Jackie's Birthday Celebration

Saturday March 27, 2010:
This weekend Jackie celebrated her first birthday in the convent!! We had a great celebration. The day started off with Mass at the nearby parish, St. Elizabeth of Hungary. After the Mass, Jackie received a birthday blessing from Fr. Lockwood and he sang happy birthday to her. Then when Jackie got home, there was a yummy hot chocolate from Starbucks waiting for her at the breakfast table. The dining room was decorated with 32 pieces of paper with the number 32 on each piece of paper; and everyone wrote different messages to Jackie on each of them. Jackie had a visit from one of her college friends, Angeline. They had a fun afternoon catching up with each other. Later that afternoon, preparations were underway in the dining room and kitchen for her special birthday dinner. When everything was ready, we called Jackie in and sang “Happy Birthday” to her in English and in Italian with the help of Sr. Mary Joan. The Sisters did a great job decorating the room, it was very festive. And Sr. Noel made a great dinner. We had chicken, rice, and a cabbage dish with Kenyan spices. For dessert we had carrot cake made by Sr. Rebecca and chocolate cake that Jackie’s friend brought. After dinner, Jackie opened her presents; she got some nice gifts, most of which were purple, since that of course is her favorite color!

Thank you, God, for the gift of Jackie’s life. We ask you to shower your blessings upon her and may you bless her with many more years of good health!

Come to our Holy Week Retreat in Boston!

You are warmly invited to our annual holy week retreat at our Motherhouse in Boston next week. Details of the retreat are as follows:

Dates: Wednesday, March 31 - Monday, April 5, 2010

Location: Daughters of St. Paul Motherhouse, 50 St. Paul’s Ave, Boston, MA 02130,USA

Contact person: Sr. Margaret Michael, National Vocation Director

Phone: 703-549-1323 or 703-549-3806

Email: vocations@paulinemedia.com

All young women ages 17-30 are welcome. Come and be with our Lord this Triduum...in the Pauline way!

To learn more about the Daughters of St. Paul, please visit our websites:
US website: www.pauline.org
International website: www.paoline.org

You are in our prayers!

The Daughters of St. Paul at Texas A&M University!

This posting is a little late, but I didn't want to leave it out. The Daughters of St. Paul Vocation Team met at Texas A&M for a week of meetings and to spend time with the students. Sr. Margaret Michael, Sr. Helena Raphael, Sr. Karen Marie, Sr. Christine Virginia, Sr. Tracey Matthia and me, Sr. Rebecca Marie had a great week...Sr. Tracey gives us a great description below of our experience there...
What a strong experience of faith and joy we had at our 2010 Vocation Encounter! For the 2nd year in a row St. Mary’s Campus Ministry leaders at Texas A&M welcomed us and provided abundantly for our Encounter – the finest families for places to stay; a van for travel, home-cooked meals, a room for our meetings, front & center space to display books for the students, and best of all, their encouraging presence and willingness to share their faith and students with us.
Fr. David, the pastor of St. Mary's at the Catholic Student Center, took the time to answer our questions about what college students are facing today and how the Catholic Student Center reaches out to the 48,000 students on campus.
Holding our Encounter at St. Mary’s surrounds us with an outstanding group of Catholic young people already involved in their faith and Campus Ministers eager to share insights and experience with us. Sr. Margaret Michael, our national vocation director, arrived a week early to be one of 15 directors for the annual 4-day Busy Students’ Retreat; she also gave a moving reflection on suffering to 60 attentive Aggie sorority members.
Sr. Tracey & Sr. Rebecca helped lead music at Mass and Sr. Helena spoke on Philosophy & Film to future philosophers. Since Catholic groups meet every evening, we were able to introduce ourselves to many of the students…
Sr. Rebecca got to meet Pope Benedict (or a very stiff look-alike) in the hallway of the Catholic Student Center. What a thrill that was! He wasn't very talkative though.
please continue to pray for all the students and staff of Texas A&M! Check out their website:
http://www.aggiecatholic.org/

Vocation Talk at St. Gertrude's in Krakow, MO!

