To Jesus Christ Our Sovereign King

What a week to end the liturgical year! The feast of Christ the King is a great feast indeed. We celebrated by going to Sunday Mass at Mary Mother of the Church parish. (We try to go to different parishes in the diocese on Sunday...maybe you will soon see us at yours!) The Mass had combined contemporary, teen, and children's choirs and added the joy and regality that the feast deserves!

I was personally truly struck this year by the Cycle C Gospel reading on Sunday. As postulants, we've been learning about our foundations as a Congregation and about our Lord Himself. We listened to tapes earlier this year of one of our (now deceased) sisters, Sr. Veritas, speaking of "Jesus, Our Divine Master". This devotion to Jesus is particularly Pauline, given to us by our founder. In hearing the Gospel reading this year for Christ the King I recalled what we discussed in our Divine Master sessions: that we have a King who uses His power to empower the powerless. Our King is the suffering servant on that cross in the Gosepl reading, giving His promise of the kingdom to a thief in one of His last breaths. It is moments like these in Jesus' life that make me fall more in love with who He is.

The feast that followed on Monday is lesser known by the Church liturgically, but an important feast for us as Paulines: the feast of Blessed James Alberione, our founder. He passed from this life to the next on Nov. 26, 1971 and we commerated and celebrated him and his place in heaven this past Monday; so beautifully after just reflecting on Christ's kingdom. We did this by doing what we Paulines seem to do
best- a multi-media, power point prayer reflection for Morning Prayer- and remembering him throughout the day.

Wednesday, we had our last Sacramental Theology Class at the Seminary with Father Keller through the Paul VI Institute. We enjoyed the class so much, not only because of the beautiful content shared about the Sacraments, but Father Keller's style of wit and humor showed the Sacraments and the Church in a way I'm sure not many have experienced before :)

Finally, last night we prepared for Advent by sharing with over 100+ women from the diocese an "Advent Tea" at Assumption parish. We provided music for the beginning of the evening, and then got to hear a very devoted (and funny :) lay woman and author- Teresa Brotherton- speak on her preparing of her heart for Advent. It was a beautiful evening and we were glad to be a part of it!

For those of you reading who found out about us in the St. Louis Review this week- welcome! Please feel free to leave any prayer requests, comments, or questions for us by either email or by leaving a comment. And for those of you not from St. Louis, here is the link to the article in which we were mentioned this week (you may have to copy and paste it into your address toolbar):

http://www.stlouisreview.com/article.php?id=14292

May God bless you as we enter into the season of Advent!

Peace in Him,
Julia

Happy Thanksgiving!

It has been another full week! This week was highlighted by our Thanksgiving celebration and preparations for it.
Everyone played an important role in preparing our meal: Sr. Jerome and I made pies, Sr. Agnes cooked the turkey, Sr. Caritas and Julia decorated the table and Julia also made the stuffing, Sr. Carmen made a beautiful salad, and Alina made cranberry sauce. We were blessed to have Julia's sister, who lives in St. Louis, join us for our meal.
In the evening we invited the sisters to our postulant study to play a game. It was a beautiful day and a wonderful experience of community and true gratitude to our good God. We hope your Thanksgiving was equally blessed!
We had a couple opportunities to reach out to young people this week. On Sunday, Sr. Carmen and I participated in a "Nun Run" at a nearby Ursuline convent. Four young women from two different colleges spent the weekend in St. Louis; they met eleven religious orders, and we were blessed to be one of them. We spoke to them about the charism of the Daughters of St. Paul and afterwards we had lunch with them.
On Tuesday, all four of us headed to a little cafe where they have a Christian music night once a month. We knew one of the singers, so we went to hear him, and it was a good opportunity to meet some young people (as well as try some gelato!).
A thought for the week ahead, inspired by the feast of Thanksgiving: "If the only prayer we ever said was, 'Thank you,' it would be enough." (Meister Eckhart) See you next week -- may God bless you!

nunca un momento aburrido...

