholic Sisters" events taking place across the country over the course of several months. Featured speakers include various young sisters as well as the authors of New Generations of Catholic Sisters: Sister Mary Johnson, S.N.D.deN.; Sister Patricia Wittberg, S.C.; and Dr. Mary Gautier. A Q&A session and raffle will follow the main presentation, and refreshments will be served.

The fourth and final event in the series will be held on Jan. 23, 2016 at 9 am-noon at Mount Saint Mary’s University in Los Angeles, California.

All are invited to attend. RSVP here. 

Questions? Call the NRVC offices at 773-363-5454 or email Julie Montague at jmontague@nrvc.net.

The increasing interest in religious life among millennial women in America may be surprising to the New York Times, and due in part to social media and reality television shows, but in the article, Sister Colleen Gibson, S.S.J., VISION Vocation Guide and Take Five for Faith author, corrects those notions. “I’ve never met anybody, who was like, ‘Oh yeah, I saw Christina on the Italian Voice and that really made me want to be a sister!’” Gibson said. Instead, she says, it is usually face-to-face interaction that helps young women realize their vocations.

However, this does come from someone who found her congregation on VISION Vocation Match, an online tool to help people in discernment find a religious community that fits with them. “It’s basically Match.com for nuns,” Gibson said.

There are many steps to becoming a Catholic sister and VISION Vocation Match and other online outlets are a great place to start the learning process and begin to connect with other discerners and sisters—a virtual introduction to religious life that jibes with the young. According to the article, the National Religious Vocation Conference reported that of the more than 2,500 women who completed online VISION Vocation Match profiles in 2013, the majority were under 30.

Read Sister Colleen Gibson's 2016 VISION article, "Why being single and living as a sister aren't the same," and check out Take Five for Faith, daily renewal for busy Catholics.

The Boston Pilot reports that Cardinal Sean P. O'Malley has issued a decree to allow Catholics to receive a plenary indulgence during the Year of Consecrated Live through Feb. 2, 2016. 

According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, a plenary indulgence is: "a remission before God of the temporal punishment due to sins whose guilt has already been forgiven, which the faithful Christian who is duly disposed gains under certain prescribed conditions through the action of the Church which, as the minister of redemption, dispenses and applies with authority the treasury of the satisfactions of Christ and the saints."

Effective Sept. 10, Catholics in the Archdiocese of Boston can receive the plenary indulgence in the following ways:

1. make a pilgrimage to Boston's Cathedral of the Holy Cross and St. Clement Shrine during the Year of Consecrated Life; or

2. attend Year of Consecrated Life celebrations such as the one held at the Cathedral on Nov. 29 or any open church in the archdiocese that day after 2 p.m.; or

3. worship with Franciscan women and men at their places of worship and/or, where invited, at their residences on Oct. 3, the Transitus of Saint Francis, or Oct. 4, the Feast of Saint Francis.

While making pilgrimage or attending a special Year of Consecrated Life celebration, those seeking indulgence must:

1. recite publicly the Liturgy of the Hours or for an appropriate amount of time dedicate themselves to pious thoughts;

2. pray the Our Father, recite the Profession of Faith or Creed and make "pious invocations" to the Blessed Virgin Mary;

3. pray for the intentions of the pope and make a sacramental confession and receive Communion as soon as possible. 

Read more about The Gift of the Indulgence from the Vatican website today.

Mexico News Daily recently profiled Sister Florinda Ruiz, who is competing on the Mexican version of the television program "MasterChef."

"MasterChef" is a cooking competition in which contestants vie for 1 million pesos. The sister's simple convent recipe for a dessert made from chayote, a Mexican staple, got Sister Ruiz into the competition. Now she is one of six finalists. Her signature dish is a three-meat course with dried chile sauce.

Sister Ruiz, who thanks Saint Joseph every time she advances to another round, is hoping to win the prize for her order, the Passionist Sisters, so they can pay off some bills at the school they run, Our Lady of Sorrows, in Puebla, Mexico. 

She knows the perfect recipe for success: “To me, the love I have for God is comparable to the love I have for cooking. I think that if I can win, it is because I have faith in my dishes.”

The second of four events in the "Today's Catholic Sisters" series will be held in the Lund Auditorium at Dominican University in River Forest, Illinois, on Sunday, Sept. 20 from 1-4 pm. This symposium can be watched online live here.

The National Religious Vocation Conference is organizing the "Today's Catholic Sisters" events taking place across the country over the next few months. Featured speakers include various young sisters as well as the authors of New Generations of Catholic Sisters: Sister Mary Johnson, S.N.D.deN.; Sister Patricia Wittberg, S.C.; and Dr. Mary Gautier. A Q&A session and raffle will follow the main presentation, and refreshments will be served.

All are invited to attend. RSVP here. 

Questions? Call the NRVC offices at 773-363-5454 or email Julie Montague at jmontague@nrvc.net.

The New York Times recently profiled a contemplative order of nuns that are attracting a fair number of millennials. The Nuns of the Order of Preachers at the Dominican Monastery of Our Lady of the Rosary in Summit, New Jersey, are eliciting noteworthy interest in their cloistered life of prayer.

In the last decade, 15 aspirants entered the order and nine are on track to take their final vows or have already done so, and two more women will join the community this year.

The community credits the web and social media with helping the order get exposure to grow, but ironically, the appeal to the young lies partly in unplugging from a hyperconnected world. 

Sister Mary Catharine, a mentor there to six women under 30, welcomed four aspirants to the order this summer. When asked why she thinks these young women are interested in religious life, she explained, “With all the technology, I think they’re just saturated. And they see this life as really radical and they have a desire for it. Maybe their families are fractured and they see our life as really stable."

After photographer Toni Greaves accompanied a writer to the monastery to do a story about how the nuns were using the Internet to market their community, she was inspired to spend the next seven years capturing their daily lives. Her book, Radical Love, out this month from Chronicle Books, is a collection of images that document one young nun’s journey from her first weeks in the monastery to her solemn profession seven years later. 

“There was an exuberance and vibrancy to all the young women,” Greaves said. “It’s the energy that we embody when we’re in love, and it was amazing to me.”

The monks at Holy Cross Abbey, a Trappist monastery in Berryville, Virginia, decided in 2007 to work harder at being better stewards of the earth, which is part of their Cistercian tradition. Pope Francis’ recent encyclical on protecting the environment has bolstered their resolve.

The monks, who follow the Rule of St. Benedict, have always worked closely with their local community and the land on which they live. The monastery's Father James Orthman said, “We live a way of life that’s literally rooted in the land. The liturgical life reflects the succession of the seasons, and the more you become sensitized to that, the symbolism of the liturgy becomes so much more compelling.”

According to Catholic News Agency, the monks turned to the University of Michigan’s School of Natural Resources and Environment to author a study on how the abbey could become more sustainable. The resulting 400-page study, “Reinhabitating Place,” provided many suggestions, and since, the Trappists have taken steps to prevent cattle from polluting the river that runs through their property and planted native hardwoods and bushes in order to attract migrant animals, insects, and pollinators to restore proper biodiversity to the area. They also switched their heating and fueling sources to propane gas, and even started offering “green” burials, which eliminate the embalming fluids and lead in coffins that can be detrimental to soil.

The monks hope that their initiative may serve as a model for low-tech, low-cost solutions to environmental problems, especially in developing countries.

Of the pope's encyclical on the environment, Father Orthman said, “At the end of the day, I can ... say to myself ‘Ah, this is worth it. We should keep doing this. I’m going to keep putting up with the nonsense to get this done.’”

The first of four special gatherings featuring the newest generation of Catholic sisters will be take place on Sept. 12 from 9 am to noon (Central time), at the University of the Incarnate Word in San Antonio, Texas. Watch the event online live via this link.

