Today marks the 157th anniversary of the founding of our congregation, the Sisters of Notre Dame. We celebrate Founder's Day today with our sisters, associates and those with whom and to whom we minister.
Our history is rooted in the experience of a youngwoman, Hilligonde Wolbring, who was a teacher in Germany in the first part of the nineteenth century. An orphan herself, Hilligonde's heart was moved with compassion for the many poor and disadvantaged children in her school and neighborhood. With the help of a co-teacher, Elizabeth Kuhling, she began to care for these young girls. After some time, the parish priest suggested to these two women that they consider grounding their charitable work in the context of a religious congregation. Thus, the Sisters of Notre Dame was born.
Each religious community is marked by a specific charism, a way of reflecting a specific aspect of the life and mission of Jesus. Our charism is a deep experience of God's goodness and provident care. Because we have personally experienced God's love, we are compelled to reach out in compassion and care to others in need.
We now have about 2400 Sisters in countries all over the world. We continue to respond to the needs of our day as Hilligonde and Elizabeth did, and we look to them to keep us true to our charism and mission. For more information about our international congregation, check our web site at www.snd1.org.
Below is the story of another woman's commitment to consecrated life, her journey getting there, and how she sees her role as a woman religious. This article was featured in the East Valley Tribune of Phoenix.
The spiritual environment she experienced at St. Bridget's Catholic Parish in Mesa for 14 years and "vocations discernment" weekends she took part in at Mormon Lake were keystones when Sister Carrie Flood recently professed her vows and became a nun at the age of 41.
On July 27, Flood took her vows of chastity, poverty and obedience with the Congregation of the Sisters, Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Mary in Scranton, Pa. She recently moved to New York for her first assignment, working with Catholic Charities of Brooklyn and Queens. She is applying expertise gained working from 1990 to 2004 as a department manager for PacifiCare, now United HealthCare Insurance, with offices in Phoenix.
During that time, Flood was also a minister of care at St. Bridget's, taking communion each Sunday to the homebound and elderly. "I would go and visit with them and talk to them and then we would pray," she said.
"St. Bridget's was a wonderful parish, and it still is," she said. "The liturgies were such a celebration, and you looked forward to being with that community of people who loved God and came together to celebrate and to take that experience and go out into the world.
"I think belonging to that parish had an influence in how my faith grew during that time, and I started to think about religious life again," she said.
Just after graduating from the University of California at Berkeley with a major in French and minor in German, Flood was a volunteer living in a convent in the San Francisco Bay Area. "I entered right after college and spent two years, but I didn't really feel I had a vocation at that time, so I moved back to Arizona and started living my life," she said.
But during her years living in Mesa and being active at St. Bridget's, "there was something inside of me that wouldn't go away," Flood said. Realizing she really needed to explore whether she had a religious calling, Flood took part in a vocational discernment weekend in October 2002, led by Sister Jean Steffes, chancellor of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Phoenix. It brought together Catholics considering going into religious life. She took part in another weekend in 2003. "It was very helpful to me for discerning my vocation," she said.
"Carrie was absolutely taken by the call to religious life," Steffes said. "She was a very professional woman, very successful, very involved with her family and certainly able to continue to make a living and getting involved in society, but that call was so strong that she really literally left everything to follow Jesus."
Steffes said that once Flood recognized her call to religious life, "she remained very faithful to it" and went earnestly through the many steps required for candidacy. "She will be just a wonderful gift to that community" in Pennsylvania and New York, the chancellor said.
Flood became a candidate at the Immaculate Heart of Mary mother house in Scranton in 2004 and, a year later, began two years as a novice, then professed her vows in July. After a period of three to five years of temporary profession, a nun professes her final vows.
More than 540 Catholic women make up the IHM Sisters, who serve in education, health care, social services and pastoral ministry in the U.S. and Latin America.
Flood recalls her early 20s when she lived with nuns in California. "I sort of had a taste of religious life," she said. She came away conflicted and not yet feeling a calling. "I loved my job at PacifiCare. It was very rewarding," she said. "I kept thinking there was that sense inside me that there was something else: How can I best serve God? I don't want to just work for the next promotion." She said she wanted to spend the rest of her life helping people and "loving God through serving others."