Wednesday March 17, 2010:

Happy St. Patrick's Day!!

Today Jackie and Laura drove out to Krakow, MO for a Vocation talk to the students at St. Gertrude's Catholic School (http://www.sgs-krakow.com/). We started off the day attending the school Mass. Monsignor Rice, the Vocation Director for the Archdiocese, (www.archstl.org/vocations) was the Celebrant. It was great to see the church filled with young people and the kids did a great job with the music. They all had a dress-down day and had their green on in support of St. Patrick! After Mass, Msgr. Rice stayed to talk with the 5-8th grade boys and we talked with the girls. We talked to the 5-8th graders first, then the k-4th graders, each for about an hour. We used a couple of clips from the movie "Evan Almighty" that focused on being called and how God calls us in our ordinary lives while we're at work or with our families, or whatever we may be doing. Then we told the kids a little bit about our own personal journey and how God called us and why we chose the Daughters of St. Paul. A lot of the kids knew who St. Paul was too, we were very pleased! We explained to them what the mission of the Daughters of St. Paul is (evangelizing through media) and showed them some pictures we've taken of our St. Louis community at prayer, at work in the apostolate, and enjoying each other's company through our community life. We made sure to leave time for questions and good thing we did, because they had a lot!! Especially the younger grades. They asked about everything, from what clothes we wear, to what our daily schedule is like, whether nuns can marry and have children, and why Sisters don't marry and have a family. So we got a lot of practice in explaining different aspects of our life to others. We had a great day spending time with the children. Laura and Jackie have now done their first official Vocation talk together!

O Jesus, eternal shepherd of our souls, send good laborers into your harvest!

Fun-filled Weekend!

Saturday, March 13 - Sunday, March 14, 2010:

Last weekend was full of fun! Jackie's brother and cousin were in town for the weekend. On Saturday, we spent most of our day at the city museum (www.citymuseum.org). We climbed and explored the in's and out's of the creative caves, slides, you name it! By the way, we learned the importance of leaving all your personal belongings at home or in your car - it is SO much easier to go through the slides and caves that way :-) Later Saturday afternoon, we went out for lunch and spent some brief moments at the Arch (www.gatewayarch.com) in downtown St. Louis. We crowned our evening with a movie at our very own study area - converted to have the full sound effects of a movie theatre. On Sunday, we went to an appreciation dinner and games for religious (aka "Nuns Nite Out") hosted by the Knights of Columbus in our area. We played bingo, washers, ping pong, darts and won lots of prizes. It was certainly a relaxing weekend!

Can you guess what types of goodies we brought home from the picture?

Pauline Movie Night: St. Damien of Molokai

Friday March 12, 2010:

Today we watched the movie, "Molokai", the beautiful story of Fr. Damien, the leper priest. He was truly a moving depiction of love for God and neighbor. He gave his life for the suffering lepers cast out into the island of Molokai and he served Our Lord in them until death. We had about 50 people in attendance and most people said they really enjoyed the movie. Fr. Damien is truly a witness to our need to serve those who are outcast in our society. At the end of the movie and brief sharing, we prayed together the St. Damien prayer that he may "...help us to love to the very end and in the strength of the Spirit, to persevere in compassion for the poor and forgotten so that we might be good disciples of Jesus and Mary" (www.fatherdamien.com). St. Damien, pray for us!

How are you living and loving "to the end" like St. Damien?

Pauline Lecture Series: Vincentian Spirituality

Wednesday March 10, 2010:

Today we had a wonderful speaker: Fr. Jim Cormack, a Vincentian and pastor of St. Catherine Laboure Catholic Church (http://www.sclparish.org/). He shared with us the life of St. Vincent and the Vincentian spirituality which has a particular focus on the poor. Our conference room was filled to capacity - we had about 60 people in attendance! He shared with us that Vincentian priests take the vows of chastity, poverty, obedience and stability. He also added that they are called to embrace certain virtues - meekness, humility etc. - virtues which we all need in our lives. St. Vincent de Paul pray for us to be more like Jesus!