The National Religious Vocation Conference is hosting four "Today's Catholic Sisters" events over the next few months. Featured speakers include various young sisters as well as the authors of New Generations of Catholic Sisters: Sister Mary Johnson, S.N.D.deN.; Sister Patricia Wittberg, S.C.; and Dr. Mary Gautier. A Q&A session and raffle will follow the main presentation, and refreshments will be served.

These events celebrate the Year of Consecrated Life by encouraging the support of Catholic sisters now and in the future. Family, friends, discerners, and parishioners are all invited to attend.

Questions? Call the NRVC offices at 773-363-5454 or email Julie Montague at jmontague@nrvc.net.

You may also RSVP for this event here. 

Among the worldwide celebrations in August of the 200-year anniversary of the founding of the Missionaries of the Precious Blood, the Cincinnati Province held an outdoor Mass, mission presentation, and reception for 1,500 guests at the St. Charles Center in Carthagena, Ohio. The community also co-sponsored a youth and family event called "Jubilation!" with the Northern Network of Youth Ministers at the nearby Spiritual Center of Maria Stein Shrine of the Holy Relics.

Meanwhile, in Peru, to commemorate the bicentennial, priests, brothers, parishioners, and friends celebrated Mass at the parish of San Francisco de Borja and held a large reception where several groups entertained guests with Peruvian dances and school children joined in a procession around the neighborhood. According to the congregation's website, the Missionaries of the Precious Blood have ministered in Peru since 1962.

The Missionaries of the Precious Blood is a worldwide congregation of priests, brothers, and lay associates (called companions) that was founded by Saint Gaspar del Buffalo in Italy on August 15, 1815. The congregation began preaching in towns throughout central Italy, igniting the "fire of faith in God's people."

A new film, The Dream Continues, available in English, Spanish, and Italian explores the spirituality, mission, and ministry around the world of the Missionaries of the Precious Blood.

As part of the Year of Consecrated Life celebrations, a unique vocation was recently honored in Indiana's Diocese of Fort Wayne-South Bend: canonical hermit.

According to Today's Catholic News, Sister Mary Ann Burkhart professed first vows at a Mass celebrated by Bishop Kevin C. Rhoades at St. Charles Borromeo Parish in Fort Wayne in July. Sisters Jane Brackebush and Nancy Frentz, who have been hermits for one and two years respectively, were part of the celebration.

All three women were married earlier in life (two of them have children and grandchildren) and later discerned a call to the eremitical life.

Bishops are allowed to accept hermits in their dioceses who were not affiliated with religious orders. Each hermit has a rule of life approved by the bishop, who serves as their superior.  Their lives are marked by solitary prayer.

In the Democratic Republic of Congo, Sister Angelique Namaika has helped thousands of women and girls who have been the victims of sexual violence and slavery. News.com reports that between 2009 and 2015, Sister Namaika has helped more than 5,000 women overcome the horrors of the past. Her most important resources? A smile and a bike. 

She works to inspire victims to take control of their lives and develop skills to gain some independence. Sewing groups, farm work, and bakery businesses help them earn money and overcome community stigma, she explained. She encourages them to seek educational assistance, take literacy classes, and eventually train to be teachers, nurses, and midwives. 

Sister Namaika, who won the United Nations refugee agency’s top humanitarian award, plans to continue to fight against gender violence. "Very often as a human I am overwhelmed [by the women's stories] but I pray to God to help me to continue,” she said.

The Sisters of Mary Morning Star, a new contemplative, non-cloistered community, opened a second convent in the United States in August. The community announced that three sisters from its convent in Ghent, Minnesota—Sisters Mary Thomas, Eva Nelly, and Benjamin Elisabeth—moved to Madison, Wisconsin, to start the new convent there. Two more sisters from Spain—Sisters Mary Alix and Sarah Rose—are also relocating to the Madison convent.

The Sisters of Mary Morning Star was established in Spain in 2014. There are about 250 members in 10 countries.

According to Global Sisters Report, “Even though a new foundation, this community belongs to an ancient cenobitic form of religious practice, where members live a combination of solitary and communal life. Their uniqueness is the combining of Carmelite, Carthusian and Dominican spiritualities, but without enclosure to isolate the sisters from people of the community. … They attend parish and diocesan functions and also invite the local community into the convent to share prayer.”

Jessica Hayes, 38, of Fort Wayne, Indiana, recently became one of about 230 consecrated virgins in the United States. Hundreds attended the ceremony at the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception in Fort Wayne out of curiousity and interest in Hayes' unusual vocation, according to the Daily Mail.

Unlike a religious sister, a consecrated virgin doesn’t join a religious community. A consecrated virgin provides her own home and livelihood and is expected to commit to prayer and volunteer service. In 1970, Pope Paul VI reinstituted the rite, which had fallen into disuse.

Hayes, a theology teacher at Bishop Dwenger High School in Fort Wayne, said she decided to become a consecrated virgin after years of prayer and consideration.

The Diocese of Pittsburgh celebrated its first Rite of Consecration of a Virgin in July for Sheila Ryan, a retired school teacher.

Discover more about consecrated life with the many Year of Consecrated Life resources on our website.

For her work defending human rights and the environment, Philippines-based Sister Stella Matutina, O.S.B. was named the winner of the 2015 Weimar Award for Human Rights, according to Minda News and the Sisters' Association in Mindanao.

The award is bestowed by the city council of Weimar, Germany, which decided the 47-year-old Benedictine nun deserved to be honored after learning about her fight against international gold mining companies for polluting and abusing workers in her homeland.

“This highlights the situation of Mindanao and the Philippines in general where the poor, the farmers, the indigenous peoples, the human rights activists and defenders of the environment endure harassment and face risks and death,” Sister Matutina said.

Sister Matutina heads the Sisters’ Association in Mindanao (SAMIN) and has herself faced threats and false accusations that she's a communist rebel.

Sister Matutina will receive the award on Dec. 10, which is International Human Rights Day.

Pope Francis is certainly giving Catholics much to celebrate by declaring an extraordinary jubilee, a Holy Year of Mercy, while the Year of Consecrated Life is still underway.

The Year of Mercy, which runs from Dec. 8, 2015 to Nov. 20, 2016, will highlight the Catholic Church's "mission to be a witness of mercy." The Year of Consecrated Life doesn't conclude until Feb. 2, 2016.

The Pontifical Council for Promoting New Evangelization, which is organizing events for the Year of Mercy, published a calendar online at www.im.va.

According to the Catholic Herald, here are some major events planned in Rome for the Year of Mercy:

Dec. 8 - Opening of the Holy Door of St. Peter’s Basilica.

Jan. 19-21 - Jubilee for those involved with guiding or organizing pilgrimages and religious tourism.

Feb. 2 - Jubilee for Consecrated Life and the closing of the Year for Consecrated Life.

Feb. 10 (Ash Wednesday) - Sending forth the Missionaries of Mercy, St. Peter’s Basilica.

April 3 (Divine Mercy Sunday) - Jubilee for those who are devoted to the spirituality of Divine Mercy.

May 27-29 - Jubilee for deacons.

June 3 - Jubilee for priests.

July 26-31 - Jubilee for youth, World Youth Day in Krakow, Poland.

Sept. 4 - Jubilee for workers and volunteers of mercy.

Sept. 25 - Jubilee for catechists.

Nov. 20 - Closing of the Holy Door of St. Peter’s Basilica and the conclusion of the Year of Mercy.

A statue of Mother Catherine Spalding (1793-1858) was installed outside the Cathedral of the Assumption in Louisville, Kentucky, among statues of presidents, civic leaders, explorers, and athletes. It is the first public statue of a woman in Louisville, which honors her work as co-founder of the Sisters of Charity of Nazareth and her many contributions to Louisville, according to Louisville's NPR news station WFPL.