"I didn't want to wake up at 85 and realize that I had lived the wrong life," she said.
Many people look at Catholic religious life, as priests or nuns, "in terms of what you can't do," such as not being able to marry or have children or being financially prosperous, she said. Instead, "we learn about the vows in terms of what you are invited to do," Flood said. "The vow of chastity invites us to try to love everyone equally, meaning it is not so much not having children because we are actually called by our vow of chastity to love all of God's creation, to love all people. Our vow of obedience just calls us to listen to the voice of God and the movement of the Spirit in our lives."
Only one other woman went through the training and took the vows with Flood.
That there aren't more women entering religious life isn't necessarily discouraging, she said. "I wasn't around" in the years when as many as 50 or 60 women would enter convents for training, "so I don't have any sense of loss."
"I think there are a lot of misconceptions that you have to be a special person," Flood said. "I am not very special. I listen to rock music and watch 'The Simpsons,' and I am just a normal person. God has called me to be his presence in the world and to be a witness to the kingdom, so that is what I am here to do, and I hope I can fulfill that."
In New York City, her Catholic charities work relates to mental health services for those hospitalized and in outpatient clinics. One company she closely works with is based in Phoenix, "so I hope I can get some business travel in," Flood said.
"We call out jobs 'ministries,' " she said. Days include going to Mass each morning and gathering in the evening at St. Ephrem's Convent in Brooklyn with 11 other sisters for dinner and prayer. Nuns in her house dress simply, and only older ones wear veils.
Flood said New York is a new way of life. It's stimulating, she said, to walk the streets and hear so many languages and encounter people with so many ethnic and religious backgrounds.
"It is a lot of newness, but I rely on my faith, and I am confident that if God brought me to this place, there is a reason," she said. "So whatever happens, it is going to be positive in a sense that I will learn something. I will grow."
In this case as in so many others, discernment retreats played a significant role in helping individuals to gain clarity around God's call. Perhaps you also feel the need to step back and take some time to sift out the many distractions and diversions in your life. The calendar of events on our web site will alert you to several discernment opportunities throughout the year. Time set aside for God is time well spent.
I attended a lecture on Monday evening presented by Jim Keady on the issue of sweatshop labor. Jim is in his 30's and has spent a good portion of his life exposing the reality of sweatshop labor, especially as it relates to companies such as Nike. The facts and figures he presented comparing the extreme wealth of some companies and individuals with the abject poverty of people in the developingworld were staggering. I especially appreciated the personal face he was able to put on these facts. Having spent time living on a factory worker's salary in Indonesia, Jim shared the effect such poverty can have on one's personal dignity.
Perhaps even more compeling than the information Jim shared was the passion of his conviction that he can make a difference. We can all tend to become overwhelmed by injustice in the world and think that what we say and do is really insignificant. While we may not all establish our own company to work for human rights as Jim has done, we can play our part.
As Catholics, we have a responsibility to live out the Catholic Social Teachings of the Church. We may have only a vague idea of what the Church actually teaches, but we are not free to continue to live in our ignorance. Hearing this presentation on Monday evening was an encouragement to me to refresh my knowledge of these Catholic principles and then try to choose at least one small action to make a difference.
Imaginary worlds like J.R.R. Tolkien's Middle Earth or C.S. Lewis' Narnia have filled us with the excitement of discovering new lands, their marvelous creatures, and the adventures of their heroes. We feel drawn to the themes in these novels and movies, like the triumph of good over evil through sacrifice, because we long to find that they are true in ourown world. Yet if we approach our own world with the wonder and curiosity we reserve for fantasy, we will marvel to find such noble beauty and truth in Jesus Christ and in the Catholic Church that he founded.
