From the recent apostolic exhortation Sacramentum Caritatis (February 22, 2007) of Pope Benedict XVI on the Eucharist as the source and summit of the Church’s life and mission …
81. The relationship of the Eucharist to the various ecclesial vocations is seen in a particularly vivid way in “the prophetic witness of consecrated men and women, who find in the celebration of the Eucharist and in eucharistic adoration the strength necessary for the radical following of Christ, obedient, poor and chaste.” (225) Though they provide many services in the area of human formation and care for the poor, education and health care, consecrated men and women know that the principal purpose of their lives is “the contemplation of things divine and constant union with God in prayer.” (226) The essential contribution that the Church expects from consecrated persons is much more in the order of being than of doing.
Footnotes:
(225) Propositio 39. Cf. John Paul II, Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation Vita Consecrata (25 March 1996), 95: AAS 88 (1996), 470-471.
(226) Code of Canon Law, can. 663 § 1.
"She wrote the way she lived: on the fly, without retrospect, always on the way, climbing higher."
{ 10 comments… read them below or add one }
Hi Sister …
I read the article about you last weekend in The Fresno Bee. I am a blog addict - reading blogs is definitely my favorite thing to do on the internet - and I am always looking for interesting new ones to read. To that end, I am very glad that I found yours. I’ve been here to read a couple of times now, and I am really enjoying it.
I was born and raised Catholic but converted to Christianity three years ago and was baptised into a nondenominational Christian church two years ago. Catholicism was not for me, but I have tremendous respect for the Catholic church.
Anyhow, enough about me … Keep up the good work here on your blog - I will look forward to becoming a long-time reader!
~Lauren
Sister Julie,
I just found your blog through Jim Manney, and love it. Many blessings to you,
Karen Edmisten
Hi, Sister Julie,
Your Blog is very very good.
Thanks.
Could you tell me how to set up one for our Poor Clares here in NJ? If it isn’t simply, skip it. Thanks.
Also we read your article in out Trenton Times Newspaper for Tuesday.
I hope that you can clarify for us to people that cloistered nuns, Poor Clares, are not repressed, docile or out of touch with the world. Before I came to the Poor Clares I was an active Sister in the Sisters of Charity of Cincinnati. What I found in my life was that doing ministry, prayer and trying to focus on God was making me like a rubber band, pulled in so many different directions. I came to believe that finding God for myself I find Him for everyone. Our Sisters here are up to date on the news and pray the evening news as a community and as indiviuals. There are 5 former teachers , 1 lab technician, 1 dental hyginest, 1 banker, 1 sister who worked for the Diociesian Paper and so on. If anything we are bombarded by the requests to pray for the world, our country and families. so that’s it. May you continue to bring more people to God through your witness of Gospel living.
Peace and all good.
Sister Florence Vales OSC
Thanks for all the comments!
Sister Florence, The quote in the Chicago Tribune interview (which was published in a number of other papers) is a bit skewed. I was horrified when I read what I had been quoted as saying. See my post on the article where I tried to clarify. I was talking about stereotypes but it ended up sounding like that’s what I thought about cloistered nuns. Nothing could be further from the truth. Thanks for your email. Sister Julie (P.S. I will contact you directly about blogging.)
Has anyone out in the blog world read “Double Crossed” by Kenneth Briggs? The subtitle reads Uncovering the Caholic Church’s Betrayal of American Nuns.
Julie, I am also going to contact S. Florence about blogging since I am “in the neighborhood” (more or less). I, too, was happily surprised to see you in The Trenton Times.
I wonder: how does one distinguish “being” from “doing”?
Brigid … I’ve read parts of the book and have not found favor with it. I’ve got a few posts about it.
Lisa … Excellent, that’s very good of you to do.
Kerry … that’s a great question. I think I will write about it today.
sister julie
i heard you this morning on npr. and i heard you say that daily life is the prayer that god is most pleased (or something like that). i am the eldest of ten of a markedly nuts family. there’s bits of irish, drugs, suicide, and a mother who is the female counterpart to the pope.
i had a tough life. it is not worth digressing. i have been ill for a long time and im now on ssdisability. thank god. i have two masters, did the first year of medical school for a pathologists’ assistant program. i am back on the wagon…stopping drinking on the anniversary of my third fifth anniversary.
i don’t go to church. i have longed to ‘feel’ god’s love. i hear it all the time, ‘god loves you’. yet i feel this deadness in my heart for god. there were many times when i felt that not knowing love as a child has prevented me from trusting or ‘feeling’ god’s love.
i think we are here to serve others. sometimes i feel too sick to strike out in that direction. sometimes this seems like an excuse. i’d like to feel that my suffering is my prayer to god. that i can skip mass (shoot i almost forgot–im catholic).
i would like to go to heaven….i wonder if i don’t show up on sundays will be the defining moment.
needed to unload.
patti
Hi Patti, Thanks for coming by and sharing your story. You are not alone. There are many people who feel this way and struggle with what it feels like to love God and to be loved by God. Saint Teresa of Avila—the great mystic, Doctor of the Church, and writer on prayer and the spiritual life—experienced periods of spiritual dryness, lasting many years at one point in her life. Even when we don’t feel God’s love, God is still with us, drawing us to himself.
One place to begin is just to tell God like it is, how you feel towards prayer, going to mass, etc. Tell God what it’s like to not feel love and ask God to come to you in a way that you will recognize. For example, tap into an experience of love or beauty or peace that you’ve had in your life. Remember that experience with every cell of your being. Consciously relate that experience to God who is the source of all that is good, beautiful, true, peaceful.
Hang in there, Patti, and know that the Spirit of God is with you always, wanting only the best for you.
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