How are you reaching out and serving Jesus in the "poor" around you? People may be poor spiritually, materially, socially...

PSR Adoration at St. Simons

Monday March 8, 2010:

Today we were blessed to lead our PSR (Parish School of Religion) children at St. Simon the Apostle Catholic Church in Eucharistic adoration. Sr. Rebecca gave a talk on Eucharistic adoration and thereafter led us into a time of adoring Our Lord. She highlighted how our Founder, Blessed James Alberione, saw the "Visit" to our Lord as - "the creature meeting his Creator, the patient with the Doctor of souls...the friend who goes to the True Friend" etc. It was beautiful to see all the children kneeling before Jesus in the sanctuary. As we adored the Lord, Sr. Rebecca invited the children to write their intentions on a piece of paper in view of offering their intentions to the Lord. We concluded our visit with Benediction. It was such a beautiful and grace-filled time with Jesus! We were happy to have had the opportunity to share our "Visit" with the children. Please keep them in your prayers!

When was the last time you visited with Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament?

Vocation Weekend and Retreat

Friday March 5 - Saturday, March 6, 2010:

On the first Saturday of the month, we usually go for our holy hour at the Holy Redeemer Catholic Church (http://www.holyr.org/) to pray for vocations. As always, Our Lord awaits us there to come into His presence in prayer, adoration and in particular offering of our petitions for more vocations to the priesthood and religious life. The priest who guided our holy hour gave a homily on Christian joy; that joy that prevails in our hearts no matter what we are going through in life. Thanks be to God for Our Lord Jesus Christ, who gives us the joy that the world cannot give! On Saturday, we had our Pauline vocation day here at the convent. We were blessed with three young women who came to learn more about our topic: "Prayer in my life". Sr. Rebecca shared with us some reflections on prayer. She also guided us into Pauline prayer through our time in Eucharistic adoration. We also enjoyed some light refreshments in our refectory while we visited with the young women.

When are YOU coming to see us?? Please know that you are all in our prayers!!

New Novices!

On February 20, our community welcomed two new novices: Srs. Sylwia and Emily! Sr. Margaret Timothy, our Provincial Superior, along with other sisters in the community of Boston welcomed the two novices at evening prayer that day. It was a simple and beautiful occasion for our new novices. They have now begun their new journey with the Lord. Please keep them in your prayers!

O Jesus eternal Shepherd of our souls, thank you for sending us laborers for your great harvest!!

Bookfairs/Exhibits in Denver

Monday, February 22, 2010: Arrival in Denver

Monday evening Sr. Rebecca, Sr.Emi, Jackie and Laura arrived in Denver and received a warm welcome by the Carmelite Nuns who so graciously opened their home to us. One of our Sisters, Sr. Irene Regina, is studying out in Denver and is also staying with the Carmelites. The next couple of days were spent at 2 local schools where we held J-Club bookfairs (http://www.jclubcatholic.com/). Sr. Rebecca and Laura were at St. Vincent de Paul Catholic school (http://www.svdpk8.com/) for 2 days and Sr. Emi and Jackie were at Sts. Peter and Paul Catholic school (http://www.sppscatholic.com/) for one day. The Carmelite Nuns we stayed with all work at this school. All the kids really enjoyed looking at the books. Many kids even picked out books for their younger siblings. In between other events during the week, Sr. Emi visited 6 Catholic bookstores in the area to show them our publications and to see if they'd be interested in ordering from us and carrying our books and cd's in their stores. Then on the weekend we all divided up and did parish exhibits at 3 local parishes. Sr. Irene Regina was at the exhibit for Sts. Peter and Paul Parish (http://www.peterandpaulcatholic.org/) as that is her local parish, so she saw many familiar faces. Sr. Rebecca and Jackie went to St. Catherine of Siena for their exhibit(http://www.saintcatherine.us/). The parish has a Spanish Mass at 1pm, so they made sure they brought our Spanish materials to share with them. Sr. Emi and Laura went to Our Lady of Fatima Parish (http://www.fatimalakewood.com/). Both of the priests and all the parishioners were so welcoming and happy to have us at their parishes. What a joy it was to be among all the people!