Ever since my ordination as a transitional deacon on April 29th, I have felt this renewed wonder for the world and for the Catholic faith. Having vowed my life to Christ in chaste celibacy, I can look afresh upon my relationships with friends and family, rejoicing in their love. Praying in a different role at Mass and leading others in worship has caused me to marvel in God's guiding presence in the Church through the centuries and His intimate relationship with every human being. With shocked awe, I often stare at the Blessed Sacrament as I assist at Mass, scarcely believing that the Lord Jesus would permit me one day as his priest to transform ordinary bread and wine into his very body and blood. I think then of the great responsibility I have already accepted and pray for the Holy Spirit's strength to fulfill it.
Each of you reading this post is called to rediscover the world and your relationship to God with that same wonder in which we gaze upon imaginary and fantastic lands. God desires many of you men to be priests or consecrated brothers; He desires many of you women to be consecrated sisters. Pursue that adventure! Look upon the Lord Jesus as the fulfillment of all epic heroes, the embodiment of the truths we seek!
One of the graces of community life is the prayer support we offer one another. In our own community, we have the custom of "partnering" a Sister who is no longer in active ministry with a local community of Sisters, entrusting to her the spiritual needs of these Sisters and their ministries.
I am blessed this year to belong to a local community that is being prayed for by one of our Sisters who is in her 75th year of profession! Sister Mary Clarone is an amazing witness to me of fidelity in religious life! We visited her at our Provincial Center on Friday evening and enjoyed a wonderful visit together. Among other things, she encouraged us to read Pope Benedict's newest book on Jesus (one she has finished reading and is beginning to read a second time!). She also shared her adventures that day of learning how to drive a motorized wheelchair. The fact that she entered our community at a time when the Sisters did not drive and so has never driven a car hasn't hindered her at all. She is developing great skills in maneuverability!
Sister is a powerful witness to me that, whilewe may reach an age when our health limits our ability to participate in active ministry, we continue to proclaim our mission and spirit til the day we die. Sister's very presence proclaims to all that God is good and will care for all our needs.
When I get caught up in the "busy-ness" of my ministry, and especially on the days when life is challenging, I consider myself truly blessed by Sister's daily intercessory prayers for me. I can't imagine being in better hands!
Well, once again our world of technology has progressed! With our newly revised web site for the Office of Vocations, the manner of posting a blog has changed yet again. As we sat through the training for the site yesterday, I couldn't help but wonder what we did before we had blogs and cell phones and ipods and....
I do think Jesus would have made use of some of this technology in asmuch as it helped him spread the Good News of His Father's love and care. The challenge for us, I believe, is to use what's available without becoming enslaved to it. When the media becomes more important to us than the message, that's when we're in dangerous territory.
That being said, stay tuned for future blog entries from myself and other guest writers as well. Let's continue to explore together the many wonders and graces God has in store for us!
On Friday, I had the privilege of witnessing the final profession of Sister Maria Consuella Gonzales as a Sister of the Monastery of the Visitation here in Toledo. What a gift to be present as Sisterembarked on a lifelong dream of contemplative consecrated life! Sister has been a member of the Sisters of St. Francis in Sylvania for many years and now responds a call to live the remainder of her life as a contemplative religious within the Visitation community.
As part of the liturgy, Bishop Blair prayed a lengthy prayer of blessing over Sister which concluded with the following:
Father, we earnestly pray you: send the fire of the Holy Spirit into the heart of your daughter to keep alive within her the holy desire he has given her.
Lord, may the glory of baptism and holiness of life shine in her heart. Strengthened by the vows of her consecration may she be always one with you in loving fidelity to Christ, her only Bridegroom. May she cherish the Church as her Mother and love the whole world as God's creation, teaching all people to look forward in joy and hope to the good things of heaven.
Lord, holy Father, guide the steps of your servant and guard her on her pilgrimage through life. When she comes at last to the throne of Christ the King, may she not fear him as her judge, but hear the voice of her Bridegroom lovingly inviting her to the wedding feast of heaven.
Sister's radiant joy was quite apparent as we greeted her after the liturgy. We are most grateful to her and to each of the Visitation sisters for their powerful prayer of intercession for our Diocese. Congratulations, Sister!