Spalding, an orphan herself, and the Sisters of Charity of Nazareth took in many children who were abandoned during the settlement of the Kentucky frontier or orphaned by the cholera outbreak of the 1830s. Spalding's statue depicts her carrying a child in her arms and holding the hand of another child next to her.

Discover more about the Sisters of Charity of Nazareth who work for justice in solidarity with oppressed people, especially women and the poor, and for care of the earth. They minister in the United States as well as India, Nepal, Belize, and Botswana. 

The Daughters of Charity released a video on YouTube, called Making an impact, about Brother Roberto Martinez, F.S.C., and the role of his grade-school teacher, Sister Marianne Olives, D.C., in helping him discern his vocation. 

Sister Olives taught Martinez how to read English, his second language. After grade school, Martinez attended a Catholic high school run by Christian Brothers. Martinez said that his faith and the prayers of the Daughters of Charity helped him get through a battle with cancer.

Throughout his discernment process, Daughters of Charity prayed for and supported him, and Sister Olives was present when he made his first vows. “It is always a joy to know that my consecrated life is an inspiration to somebody else who also wants to do the same with their life," she said.

Again following in the steps of Sister Olives, Brother Martinez is now a teacher. About the future of his students, he says, “You never know, one day [they may turn out to be] brothers and daughters.”

Women tend to be underrepresented in the sciences, because they often aren't encouraged to explore those fields, but Sister Patricia McCarron, headmistress at Notre Dame Preparatory School for girls in Towson, Maryland, is working to change that.

According to the Catholic Review, Sister McCarron recently spearheaded an initiative at the school she calls “connecting the dots,” which promotes summer science internships for students, as part of the school’s Women in Science program. McCarron explains, “We’re all about opening doors; we don’t want any obstacles in place. If you want a summer internship in dentistry, engineering or veterinary science, we have a network of alums and business partners that help make that happen.”

She tells of her own experience as a young woman navigating her calling, remembering, “I was really blessed, because I had opportunities and people who saw potential in me. I never felt there wasn’t an opportunity to do whatever I wanted to do. I see that today with our girls. We believe and know they can do whatever it is they want to do.”

She hopes her students will change the world in positive ways, saying, "Mothers, business leaders, engineers, scientists; who will be the peacemaker? Are we going to be the school that educates the girl who’s going to bring clear water to everyone in Africa? The girls know the mission. You are your sister’s keeper.”

New Evangelization Television (NET TV), a Catholic cable network in Brooklyn and Queens, New York, has produced and posted six episodes so far of a "Wake up the World" video series for the Year of Consecrated Life. Each episode focuses on the unique charisms, faith, and lifestyles of religious congregations in the Diocese of Brooklyn and beyond including:

The Marist Brothers

Sisters of St. Joseph of Brentwood

Franciscan Brothers

Sisters of St. Dominic

Vincentian Priests

Sister Servants of the Lord & the Virgin of Matara 

If you haven't yet watched VISION's Year of Consecrated Life video series on YouTube, add our YCL playlist next!

In celebration of the Year of Consecrated Life, Viatorians hosted an open house in July at their provincial center in Arlington Heights, Illinois. More than 200 people, including neighbors, school alumni, and benefactors, attended.

The day began with outdoor Mass. Then, visitors explored the center and viewed historical displays and a screening of a movie, The Search, about discernment and the Viatorian Novitiate. Viatorian associates, brothers, and priests were on hand to answer questions and describe some of their current ministries to visitors.

Father Thomas von Behren, C.S.V., provincial, said in his homily, “In this Year of Consecrated Life, we are asked by Pope Francis to ‘Wake up the World.’ During this special year, Pope Francis asks us to listen to those who have given their lives to a life of service — and to being a religious."

Every spring, sixth-graders at St. Francis Xavier School in Winooski, Vermont, take a 60-mile field trip to visit the Benedictine nuns of the Monastery of the Immaculate Heart of Mary in Westfield.

On this year's trip, the students attended Mass, listened to a presentation about the nuns’ lives, performed a brief musical program, and donated $550 in proceeds they earned from making and selling colorful rosaries.

“The fact that they work on those rosaries … and give the proceeds to us makes us feel part of their work,” said prioress Mother Laurence Couture.

Jesse Gaudette, principal of St. Francis Xavier School, accompanied the students on their visit. “You can teach about vocations in the classroom or show [students] in real life,” he said. “They can read a book or we can tell them in the classroom [about monastic life] or we can take them here and they can see it, they can touch it, they can live it.”

“Their life inspires people to be part of the church,” said student Brady Spencer. “It’s quite inspiring to see these people living here and worshipping God every day.”

Read the full article here.

Pope Francis recently blessed the hands of Sister Maria Concetta Esu, 81, who has delivered more than 34,000 babies while working as a midwife in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

"The task of a midwife brings me great joy because God gives life but he doesn't give birth," says Sister Esu in an article by Agence France Presse.

Sister Esu works in the clinic run by her order, the Daughters of Saint Joseph of Genoni. About 40 babies are born in the clinic each month, and several parents have named their newborns Maria, after Sister Esu.

She was originally trained as a nurse in Italy and then studied tropical medicine in Belgium. She moved to the Congo in 1959, a year before the country’s independence.

Throughout the violence of wars and the rule of a dictator hostile to the Catholic Church, her mission became a haven of peace and assistance for many.

Currently, tension remains high in the country amid suspicions of political corruption, but Sister Esu says she has no plans to flee, explaining, "I want to stay here. I don't want to be a deserter. I've given my whole life here and I shall also give my bones."

It takes more than courage to defy a warlord and work to undo the damage of his 20-year reign of terror with nothing but a sewing machine. It takes an inspiring capacity for love and forgiveness—and good old-fashioned practical problem solving.

Sister Rosemary Nyirumbe, of the Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, has dedicated her life to helping more than 2,000 girls, who were abducted, raped, tortured, and forced to kill their own family members by Joseph Kony and his Lord’s Resistance Army, which waged bloody civil wars that decimated northern Uganda and southern Sudan.

As the keynote speaker at the 2015 Catholic Media Conference in Buffalo, New York, in June, she related to the Catholic press how she answered the call to serve these girls—who have been shunned and persecuted by their own communities for bearing their captors’ children—as the director of St. Monica Girls’ Tailoring Centre in Gulu, Uganda, since 2002. The school provides the girls with safe sanctuary and job training in tailoring and catering so they can become self-reliant.

A native of Uganda, she began serving the people of her country after joining her order in 1976. Currently, about 250 girls and 250 children live at St. Monica. Sister Rosemary also oversees a second school in Atiak, Uganda. In 2014, she was named one of Time magazine’s 100 most influential people.

Sister Rosemary's work is the subject of Sewing Hope, a documentary narrated by Oscar-winner Forest Whitaker and a book of the same name (Dust Jacket Press, 2013). All proceeds from book sales go to help the girls at St. Monica. For more information, visit sewinghope.com.

The Diocese of Scranton, Pennsylvania celebrated the Year of Consecrated Life with the annual Pontifical Mass for Consecrated Life, which took place at the Cathedral of St. Peter in Scranton.

Bishop Joseph C. Bambera was the celebrant for the Mass that honored priests, brothers, and sisters who celebrated their anniversaries of ordination or profession of vows.

All religious women and men and members of various forms of consecrated life were invited to the Mass and reception that followed. This year, 42 men and women jubilarians serving in the diocese were honored.

Read more here.

In the June issue of Columbia, a publication of the Knights of Columbus, writer Brian Fraga reminds readers of the mission of consecrated life and points to signs of renewal for this vocation.

