Miracles, Meatballs and Sr. Mary Joan

I know everything, except what I don't know...

In our convent there is one nun who is particularly special to the postulants, (and just about everyone else who meets her).

This special nun’s name is Sr. Mary Joan.

She is 83 years old and even though she is constantly saying she does not know how much longer she will be alive, no one can quite believe this nun will not be around until the second coming of Jesus.

Sr. Mary Joan has the memory of a recent MIT graduate and the muscle power of an eighteen year old. I once found her carrying a large box of oranges into the elevator. When I insisted on carrying it for her, I almost fell over because it was so heavy. And despite her age, Sr. Mary Joan amazes all of the sisters with her detailed memory of the distant past and near present. It is as if she carries a movie reel of her life in her head and can fast forward and rewind at will.

Sr. Mary Joan is surrounded by sisters younger than her but she makes anyone working with her feel old and lazy. Her apostolic heart is as alive as ever. When we go out to visit parishes or travel on long trips we can count on her prayers for us. Her heart is with us every step of the way. She works harder than all of the postulants put together, constantly cleaning, cooking, organizing, and thinking up new projects for the apostolate.

My first introduction to Sr. Mary Joan was during my first few days of postulancy when I was struck down by a mysterious, stress-induced illness, (being introduced to religious life can do this to a person). I holed myself up in my room for several days, feeling terrible, eating little, feeling sorry for myself and staring at the wall. I can only imagine what the other sisters were thinking; I would have placed bets on whether the newbie would leave in one day or three. Sr. Mary Joan responded to the situation in what I now know is her customary way. She ambled around the kitchen as if she were my grandmother, carefully preparing a warm, revitalizing soup. When she brought me the soup, she looked at me with understanding, nonjudgmental eyes, promised me her prayers for my recovery and told me firmly that I would be up and around in no time. Something about the way she said it made me believe that it was true.

I am pretty sure all of the postulants would say that this incident is emblematic of the person Sr. Mary Joan is – warm, full of energy and vitality, always ready to go the extra mile, and ready to give a little extra encouragement to anyone who needs it .

Yes, Sr. Mary Joan is my biggest fan....

Perhaps the most endearing quality of Sr. Mary Joan is her love for Pope Benedict XVI. If you ask her where Pope Benedict is at any given time, she will reel off his schedule in minute detail as if she were paid to be his personal assistant. She knows her way around the Vatican web site better than anyone else alive, probably even the webmaster. And she changes the desktop picture on her computer daily to different scenes in the current life of the pope. If you want to know what the pope is up to you can either ask this tenacious nun or check her desktop.

It is due to Sr. Mary Joan's persistence that I have begun to read the pope’s homiles and Wednesday audiences more regularly. She even lent me his autobiography Milestones which I began warily and ended up not being able to put down. Our pope is amazing - humble and very straightforward, and not a tinge of self-righteousness or pride, (which I must say is particularly amazing in a man of such brilliance). It is said that when he writes he quotes the early Church Fathers without looking it up and it is only checked by an assistant after he is finished. I may very soon become the vice president of Sr. Mary Joan’s B16 fan club.

Sr. Mary Joan’s cooking skills are celebrated in convent and even in the greater St. Louis area. When Sr. Mary Joan does not cook pasta on her cooking day the postulants lament and wail as if present for the destruction of the city of Jerusalem. At our benefit dinner last year two people paid $600 just for the opportunity to eat her cooking. She never looks at a recipe, makes meatballs by the hundreds, and even prepares her tiramisu with decaf (blasphemy!) just for me so I won't stay up for hours cursing the enticing lure of tiramisu long into the night.

She is even responsible for some rather amazing miracles - reuniting an adopted son with his birth family in Italy for one. For more of this amazing story, check it out here.