Today is the six-year anniversary of the terrorist attacks of the Twin Towers in New York City. I can't help but to think of the events that transpired there and the ripple effect it has had on our world. It was definitely a tragic situation, but considering everything, it is amazing (more like the grace of God) that more people were not killed. In the midst of all the rubbleand ruin, the greatest sign of hope appeared - a cross formed from the beams of one of the towers standing erect in a mountain of rubble.
I had just begun my studies for the diocese and was here at the seminary only three weeks when these events occurred. The next evening at Vespers we prayed the Office for the Dead, which just happens to include Psalm 127:1-2:
If the Lord does not build the house, in vain do its builders labor,if the Lord does not watch over the city, in vain does the watchman keep vigil,in vain is your early rising, your going later to rest, you who toil for the bread you eat: when he pours gifts on his beloved while they slumber.
These are powerful words! Have we learned anything? Our nation is not one of a people who has forgotten God but one of a people that deliberately chooses to ignore God and His commands. We think that military technology and might can protect and safeguard us and our allies while we go on living in direct opposition to all that God stands for and values. God is telling us that our endeavors by themselves alone are doomed to fail. Whose "house" are we building if we ignore His commands?
This country has killed over 48 million of its children in the womb in the name of "choice" and sacrificed them for what? Do we care that our foreign aid has in the past required other nations to accept this abomination? What about our sexual immodesty, rampant divorce rate, sexual intercourse outside the marriage of a man and woman, euthanasia, stem cell research, human cloning, hording our riches instead of sharing them with the poor of the world? In short, we disregard the teachings of the Church/God for our own preferences.
My prayer is that people in this country and throughout the world will turn with faith and love back to God our Creator. We must realize that "our help is in the name of the Lord, who made heaven and earth" and in no other person or thing. The sad part is that all the God has asked us to do is simply for our own good. Immaculate Mary, refuge of sinners, pray for us!
Hi, my name is Tony Recker and I'm a seminarian now starting my fifth year in the seminary. I'm in my third year of theological studies at Mt. St. Mary Seminary of the West in Cincinnati (see the picture below).
God willing, I will be ordained a Transitional Deacon in the spring. I guess I'm the first seminarian to write for this blog. The planis to have more seminarians write for the blog so that all of you out there can get a better idea of how seminarians live their lives. Of course you are always encouraged to ask us questions in the comments. I'll try to keep up and answer any questions that you have. Feel free to ask anything.
I'm writing this entry Labor Day evening. Tomorrow is the first day of classes here in Cincinnati. This quarter I'm studying an array of topics including: St. Paul, the Priesthood, Medieval Church History, Latin, and Ecumenism. I have a pretty full schedule. In the seminary, though, studies are always secondary to a life of prayer, especially the Mass and Divine Office. If we are to be Christ to others as priests, we must form ourselves unto his image. This formation takes years and truly is an amazing thing. God can work miracles.
O.K., so now you're probably thinking that I'm this super-pious guy who spends all of his time in libraries, churches, and classrooms. I wish! I think that I'm actually pretty normal. I wasn't always in the seminary (I didn't enter until I was 26). That being said, I do love what I am doing. The studies are amazing, and working with God is so much easier and life-fulfilling than the alternative. I wouldn't do anything else in the world, not even for a million dollars (besides, the priesthood has great benefits; yes, I'm referring to the eternal ones).
I thought that I would let you all know what I did last summer (no, I'm not making a reference to the movie). While home base was at St. Thomas Aquinas parish in East Toledo, I did a lot of traveling. The seminary sends one class every year to the Holy Land for a couple of weeks. This year it was my class's turn. What an amazing trip we had. We traveled throughout the country, from the Galilee region to Jerusalem. We made pilgrimages to Bethlehem and to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, to name just a few of the places. This truly was a trip of a lifetime. We literally walked in the footsteps of Christ. Amazing! Check out the picture below. It was taken from the Church called "Dominus Flevit", where our Lord wept in the Garden before his Passion and death (think First Mystery of the Rosary).
Through the window behind the altar, you can see the old city of Jerusalem. The temple mount is now where the Muslim Dome of the Rock is located. Just to the right of the altar cross you can just make out the Church of the Tomb of Christ, called the Holy Sepulcher (it is also where Golgotha is located).