Although the number of those in religious life has dwindled, the statistics do not tell the entirety of the story, as there is a "quiet renaissance" in religious life underway.

Worldwide, more than 200 new religious communities have been founded since the Second Vatican Council, according to Holy Cross Brother Paul Bednarczyk, executive director of the National Religious Vocations Conference.

“The Holy Spirit continues to call and raise up gifts within the Church,” said Brother Bednarczyk.

Fraga reveals that "among the more than 500 men being ordained to the priesthood in the United States this year, approximately 100 are members of religious orders."

Another sign of renewal is a form of consecrated life on the rise: secular institutes.

“Religious life and secular institutes, in their way of leavening in society, continue to give a witness in the Church to the Gospel and the absoluteness of God, which are things we need to remember,” said Sister Sharon Holland, of the Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, who serves as president of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR). "In addition to religious and secular institutes, the Church also recognizes forms of individual consecrated life, such as consecrated virgins and hermits."

Read more about the various forms of consecrated life and its renewal as we continue to celebrate this Year of Consecrated Life in the full article here.

Here are some great resources from VISION to help parishes celebrate and promote religious life and religious vocations.

They said yes. Come learn why.

The remarkable stories of the newest generation of Catholic sisters will be shared at the symposium "Today’s Catholic Sisters: Who They Are, Why We Need Them" at four universities this fall and winter.

In partnership with the National Religious Vocation Conference and the GHR foundation, these events will feature several young sisters, along with the authors of New Generations of Catholic Sisters: The Challenge of Diversity. There will be a Q&A session and raffle following the main presentation. Refreshments will be served.

The event dates and locations are:

Sept. 12, 2015 9 am-12 pm
University of the Incarnate Word
San Antonio, Texas

Sept. 20, 2015 1-4 pm
Dominican University
River Forest, Illinois

Oct. 10, 2015 1-4 pm
(Mass to follow)
Immaculata University
Immaculata, Pennsylvania

Jan. 23, 2016 9 am-12 pm
Mount Saint Mary's University
Los Angeles, California

Featured Speakers:

New Generations of Catholic Sisters authors -
Sister Mary Johnson, S.N.D.deN.
Sister Patricia Wittberg, S.C.
Dr. Mary Gautier

Questions? Call 773-363-5454, or visit NRVC.net.

#TheySaidYes

The Catholic Sun is featuring religious in the Diocese of Phoenix each month in honor of the Year of Consecrated Life. The newspaper is highlighting their roads to discernment and current contributions to the church and the community.

This month, it is highlighting the work of Sister Cecilia Schlaefer, who has been a Sister of St. Agnes for 75 years. She has a doctorate in musical arts and has taught music, Latin, and English to grammar school and high school students.

Sister Schlaefer knew from an early age she was called to religious life, saying, “I was three years old. I got to church and then we all went to the front pew. And we sat down and I heard the voice say, 'Cecilia, I want you to be My spouse.' I touched [my sister] Mary and I said, ‘Mary, what’s a spouse?’ She said, 'Quiet. We don’t talk in church.' She shut me up for the next 18 years.”

Read more about Schlaefer and other religious here.

In celebration of the Year of Consecrated Life, a public walking tour exploring the history of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Baden in Pennsylvania will be held on June 18.

Archivist Kathleen Washy will lead the free tour while several sisters will be there to answer questions. The tour will include historical highlights and anecdotes about the buildings, grotto, and statues.

Congregation leadership team member Sister Mary Pellegrino is very excited to show off the campus to the public. “The grounds are beautiful [and include] a labyrinth, community gardens, and an orchard,” she said.

The sisters will certainly have a lot of history to share as their roles in the community changed from being mostly teachers and nurses to being chaplains, social workers, spiritual directors, counselors, foster parents, pastoral ministers, and social justice advocates.

Barbara Hecht, a spokeswoman for the sisters, said, “Sisters of St. Joseph always have responded to the needs of the times. They were called to Baden ... because of the growing need to staff the many schools in the Beaver Valley.”

Learn more here.

Four Sisters of St. Paul of Chartres recently climbed Mount Talamitam in the Philippines to raise awareness and funds for the sick and poor.  

Sister Arcelita Sarnillo, 61; Sister Rachelle Rapio, 34; Sister Anna Maria Reyes, 49; and Sister Aurelie Cortez, 77, scaled the 630-meter mountain wearing gym shoes and hiking pants under their habits.

Along the way, fellow hikers asked to take “selfies” with the nuns, amazed by how the four women were putting their faith in action.

This was the nuns' first charity hike to help benefit St. Paul Hospital, which is run by the congregation, in Dasmariñas City. The hospital offers free medical consultations and operations for the poor. The funds raised by the hike will help patients with cleft palates and cleft lips that cannot afford surgery.

Sister Sarnillo found the experience challenging, but kept her eye on the finish line. “I just kept on meditating and looking up,” she said.

Once on the summit, the nuns led a short prayer at the Marian grotto. They sang “Hail Mary” before starting their two-hour descent. For their next climb, they plan to invite a priest to celebrate Mass at the summit to make the experience even more special.

Read more here.

In celebration of the Year of Consecrated Life, the Sisters of Charity of Cincinnati have invited their neighbors to join them in a multitude of service activities in their local community on June 13 and 19.

Volunteers can share their talents on those days by helping with things such as yard work, weeding, demolition work, painting, gardening, and arts and crafts.

The Sisters of Charity will host all of the volunteers for lunch at the Sisters of Charity Mount St. Joseph Motherhouse, offering the opportunity for people of all ages to learn more about religious life today and develop new and lasting relationships.

Learn more here.

The Institute of the Little Sisters Disciples of the Lamb is a 30-year-old contemplative order in France that accepts young women with Down syndrome called to religious life. 

According to Regina magazine, "At the priory, the Little Sisters receive young women touched by the spirit of poverty and dedication... Every day they receive the Eucharist, living in the spirit of silence and prayer, while meditating on the Gospel."

The order was founded with the encouragement of geneticist Jérôme Lejeune, who discovered the cause of Down syndrome.

Read more about this small contemplative community here.

Young women learned about religious life and were encouraged to hear its potential call at a "Discernment Morning" on May 2 at the Diocesan Pastoral Center in Phoenix.

“The culture today is more about relationships, not even marriage but just being in relationships, and so the idea of consecrating yourself to Christ is very, very foreign to the culture,” said Sister Mary Eileen Jewell, of Parish Visitors of Mary Immaculate. “All the vocations are beautiful and we need to present all the vocations, but consecrated life especially tends to be the softest voice that people have a hard time hearing.”

Five religious communities participated in the event, including the Religious Sisters of Mercy; the Daughters of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul; the Missionaries of Charity of Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta; the Dominican Sisters of Mary, Mother of the Eucharist; and the Parish Visitors of Mary Immaculate.

All of the women who attended were given the chance to ask questions about consecrated life and hear the discernment journeys of many religious sisters.

One woman in attendence said, “We’re all called to something and some of us are questioning that. ... We just need that guidance. I think there are some people that just automatically assume they’re called to marriage and they don’t ever question another vocation. The possibility of a religious vocation shouldn’t be something scary because it’s what God wills for you and He’ll let you know.”

Read more here.

During the ordination of 19 priests, Pope Francis told them to make their homilies interesting and to speak from the heart in order to reach the hearts of the faithful.

Pope Francis said that priests are called to help members of the church through their homilies. He urged them to ensure “that your homilies are not boring, that your homilies arrive directly in people’s hearts because they flow from your heart, because what you tell them is what you have in your heart.”

During Mass on the World Day of Prayer for Vocations, the pope used the prepared homily in the ritual book for ordinations, but added his own reflections as well, giving the newly ordained priests advice on celebrating the sacraments and reaching out to the church community.