Sr. Mary Joan has a true Pauline heart, being one of the first missionary sisters to bravely accept an assignment to the United States at the young age of 23. She knew no one and did not speak a word of English. When asked if she was homesick she responds, "I came here in obedience to God and my congregation so I could not regret it." She passes on the charism of our spiritual family simply by being her. Every once in a while she will casually mention the founder of our congregation Blessed James Alberione. When she does, all of the postulants eyes grow big and we carefully act like we are not too interested so she will not get embarrassed by our star struck faces and stop telling us stories.

Flowers at the Jubilee Celebration

Some have the notion that as religious sisters get older, they just get sweeter, more naïve, and less in touch with reality. I'll admit I had this fear in the back of my mind and wondered if religious life would make me into some kind of Stepford nun. But meeting Sr. Mary Joan has assured me that religious life does not make a person any less unique, spunky, and alive. She has shown me that a good religious can keep the fire of a good disciple of Jesus alongside the quiet gentleness of someone who has allowed their soul to be transformed by a life of loving Jesus in the Eucharist.

Sr. Mary Joan recently celebrated 60 years of religious life. Many of our friends came to celebrate her life and her long dedication to the Pauline work of evangelization through the media. We all hope and pray that her life will continue to give glory to God, and we will be able to enjoy her pasta and meatballs for many more years to come.

Congratulations Sr. Mary Joan. We all love you more than you can imagine.

Peace to all of our friends in this joyful season,

Theresa

Greetings from our Novitiate house in Boston!

"We give thanks to God always for all of you" (1 Thess 1:2) for your presence in our vocational journey especially while we were Postulants in St. Louis. Thanks to your prayers, the Lord has continued to shower us with many blessings. Many of you may remember Sr. Sylwia and Sr. Emily during their time of postulancy in St Louis two years ago. Well...good news! They just recently professed their first vows! It was such a blessing for us to be a part of their preparation for this big day. Sr. Emily made her profession at our Motherhouse here in Boston on Jan 28, 2012 and Sr. Sylwia thereafter, left for Poland and made her profession in Warsaw on Feb 5. Sr Emily is now the Children's Editor at our Publishing house here in Boston and Sr. Sylwia is head of the Digital Department and is doing vocation work for her community in Warsaw, Poland. Please continue to keep them in your prayers.

Both of us began our novitiate experience on September 14, 2011. Since then, we have been immersed in study: learning about our Constitutions, Prayer, and our Pauline Charism. We have also been working in our apostolate in new and different ways. In the Publishing house, Sr. Laura works in proofreading and designing the interior pages of our books and Sr. Jackie works in the Digital Department on our website, online newsletters and magazines. We have also been able to experience the spiritual needs of many through our work in the Online Webstore, the Dedham bookcenter, parish and conference book exhibits in the Boston area, media and vocation talks, and an Adoration session with children. Our novitiate journey has been anything but dull!

So in a nutshell, we give thanks to God for you - for being part of our journey! Please continue to pray for and support vocations. We are looking forward to having some young women come for our Holy Week Retreat in a few weeks which will be pretty exciting!

Please know that you are in our prayers and we thank you for yours!

God bless you,
Sr. Laura and Sr. Jackie.

Happy Lent: It's cool to be in the desert

Newsflash: Lent is not all doom and gloom. Although sack cloth and ashes are pretty hardcore that's not what I've been wearing the last 14 days. 

O Happy Lent! I know this may sound a little strange.  But I was totally stoked to enter into Lent this year. What? I was excited about Lent!?! ( maybe I've been in the convent too long--ha. not.)

Lent seems to kinda sneaks up on you from behind. Say, "Ha gotcha" throw a handful of dust at you and try to fade into the background and sneak right by. Not many seasons do that. And slowly I've learned that you need to turn around and face Lent before the homily on Ash Wednesday. Come on. Who hasn't decided what they are giving while in line waiting to get ashes. And the default is usually sweets or specifically chocolate. Am I right?

But, when you really look at Lent something about it is kinda alluring. It says in the Gospel "The spirit drove Jesus out into the desert." Jesus was driven into the desert--by the Holy Spirit. *PAUSE*. So your saying: the Third person of the Trinity (Holy Spirit), drew the Second Person of the Trinity (Jesus), to be with the First person of the Trinity (Father). Woah. Sign me up on "Desert Tour Lent 2012." 