I also had the opportunity to travel to Africa this past summer, specifically to South Africa and Mozambique. This was part of a Habitat for Humanity trip. We helped build houses in Mozambique. The houses were actually one-room huts made of reeds and thrush. It is however, more than most people have in that country.
We built around 4 houses in 4 days. Pretty good, I thought. Please pray for the people of Africa. They are suffering immensely from the AIDS epidemic there. Below is a picture of my group
raising a roof onto a house with the help of locals.
Well, it's getting late and I need to get to bed. Morning Prayer is at 7:30 and I want to be rested for the first day of classes. Please pray for me.
This past week, twenty-two of the seminarians for the Diocese of Toledo gathered at the retreat center in Tiffin for their annual summer retreat. (Only one was missing due to his language studies in Rome.) The retreat included time for prayer, discussion, input and social time together. We opened the retreat with a Mass and dinner with the seminarians and their parents. The Serra Club of Tiffin did a fabulous job of preparing and serving the meal, making it a very special start of our retreat. After conversation together and the opportunity for the parents to get to know one another, we showed the DVD "Fishers of Men." This video portrays the impact and gift of priesthood. The next morning, several of the recently ordained priests, along with Bishop Robert Donnelly, joined us for a panel discussion of priesthood and service. They shared some of their own personal experiences and reflections on service and later answered questions the seminarians had. The retreat held several other opportunities, including participation in the vigil Mass for the Assumption at the Shrine in Carey. It was an honor and privilege to be among the thousands of pilgrims who gathered that evening to honor Mary in this way. The seminarians are now making their ways to the seminaries for another year of study and formation. Please keep them in your prayers as they continue to discern God's will in their lives.
Blog 
Today marks the 157th anniversary of the founding of our congregation, the Sisters of Notre Dame. We celebrate Founder's Day today with our sisters, associates and those with whom and to whom we minister.
Today is the six-year anniversary of the terrorist attacks of the Twin Towers in New York City. I can't help but to think of the events that transpired there and the ripple effect it has had on our world. It was definitely a tragic situation, but considering everything, it is amazing (more like the grace of God) that more people were not killed. In the midst of all the rubbleand ruin, the greatest sign of hope appeared - a cross formed from the beams of one of the towers standing erect in a mountain of rubble.
This country has killed over 48 million of its children in the womb in the name of "choice" and sacrificed them for what? Do we care that our foreign aid has in the past required other nations to accept this abomination? What about our sexual immodesty, rampant divorce rate, sexual intercourse outside the marriage of a man and woman, euthanasia, stem cell research, human cloning, hording our riches instead of sharing them with the poor of the world? In short, we disregard the teachings of the Church/God for our own preferences.
God willing, I will be ordained a Transitional Deacon in the spring. I guess I'm the first seminarian to write for this blog. The planis to have more seminarians write for the blog so that all of you out there can get a better idea of how seminarians live their lives. Of course you are always encouraged to ask us questions in the comments. I'll try to keep up and answer any questions that you have. Feel free to ask anything. 
This past week, twenty-two of the seminarians for the Diocese of Toledo gathered at the retreat center in Tiffin for their annual summer retreat. (Only one was missing due to his language studies in Rome.) The retreat included time for prayer, discussion, input and social time together. We opened the retreat with a Mass and dinner with the seminarians and their parents. The Serra Club of Tiffin did a fabulous job of preparing and serving the meal, making it a very special start of our retreat. After conversation together and the opportunity for the parents to get to know one another, we showed the DVD "Fishers of Men.
" This video portrays the impact and gift of priesthood. The next morning, several of the recently ordained priests, along with Bishop Robert Donnelly, joined us for a panel discussion of priesthood and service. They shared some of their own personal experiences and reflections on service and later answered questions the seminarians had. The retreat held several other opportunities, including participation in the vigil Mass for the Assumption at the Shrine in Carey. It was an honor and privilege to be among the thousands of pilgrims who gathered that evening to honor Mary in this way. The seminarians are now making their ways to the seminaries for another year of study and formation. Please keep them in your prayers as they continue to discern God's will in their lives.