Thank you, Lord Jesus, for all the people we met. May You shower Your blessings upon them!

Catholic Conference in Denver

Thursday, February 25 - Saturday, February, 27, 2010:

One of our main reasons for being in Denver was to bring our media to the participants of the "Living the Catholic Faith" conference (http://www.archden.org/lcfc2010/). After some downtime at the beautiful Mother Cabrini shrine (http://www.mothercabrinishrine.org/) in the Rocky Mountains on Thursday morning, we proceeded to downtown Denver to set up our booth at the convention center. It was exciting to be there amongst other exhibitors. The projected attendance for the conference was about 4000 people! On Friday, we began our day with mass celebrated by Archbishop Chaput. Most Catholic schools were closed that day so many teachers attended the conference. It was great to see many catholic teachers present and learning more about their faith. On Saturday, we had many Hispanics in the Denver area. Our bilungual Mass that morning was celebrated by Auxiliary Bishop Conley. Many conference attendees stopped by our booth to pick up our Spanish titles and catalogs. Our Spanish media were truly in great need here! During the conference, we were also happy to meet one of our Pauline family members based in Colorado who is perpetually professed in the Holy Family Institute (http://www.alberione.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=67&Itemid=115). We were also able to have dinner and catch up with other friends in Denver. Throughout the week, we enjoyed visiting various book centers in Denver to share with them our 2010 catalog as well as our different media. So overall...we really had an "action-packed" week! St. Paul, help us to spread God's love to the ends of the earth!

What kinds of things are you doing to LIVE your Catholic faith?

Vocation Talk to PSR

Wednesday, March 3, 2010:

Today, Sr. Emi and Jackie visited some 5th, 6th and 7th graders in the PSR (Parish School of Religion) program at the Church of the Good Shepherd (http://www.mygoodshepherd.com/) in Hillsboro, Missouri. When we arrived at the Good Shepherd School, Jackie set up a book display for the parents and students so that they could get some books and media for their spiritual growth after the talk. Sr. Emi gave a vocation talk to the students. The students asked lots of questions about religious life and vocations. They were particularly thrilled about and sang along to the beautiful PowerPoint presentation and music that Sr. Emi provided on God's love for them. It was such a joy to share God's love and gift of vocations with them. May the Lord pour forth His Spirit to guide them in their vocations.

Have you read, listened to or watched anything lately to help you learn about or grow in your vocation?

Vincentian Service Corps

Wednesday, March 3, 2010:

Sr. Rebecca and Laura went to dinner with two Sisters from The Daughters of Charity and 6 young women from the Vincentian Service Corps who volunteer at different sites in our area. They help out at schools, daycare centers, and a women's home doing whatever is asked of them and helping wherever there's a need. They have come from different states across the U.S. and now live together in a house here in St. Louis. They've built up a strong community amongst themselves and truly enjoying being with one another. We talked to them about Religious Life and answered their questions about discernment and formation. It was wonderful to be with these generous young women who are willing to give of themselves for the sake of another. What a great example they are to the rest of us, especially during this season of Lent.

Is there someone in your life who may need some of your time or attention?

Vocation Day!

Who: The Daughters of St. Paul are inviting all young women

What: Join us for our next Vocation Day. Our topic will be "Prayer in My Life"

When: This Saturday, March 6 from 1-4pm

Where: Pauline Books and Media

9804 Watson Rd.

St. Louis, MO 63126

If you have any questions or would like more information, please call us at 314-965-6935 or email us at fsppostulants@gmail.com

We look forward to seeing you this weekend!