I think it's our biblical image of the desert that throws off our idea of Lent. Which was pretty much equivalent of eating my veggies. You just get through it.  

The Pope talked about this two fold image of the desert in his Wednesday audience the first week of Lent. (You can check out the whole article here ) The Papa Benny said:

"On one hand, it is the season of first love with God, between God and His people, when He speaks to their hearts, pointing out to them the path to follow...On the other hand, the Bible also portrays another image of Israel's wandering in the desert: It is also the time of the greatest temptation and peril..."

Like Isreal's forty years, Jesus remains in the desert 40 days experiencing both intimate union with the Father and exposure to danger and temptation. It is so easy to look over this first part of Lent; a time of intimate communion or "special closeness" with God. Deserts are not only a place of aridity and temptation, but also equally a place of solitude and  intimacy. If your two part Lenten desert see-saw was broken like mine: FIX IT! 

And why have I grown to love Lent soo much?  Because I love Easter! We are a resurrection people. It is so much sweeter to deeply drink in that Easter joy when we have truly journeyed with Jesus into the desert all the way to the cross. 

There's still 26 more days left! Don't let Lent try to sneak by. 


Carly

And the Academy Award Goes To....

For our recreation last night, the postulant community made some popcorn, hooked up our TV to a projector, and played a competitive game of Oscar Bingo while watching the Academy Awards on our "big screen" (i.e., the wall of our study).  The Oscar ceremony was one of the more enjoyable ones in recent years, though I admit I haven't yet seen many of the nominated movies.  Among other things, Billy Crystal didn't disappoint as host, and the performance by Cirque Du Soleil was a pleasant surprise. 

I've sat through many an Oscar broadcast over the years, and I confess that I often enjoy the red carpet festivities more than the actual ceremony: 

"And who are you wearing?" 



Mother Dolores Hart

Last night's red carpet featured an unusual sight in Hollywood: a real, live Benedictine nun, Mother Dolores Hart, who is the subject of the Oscar-nominated short documentary, God Is the Bigger Elvis.  Before she entered the convent, Dolores Hart was best known for playing Elvis' love interest onscreen.  You can read more about her movie career and vocation here.

In a couple of weeks, Sr. Rebecca, Cheryl, Theresa, Chelsea, Carly and I will be heading to Hollywood ourselves.  We won't be walking any red carpets like Mother Dolores (maybe in our dreams), but we will be taking a media literacy course in Los Angeles led by Sr. Rose Pacatte, FSP, who is the Director of our Pauline Center for Media Studies in L.A.  We're excited about what the class will entail, especially since one of our pre-seminar assignments was to watch both Witness and Terminator 2: Judgment Day.  I can't wait to see how we tie those two movies together in class!

The media course relates to our mission, which includes developing and distributing resources that help individuals and families use and engage movies and other media from a perspective of faith.  Pauline Books and Media's most recent digital newsletter, My Discover Hope News Notes, highlights some of our resources, including How to Watch Movies With Kids. 

I look forward to reporting back to you when we return from our L.A. trip.  Hollywood, here we come!

God bless,

Sandy

Most Popular Girl in School - Not the Catholic Church!

I must sheepishly admit that while Chelsea, Sandy, Carly and Sr. Rebecca were away I was supposed to update the postulant blog. Unfortunately, I was too busy hanging out with Cheryl and enjoying introverted bliss (i.e. reading together in the same room but not talking, quiet dinners in our study and watching Lord of the Rings - ok we're nerds).

Never fear, I have a great post in mind that involves our favorite German and a certain Italian nun brewing in my head.

But in the meantime, for your enjoyment, I will share a post that I wrote that was published on a Catholic web site called Ignitum Today, a social networking site for the JP II generation. The post is regarding the HHS contraception mandate and it is called "Most Popular Girl in School - Not the Catholic Church."

Check it out, tell me what you think - (even if you respectfully disagree)!

Blessings,

Theresa