The pope emphasized the depth of God’s love and the true role of priests: “We must follow the Good Shepherd. In particular, those who have the mission of guiding in the church—priests, bishops, popes—are called to not assume the mentality of a manager, but that of a servant in imitation of Jesus.”

Read more here.

Catholic New World, the newspaper for the Archdiocese of Chicago, is featuring a new column in celebration of the Year of Consecrated Life: "Conversations with the Consecrated."

The most recent column profiles Missionary of the Precious Blood (C.PP.S.) Father David Kelly, who is the director of the Precious Blood Ministry of Reconciliation. This jail ministry works with those who have experienced conflict or violence and tries to create a space where they can come together, both offenders and victims, and work toward reconciliation.

"We try to form an environment of hospitality where they can talk, and hear one another, and rebuild relationships severed due to any kind of violence," Kelly says.

In the column, Kelly explains his attraction to the strong reconciliation charism of the consecrated missionary community, as well as the successes and struggles of his everyday work with his ministry with juveniles in the detention center.

Despite all the frustrations and injustices he encounters, Kelly says, "The biggest thing is not what I do for others but what others do for me. The work I do with the young people, their families or the community is mutual. By their loyalty, and willingness to be vulnerable, their willingness to be in relationship with us, is very powerful and makes me a better priest, and a better human being. People think, don’t you do wonderful work? Yeah, we do, but we also receive so many blessings in this work.”

Read the full article.

Last week the Guardian reported that the increasing number of women joining religious orders in the United Kingdom is perhaps, according to postulant Theodora Hawksley, because of a "snowball effect." Hawksley believes, "God always calls people to religious life, but various things can make it harder to hear that, and one of the things that makes it easier is lots of people openly talking and thinking about it, and giving it a go."

According to the article, the number of women entering U.K. religious communities has reached a 25-year high. The article debunks myths surrounding religious life and highlights the joy of living in community. The religious interviewed encourage people to spend time with religious communities, including on hosted retreats. One sister quoted said, “Things like that raise the profile of different ways of living out vocations and help normalise what it is to be a nun or religious sister in the Catholic church."

Read the full article here.

Explore your vocation through weekend encounters, retreats, volunteering, and more on the VISION Vocation Network Events page! 

Discover more about the Congregation of Jesus today.

Nearly 600 men will be ordained Catholic priests in the United States in 2015, more than 100 men more than last year.

Bishop Michael F. Burbidge, head of the U.S. bishops' Committee on Clergy, Consecrated Life and Vocations, said the increase is “encouraging” and he noted that those who will be ordained spoke about “very high” support from their families, parish priests, and Catholic schools.

A survey from the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate at Georgetown University received responses from 411 of the men and of these, 317 are prospective ordinands in 120 different dioceses and 94 are vowed religious. The median age of the priests-to-be is 31, which is a slight decrease from past years.

Father W. Shawn McKnight, executive director of the U.S. bishops’ Secretariat for Clergy, Consecrated Life and Vocations, did express one concern about the increase in young priests: student loan debt. “Considering the high percentage of the men ordained already having earned an undergraduate degree, it will be important to find ways to assist in debt reduction in the future,” McKnight said.

Read more here.

Mother of six from Mendota Heights, Minn., Joan Evans recently shared with the New York Times her struggle with and acceptance of her daughter entering religious life.

Evans said that she and their family miss their daughter and sibling but feel joy "that this is the vocation God designed for her and that it fulfills the deepest longings of her heart."

Evans shared how she and her daughter, born Barbara Evans and now Sister Mary Joseph, said goodbye upon becoming a Handmaid of the Heart of Jesus: "I told her how much I would miss her and that giving her to the Lord had been one of the most difficult things I had ever had to do. Then I felt a surge of strength, looked her in the eye and added that I wouldn’t trade it for anything because I know she is exactly where the Lord wants her to be. In that moment, I experienced such grace. My daughter already offered her yes to this vocation. I’m doing my best to offer mine."

Father Andrew Hofer, O.P. offers some great conversation starters in the article "How to talk to your family about your vocation". "Why I encourage my kids to consider religious life" is another article from a parent's perspective.

Pope Francis recently met with priests, religious leaders, and seminarians at the cathedral in Naples, Italy, and The Telegraph reports, "once Pope Francis' presence was announced, the starstuck sisters broke into applause and waved excitedly... and then a half dozen of them scurried up close surrounding the pontiff in their long black religious habits. One carried a large wrapped present."

Over a microphone, Cardinal Crescenzio Sepe urged restraint and made lighthearted commentary. “Sisters... Later... Well, would you look at that? And these are the cloistered ones. Just imagine the non-cloistered ones,” he said, provoking laughter from the crowd in the cathedral.

Pope Francis said the sisters' great enthusiasm was a reminder to religious leaders to "live their convocation with joy and enthusiasm."

Los Angeles diocesan priest Father Sam Ward recently wrote an eloquent tribute to those in consecrated life in the Angelus: The Tidings Online, attributing "the gift of my priestly vocation in a large measure to the daily prayers, intercession, and sacrifices of many holy and faithful religious sisters.

"They were praying for me before I even knew that God was calling me to be a priest," he wrote. "They prayed for me through the seminary. And they have sustained me by their sisterly love and support for my 11 years as a priest."

The first Catholic school Ward attended was the seminary. "When I entered the seminary in 1997 I knew instinctively that developing a close relationship with the sisters would be essential to my vocation. Why? Because I knew from afar the beauty and powerful witness that religious life has had on the life of the Church—past, present, and with God’s grace, far into the future. And I knew that I would need their support and friendship."

Read more about Father Ward's appreciation of religious sisters, brothers, and priests as a celebratory thank you during this Year of Consecrated Life.

A decade ago, Ohio-born Sister Dorothy Stang, of the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur, was slain because of her tireless work for the poor and landless in Brazil. She advocated for the small-scale farmer who is still, 10 years later, the frequent victim of harassment, forced evictions, threats, physical violence, and even killings.

However, according to the Huffington Post, "In recent years, independent civil society truth commissions have begun investigating the history of violence in the Brazilian countryside, grappling with the roles of unequal land distribution, poor documentation of land rights, and expulsion and killings of indigenous peoples. These investigations were inspired by Brazil’s National Truth Commission, which reported human rights abuses under the 1964-1985 military dictatorship."

For Girolamo Treccani, a law professor at the Federal University of Para and a member of Para State’s Rural Truth Commission, the question of prison time was less important than ensuring that all cases are acknowledged and investigated.

“The right of justice demands denouncement and recognition,” he said, “even if individuals can’t go to prison." This denouncement is key as "in Brazil defendants are sometimes granted liberty while the lawyers exhaust all of their options of appeal, which often takes years."

Stang’s case was, in many ways, exceptional, because her killers were identified and brought to trial. Of the 1,270 cases of homicide of rural workers documented by the Pastoral Land Commission between 1985 and 2013, less then 10 percent were ever prosecuted. Stang’s case was one of the first times a mandante (someone who orders a killing) was convicted in Para.

From a tribute to Sister Dorothy Stang in the VISION article, Sister Dorothy Stang: Her dying shows us how to live: "Stang’s faithfulness to the gospel and commitment to her community’s mission to educate and stand with the poor is a profile in courage and true Christian discipleship. Stang is her community’s first martyr. They have pledged to continue the struggle for a world of justice and peace."

The Center for the Study of Consecrated Life at the Catholic Theological Union in Chicago opened in February with activities including a symposium on hope and discussions on the changing nature of religious life. Under director Sister Maria Cimperman, the center plans to have both on-campus and online courses, as well as host symposia and workshops for participants to explore and study consecrated life in all its forms.