¡Qué semana ocupada! Pero comenzó con un poco de descanso. El domingo finalmente tuvimos una oportunidad para visitar Forest Park. Pasamos la mitad del día en el zoológico y la otra mitad en el museo de arte. Fuimos bendecidas con un día soleado y hermoso. El resto de la semana fue asi…tuvimos que presentar reflexiones sobre el Divino Maestro, como culminación de nuestra clase, trabajamos en la librería, continuamos preparando la fiesta del niño Jesús y comenzamos a practicar la música para la misa de la Navidad. Las postulantes y las hermanas formarán el coro de la misa el 25 de diciembre en nuestra parroquia, Santa Isabel de Hungaría, y ya comenzamos a practicar los cantos. Además de estos momentos más apostólicos, tuvimos también oportunidades para reflexión y formacion: nuestra clase sobre los sacramentos que se realizó aquí en nuestra librería, dos talleres presentados por nuestra hermana Rose sobre “la espiritualidad de la comunicación y el catequista”. Éste fue nuestro primer encuentro con la hermana Rose. Estuvimos agradecidas por pasar algunos momentos con ella. Esa misma mañana también participamos en una feria vocacional. Adivinen cuantos jóvenes participaron. ¡Fueron más de 2,000! Esa misma noche animamos nuestra grupo de Fé y Film. ¡Tuvimos nuestra audiencia más grande hasta ahora! Esta semana también vimos algunas películas: una sobre la vida del Padre Pio y Evan Almighty. Verdaderamente ha sido una semana fantástica y hemos recibido tantas bendiciones del Señor que nos prepararán para una linda Día de Acción de Gracias. “Por todo lo que vivimos decimos, ‘Gracias. A todo lo que viviremos diremos,‘Si’”. (Dag Hammerskjold)
¡Como ven la vida de una postulante Paulina jamás es aburrida! Vale la pena seguir a Jesús. ¡Las esperamos!

la vita bella

So I don't know about where you are, but the new movie "bella" has been all the talk here in St. Louis recently. We finally got to see what the buzz was about last Friday night. I think we all liked the movie, and of course, the movie's message, which is a pro-life one. It presents the issue in an interesting way. The movie follows the friendship of a guy and a girl, the girl who entrusts to her friend that she is pregnant. He in turn shares a secret with her and they help each other deal with their pain in a healthy way. Though produced by a small production company, it has a professional feel to it. That is to say, it doesn't seem like a small production. So anyways, I offer that to you and we would love to hear what you thought about the movie too!

The best part about the night, however, (aside from witnessing the Gospel proclaimed on the big screen, of course ;) was the ARCADE in the movie theater! :) The three of us rounded up our change (and Sr. Agnes generously gave us some of hers ) and were on a mission to win tickets and toys for the community :) We found skee ball to be our greatest source for this. So a few rounds of skee ball, a couple shots at basketball, and even a fly-swatting game later...we had finger puppets for all! :)
Ah, the joys of community life!

This week Sr. Mary Mark and Sr. Joan Paula are here to share their stories and information from the General Chapter. While the sisters are in meetings, I must say that us postulants are "holding down the fort" pretty well :) We are in the Book Center every day! And we also each have our own apostolic responsibilities. Emily is working on our next exhibit (which Sr. Rose will be speaking at) next week. Alina is working on our fast approaching Baby Jesus party. And I have been entrusted with researching for our Faith and Film nights as well as advertising our events. I got to go to Saint Louis University this week and met a bunch of awesome campus ministers who were very eager to collaborate with us in our mission! Hopefully we'll see them at our Book Center soon!

Thanks to all who read this, especially our aspirant friends in Argentina!!! We are united with you in prayer and discernment!!!

God bless!
Peace,
Julia

Celebration and Mission

We started off this week with our first celebration of the feast of the Divine Master. Jesus Master, Way, Truth, and Life, is the center of our spiritual life as Paulines, and the feast of the Divine Master is on the last Sunday of October. We began our celebration on Saturday evening with an Hour of Adoration together. On Sunday we celebrated the Master by bringing Him to the people. We had an all-day book exhibit at the archdiocesan pro-life conference. Fr. Frank Pavone was the keynote speaker and we were blessed to listen to his presentation. We met so many wonderful people at the conference who shared their stories with us.

Another highlight of this week was...Halloween! The Sisters prepared a very fun evening that included supper together, sharing stories and laughs, and discovering all kinds of costumes! Apparently our basement holds more "treasures" than we ever thought! As a result, here is the much-awaited picture of the three of us with Sr. Carmen Christi, our formator. Enjoy!

We are continuing with our classes and our apostolic activity. Please keep us in your prayers as we journey forward. And feel free to post any prayer intentions that you may have. See you next week -- may God bless you!