Father Robert Schreiter, professor of theology at the Catholic Theological Union, said the timing of the center’s opening is perfect. He believes the center is exactly what Pope Francis meant when he called for religious institutions to be “closer to people and their struggles in general and closer to the poor in particular.”

While there are a few centers dedicated to the study of religious life around the world, the center at the Catholic Theological Union is the first in the United States. Here, many will be able to gather information from all over the country as well as work with other international centers in order to use resources like never before.

Father Mark Francis, CTU president, said, “I believe the center is going to be a clearinghouse for a lot of what’s going on in the study of religious life. We hope to link up with the other international centers, and examine how religious life is transforming itself. We want to make sure we’re looking not just here, but at the developing world and from all these various perspectives.”

Sister Barbara Reid, vice president and academic dean at CTU, expressed her excitement for both the future of religious life and the new center for studying it. At the opening, she explained some of the goals for the recent addition to CTU, saying, “Part of the vision for this is that we are at a turning point – the way religious life was lived in the past, that form of religious life is dying. Something new is coming about, and we’re right at the cusp of that.”

Read more here.

The Discalced Carmelites in India are celebrating with "joyful gratitude to the Lord" the six new religious who will make their final vows soon. This year, the Year of Consecrated Life, is also the 500th anniversary of the birth of Saint Teresa of Avila, reformer of the Carmelite order.

Speaking to AsiaNews, the Prioress of the Baroda Monastery explained that the opening of the Year of Consecrated Life last November "was the first time that we contemplative celebrated a liturgy with the active congregations." For the occasion, the cloistered nuns invited the Missionaries of Charity and the Auxilium Sisters.

Discover more about the Carmelites here.

The latest study from the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate (CARA) was released just before the World Day for Consecrated Life (Feb. 2) and the national Day of Open House with Religious (Feb. 8).

Study highlights on religious men and women who professed perpetual vows to the nearly 800 communities in 2014 include:

* They were more likely to have attended Catholic high schools and colleges than the average American Catholic.

* Two in three (68 percent) entered their religious institute with at least a bachelor’s degree (61 percent for women and 80 percent for men). 18 percent of religious earned a graduate degree before entering their religious institute.

* Most religious did not report that educational debt delayed their application for entrance to their institute. Among those who did report educational debt, however, they averaged one year of delay while they paid down an average of $15,750 in educational debt.

* The average age of responding religious of the Profession Class of 2014 was 37. Half of the responding religious were age 34 or younger. The youngest was 24 and the oldest was 64.

* Nearly all of the religious of the Profession Class of 2014 (89 percent) participated in some type of vocation program or experience prior to entering their religious institute. Most common was a “Come and See” experience (59 percent) or a vocation retreat (50 percent).

* Nearly half said that a parish priest or a religious sister or brother encouraged their vocation (49 and 47 percent). Men were more likely than women to have been encouraged by a parish priest, religious sister, or brother.

“Given the fact that 89 percent of those responding to the recent CARA survey of new religious had participated in some form of a ‘Come and See’ experience prior to entering their religious institute, we know it is important for our youth and young adults to have greater exposure and familiarity with the community life of religious,” said Bishop Michael F. Burbidge of Raleigh, N.C., chairman of the USCCB Committee on Clergy, Consecrated Life and Vocations. “I encourage everyone to take advantage of the opportunity to visit local religious communities in their own area during the Day of Religious Open Houses, Sunday, Feb. 8.”

Read the full CARA study here.

For a full list of upcoming Open House and "Come and See" events, click here.

With the Year of Consecrated Life underway, there is more cause for celebration as new religious orders are working toward "pontifical status" as official religious communities. According to the National Catholic Register: "None of these orders are pontifically approved, but they have diocesan approval, which is one of the first steps for a new community.

"Virtually no community jumps to pontifical status immediately; they move through various stages in their original diocese and then get received into other dioceses, building toward the day when they can apply for universal recognition by the Holy See."

The three communities striving for pontifical status include:

Sisters of Our Mother of Divine Grace, with their apostolate being parish work and ecumenism.

The Daughters of Mary of Nazareth order is entrusted to the Blessed Mother and Saint Joseph.

Brigittine Servitores charism is with Marian spirituality as well as the Latin liturgy.

Read more about the formation of these religious communities here.

In mid-December, the Vatican released its final report on a multi-year investigation into how American sisters live, work, and pray. The report was largely postive and expressed gratitude for the sisters' ministry and witness.

“Women religious have courageously been in the forefront, selflessly tending to the spiritual, moral, educational, physical, and social needs of countless individuals,” the report said.

The Final Report on the Apostolic Visitation of Institutes of Women Religious in the United States of America resulted from a visitation beginning in 2008 "to look into the quality of the life of religious women in the United States." It was initiated because "apostolic religious life in the United States is experiencing challenging times."

Brother Paul Bednarczyk, C.S.C., executive director of the National Religious Vocation Conference (VISION's parent organization), shared his thoughts on the report with America: "Religious sisters are an essential and formidable force in the life of the church. They have managed hospitals, schools, and universities and have forged innovative, effective ministries to meet the needs of the poor with little money, but with great vision and determination. I applaud the Congregation’s acknowledgement of the structural, cultural, and financial challenges women’s religious institutes face in attracting and retaining new members. I am especially heartened by the Congregation’s very clearly stated commitment to work with Pope Francis to find expression for 'feminine genius' and a role for women in 'decision making in the different areas of Church life.' During this Year of Consecrated Life, Pope Francis invites all religious to look to our future with hope."

The Global Sisters Report said of the report: "Using some form of the word 'gratitude' eight times over its 12 pages, the report also acknowledges the suspicion many sisters had over the launching of the investigation and says the Vatican is seeking 'respectful and fruitful dialogue' with those who refused to collaborate in the process."

Although the number of those in religious life is diminishing, support for these challenges is present in the report. The Year of Consecrated Life will offer even more opportunities for the laity and religious to experience the charisms, community, and grace of consecrated life.

Two different blogs recently captured the lives of Carmelite sisters with stunning photographs. Carmelites are monastic, contemplative, and apostolic in character. One of the Carmelite communities featured is the Convento de Santa Teresa in Spain. Photographer/writer Lori Needlman shares of her experience: "The monjas (nuns), about ten or so, flashed smiles and passed their hands through the bars to be held by us. In utter chaos, each monja asked questions, laughed, and smiled. They were excited to have us visit on the day of my nephew's communion! This informal dance kept on for some time. I stood back observing and feeling lucky to be able to meet the monjas. This hidden part of Spanish culture is not something you can see as a tourist."

Visit her blog, on the Huffington Post, here. Visit her site to view more photos here.  

The Everyday Lives of Nuns, a photo blog by David Rosenburg, features a series called “Sisters of Sclerder” by Ibolya Feher. Rosenburg writes, "It’s one thing to decide to create a photographic series about an enclosed contemplative monastery; it’s another to make it happen. Determined to create a series about a world that seems almost otherworldly, Ibolya Feher went the modern route and did a Google search to find the monastery closest to her home in Southwest England. That turned out to be the Sisters of the Carmelite order, who live in Sclerder Abbey, about a three-hour train ride away. The Carmelite order is one of the oldest contemplative orders in which the sisters live and work primarily in silence and rarely allow outsider visitors."

A short list of Carmelite communities to peruse:

Carmelites (O.Carm)-Congregation of Our Lady of Mt. Carmel
Carmelite Sisters for the Aged and Infirm (O.Carm)
Carmelite Friars (O.Carm.) [St. Elias Province]
Association of British Carmels
Carmelite Monastery, Notting Hill Carmel, UK
Ware Carmel, UK
Discalced Carmelite Friars (O.C.D.) Washington Province

The best of VISION Vocation Guide has been published as an ebook, ‘Discover Your Path,’ available on Amazon at http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00PKHUP08.

“Discovering our vocation in life is absolutely impossible without coming to some awareness of our own life stories and a deep appreciation of the advice and support of friends,” writes Friar Douglas Adam Greer, O.P., in VISION 2002, “Getting to know what makes us tick, what energizes us, what vision of life gives us hope, pounded-out and pulled-together in the mortar and pestle of friendship, is the process through which we come to make an informed vocation choice.”

In a recent interview with the National Catholic Register, Bishop Michael Burbidge of the Diocese of Raleigh, N.C., and chair of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops' Committee on Clergy, Consecrated Life and Vocations, discusses the important role family plays in the conversation about consecrated life.

“The family has to be the foundation from which good vocations are received or planted and the seeds are nurtured. That can be related to vocations with the diocesan priesthood. So much of our work has to be with parents and families to help them understand what this life is and their role in encouraging their sons or daughters, when it comes to consecrated life, and to have their hearts open to it. That was presumed before. There was a time in history when, even when I was a seminarian … that was a given," Burbidge said. “So that’s where we have to do much better work: to be nurturing and helping the parents. That has to be the essential part of vocation work, so we’re not just going to say we need our young people to learn about consecrated life, but their families need to be involved, too."

According to a CARA survey on the discernment process, “The number three seems to be critical in making a difference in the life of someone contemplating a vocation. When three or more people encourage someone to consider a religious vocation, he or she is far more likely to take serious steps toward answering that call.”

For more on this topic, read Fr. Andrew Hofer’s article "How to talk to your family about your vocation."

The Little Sisters of the Poor, who “through their vocation wish to give quiet witness to the dignity of every human life, until the very end,” were recently awarded the Franciscan University of Steubenville's highest non-academic award, the Poverello Medal.

Named after Franciscan University's patron, Saint Francis of Assisi, who was known as “Il Poverello,” (the little poor man), Sr. Loraine Maguire, provincial superior of the Baltimore province, said, "I see in this medal the symbol of all the things that matter: to be poor, little, humble, and merciful to all those we serve; to treat others as Christ himself, and to live in a manner that reflects his very life."

The main address of the evening was given by Sr. Constance Veit, LSP, national communications director for the congregation. She recounted how Saint Francis of Assisi was horrified by lepers at first and that this same journey "from self to other" was taken by their French foundress, Jeanne Jugan.

Veit reminded the crowd that the elderly, who will represent 19 percent of the U.S. population by 2030, "have become the contemporary outcasts" of society. "I urge you to fight against the tendency to marginalize and abandon the elderly, to commit what the pope refers to as 'hidden euthanasia,'" she said.

Learn more about the Little Sisters of the Poor and the Little Sisters of the Poor (UK).

youtu.be/J570cu2Hv6E

For more information on Holy Cross vocations, visit:

www.holycrossvocations.org

youtube.com/cscvocations

facebook.com/holycrossvocations

With the Year of Consecrated Life approaching soon, The Catholic Sun, the newspaper of the Diocese of Phoenix in Arizona, highlighted accomplishments of religious orders in its area. Some of them include:

• Sr. Mara Rutten began her canonical year with Maryknoll Sisters last month. The Minnesota native earned a Doctorate of Philosophy in history at Arizona State University and just completed a year of theological studies with Maryknoll at an intercongregational novitiate program in Chicago.

• A San Diego newspaper profiled two Sisters of St. Joseph last month on the occasion of their 50th and 60th jubilees. One of them, Sr. Suzanne Ensminger, now works with refugees through Catholic Charities and first experienced religious life growing up with the women religious at Sacred Heart Parish in Prescott, Ariz . “I grew up with the sisters in Prescott,” Ensminger says. “They were joyful, happy women. I went to college for a year before I entered, but I knew that was what I wanted to do.”

• Nadin William Ospino recently entered the postulancy program of the Crosier Fathers and Brothers. The ceremony was in Phoenix, which serves as headquarters for one of the order’s three provinces.

• The Society of Jesus, which has a Jesuit parish and elementary, junior, and high school in the Diocese of Phoenix, welcomed 33 men into this year’s novice class. Their average age is 28, with nearly 40 percent having attended a Jesuit high school or university.

View more Year of Consecrated Life resources.

Sister Kathleen Ryan, O.P., a Springfield Domincan, saw a need for literacy among immigrant women and took matters into her own hands, reports the Chicago Tribune’s Leslie Mann. Sr. Kathleen is founder of the Dominican Literacy Center in Aurora, Illinois, where she teaches female immigrants to speak, read, and write in English. Ryan started the program in 1993 using her experience as a former school teacher and principal.” When asked why the program caters only to women, Ryan said, “the men learn English at work and the children learn it at school.”

With support from the Springfield Dominican sisters, Sr. Kathleen and other tutors began to teach in a church basement.

Now, the program is housed in an old convent. Ryan and her staff have taught more than 2,500 students and about 500 have graduated, according to the Tribune report. She and her staff teach women from all over the world, and students in the program can also attend sessions where tutors “read the paper and talk about getting mortgages, good credit scores, car loans, child care, transportation, jobs, kids’ vaccinations.” These are questions that many would not have answered if they did not have Sr. Kathleen or the Dominican Literacy Center.

Sr. Kathleen works hard and has helped so many in the community, but says she tries to find the joy in work. When asked about her life motto she exclaimed, “Life doesn’t have to be dreary. Work can be hard and painful, but if you try to be playful, it can be fun.”

Click here to learn more about the Dominican Sisters of Springfield.

 
Saint Marianne Cope, a Franciscan sister, was working with the leprosy patients in the Hawaiian island of Molokai when she died in 1918. At the time, her remains were returned to Syrause, New York, to the motherhouse of the Franciscan Sisters of the Neuman Communities.

Now the building which housed her remains is no longer structurally sound, according to an Associated Press report, and her community made the decision to return the saint's remains to Hawaii where she served most of her life.

Her fellow sisters carried her remains out of the building in a box shaped like a canoe made of Hawaiian koa wood. When the remains arrived in Honolulu, “hundreds packed into the cathedral," according to the AP report, "where people lined up for a chance to kiss the box. The remains will be kept in Honolulu where they will be entombed in a special chapel.

Bishop Larry Silva of the Honolulu diocese gave the homily during the the welcoming Mass, saying, “The mortal remains of this frail creature of God...have an incredible spirit of their own, an aura that makes us want to be near them. . . . We want to touch the relics of this woman who dedicated herself to healing, so that we may be healed and may be healers.”

Learn more about the Sisters of St. Francis of the Neumann Communities.

Sister Blandina Segale, S.C, once called the "Fastest Nun in the West” for her quick response to injustice in the frontier towns of the Southwest, is now up for sainthood. The Santa Fe Archdiocese has taken up her cause after receiving approval from the Vatican, according to a statement issued by the Sisters of Charity of Cincinnati, Segale’s religious community.

As a young sister, Italian-born Segale was sent by her superior to Trinidad, Colorado, a frontier mining town (pictured above), to teach poor children. One of her first battles, says a profile of Segale at ItalyHeritge.com, was against lynching, a rough form of justice practiced in remote areas at the time. Segale was later transferred to Santa Fe, where with little resources she was able to found public and Catholic schools and construct a hospital. She was an untiring champion of the poor and marginalized of the community, particularly Native Americans.

This is the first time that New Mexico can lay claim to a person being considered for sainthood, making locals very excited. In an interview in the New York Daily News New York Daily News., Allen Sanchez, president and CEO for CHI St. Joseph's Children in Albuquerque, a social service agency Segale founded, explains, "There are other holy people who have worked here, but this would be a saint (who) started institutions in New Mexico that are still in operation.”

While her work with the poor made her well known throughout the local community, it was her interaction with outlaw Billy the Kid and his gang that gave her national attention. She has been the subject of books and an episode of the T.V. Western series “Death Valley Days.”

Even after all that, it may take a while to have her become officially recognized as a saint. The church needs to research, investigate, and validate claims of her miracles.

“Miracles could come in the form of healings," says Sanchez, "assistance to recent Central American immigrant children detained at the U.S. border or some other unexplained occurrences after devotees pray to her.”

Learn more about the Sisters of Charity of Cincinnati here.

Sacred Heart Sister Philomene Tiernan, R.S.C.J., on a return flight to Sydney, Australia after a trip to Europe, was aboard Malaysian Flight MH17 that was shot down over Ukrainian airspace July 17, 2014. 

According to a statement from the school where Tiernan worked, the 77-year-old sister had been making an annual retreat that included a trip to Europe and a visit to St. Francis Xavier Church in Paris, where the founder of the Society of the Sacred Heart, Saint Madeleine Sophie Barat, is buried.

"She was a leading light and will be an incredible loss to the Society of the Sacred Heart, and a huge loss to our school community." said Ms. Johnston-Croke, principal Kincoppal-Rose Bay School of the Sacred Heart, where Tiernan served as a teacher and administrator for more than 30 years.
 
The Society of the Sacred Heart has schools in 44 countries and all have conveyed their tributes and condolences to the school, Johnston-Croke told The Australian."I've been getting email and texts from all over the world," she said.

Below is a short video made earlier in which Sr.Tiernan and past students talk about the Sisters of the Society of the Sacred Heart and Saint Madeleine Sophie Barat, its foundress.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eIq_aM1brIA

In fact Sr. Rosemary’s vocation and survival during the horrific time of Joseph Kony and the Lord’s Resistance Army is the subject of a new book and movie narrated by Forest Whitaker, Sewing Hope. Her life’s story is “the story of one woman's fight to restore hope to her nation. Sister Rosemary Nyirumbe resides over Saint Monica's Vocational School in Gulu, Uganda. Rosemary learned that [many girls] had been abducted and spent years with the rebels, losing a chance at any education. Rosemary introduced a practical tailoring course, where students who could not complete school were able to learn skills to provide for themselves and their families.”

View the Official Website for the Documentary Film and Book Sewing Hope here.

#bringbackourgirls #sewinghope #sisterrosemarynyirumbe

In an age where advances in technology can sometimes disconnect us, I must say that the "Imagine a Sister's Life" website welcomes the visitor in very real way. This site offers a conversation starter for women both struggling to find their purpose or need confirmation that they're on the right path.

With a wide array of multimedia tools, "Imagine a Sister's Life" invites visitors to explore religious life by exploring three steps that are outlined on the home page: 1. Meet a Sister, 2. Picture Yourself as a Sister, and 3. Becoming a Sister.

Don't forget to click the "Talk to a Sister" tab to view their blog, join the chat room, and even send a comment or suggestion.

Click Sisters of Bon Secours to discover more about this innovative community.

#imagineasisterslife #pictureyourselfasasister #becomingasister

“She was a bit of a flirt, entertaining and witty, and a woman who didn't easily take no—even from the men who were technically her superiors.” Does this sound like a cloistered nun, mystic, and Doctor of the Church? asks VISION Content Editor Carol Schuck Scheiber.

Yes, if you’re talking about Saint Teresa of Avila, whose 500th birthday will be in about a year from now, March 28, 2015. Patricia Morrison, editorial director of ICS Publications, is a life-time student of all things Carmelite, and those are her words about the Teresa the saint. “She was a flesh-and-blood woman dealing with the same kinds of challenges and issues people do today,” said Morrison.

Originally sent to the convent by a strict father who wanted his daughter reined in, she eventually became a tireless reformer of the Carmelite religious order, mystic, and author of books on prayer still being published today.

Teresa’s biting humor shows in an often-cited story. Teresa lamented to God about a setback and heard God reply, “That’s how I treat my friends.” To which she said: “No wonder you have so few of them.”

One of the greatest gifts from the Olympics for me is that the world in solidarity and peace admires and cheers on the incredible talent and skill of athleticism executed in a variety of events. But before we get caught up in the medal count, here are a couple articles with great inspirational advice to remember during these games.

Catholic News Agency’s article on the author of “The Catechism of Hockey,” Alyssa Bormes, praises and advises us about the games in Sochi saying: “It’s very Catholic to give everything to what you’re doing,” she said. “Olympic athletes, just by qualifying for the games, in many cases have already given everything they have…We organize our schedules around sports. I’m asking parents not to give that up, but to do the same for the faith, and teach their children the faith as if it were football or basketball.”

Back in October, CNA reported how Britain’s Olympic gold medalist runner Jason Gardener “credited Catholic nuns for encouraging him to succeed.” Gardner said: “I’m not outspoken, particularly, about my faith, but I’m a believer and I’m very pleased to have had a good life which I’ve had to this day. I’m very thankful–I’ve worked very hard, and having good morals instilled in me, behaving well as a citizen–I believe has helped me on the journey to where I am.”

But let’s be honest, it is fun to cheer on our native countries by yelling at the TV or taking to social media to congratulate and support. Even ‘Media Nun’ Sister Helena Burns F.S.P. of the Daughters of St. Paul) tookto her twitter account to support or stab with a competitive edge her devotion to hockey. Catholic News Service reports that despite being born in Boston, Sister Helena will be pulling for Canada. “So come Feb. 13 when Canada faces off against Norway in its first game of the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia, Sister Burns -- who will be in Chicago where she lived for eight years before moving to Toronto -- will be wearing her blue habit and Boston accent. Luckily for her, the nuns in Chicago, who lived with her during the Blackhawks' past two Stanley Cups, are used to the yelling. Some of them might even watch the game with her.”

Who and how will you cheer now during these Olympic games?

#sochi2014 #olympicspirit #catholicspirit

In a press conference on Friday, the Vatican prefect for consecrated life, Cardinal João Braz de Aviz, outlined the three objectives for the Year of Consecrated Life, which will commence in the fall of 2014 and conclude in November of 2015:

The Year of Consecrated Life is expected to begin in October of 2014, coinciding with the 50^th anniversary of Lumen gentium, the Second Vatican Council’s constitution on the Church, which has a specific chapter dealing with consecrated life. The anniversary of the publication of Perfectae caritatis, the Council’s decree on the renewal of consecrated life, will be the occasion of the close of the Year in November 2015.

Learn more here. Be sure to look to the VISION Vocation Network for resources and information on consecrated throughout the year.

iBenedictines, a blog hosted by the Benedictine Nuns of Holy Trinity Monastery, Herefordshire in the U.K., is not only in the VISION Vocation Network's Blog Index and is one of the this week's VISION Blogs of the Week—it's also the winner of the 2013 Christian New Media Blogger of the Year award.

You've heard about Pope Francis' prior work sweeping floors and as a bouncer right? If not, you can read the Catholic News Service report here.

Surely, you've seen the Huff Post article of the Pope joining his Almoner at night giving alms to the poor of Rome no doubt, correct? Read more on this rumor that is "probably true" from "a knowledgeable source in Rome [that] told The Huffington Post that "Swiss guards confirmed that the pope has ventured out at night, dressed as a regular priest, to meet with homeless men and women,"" here.

Perhaps you haven't heard of Mother Dolores Hart, OSB who before becoming a cloistered nun, played opposite to Elvis Presley in "Loving You." Relish in Mother Dolores Hart's journey toward her true vocation as she reflects that "The extravagance of my Hollywood career only mirrored the extravagance of God’s creative love expressed through His Son." Read the full USCCB blog here.

 Discover more about the Benedictine communities here.

#popefrancis #hollywoodtoholyvows