Black falls off my fingers. A dark coat of Truth covers me, my hands, all dirty. I am Too messy for this: the sacred Marking of penitents processing. Skin rubs skin, black in between Ash smeared upon holy, oily faces. The stream keeps moving. I am like a rock slowing the flow with redirecting, grounding. I proclaim:…
This past Monday one of my former students was shot and killed on the streets of Chicago. Advent is a time of darkness. Sometimes it is obvious to us that there’s a such thing as holy darkness. And, sometimes the darkness is so cold and heavy that it seems to swallow our hope. During Advent we…
My Christmas Every Day experiment is starting to get awkward. Advent hasn’t even started yet, but Christmas’ crazed and over-weight relative Consumerism is already in town, on the news, and wasting your gasoline and money as he drives all around town shopping. Meanwhile, I’m crowding with others in the cozy chapel, savoring peace and quiet and adoring God’s…
I am a conscientious objector to the Mommy Wars. If you’ve never heard of the Mommy Wars, then you (mercifully) missed last year’s media frenzy surrounding a Time magazine cover that featured a mom breastfeeding her four-year-old son. The accompanying article, provocatively titled “Are You Mom Enough?,” spawned a vitriolic nation-wide debate that was sadly emblematic…
It’s St. Francis day and we have a Pope Francis! Thanks be to God, Pope Francis is really using his time in leadership to make big changes and redefine roles. Basically Pope Francis is doing a great job of honoring his namesake, St. Francis of Assisi. This is really good news for Franciscans like me who…
By Guest Blogger: Sarah Hennessey FSPA Usually when people find out I’m a Catholic sister there follows some basic assumptions. Some people wonder where I’ve put my “black get-up” or habit, my wooden ruler and my stern look. More stereotypes than assumptions, I’m still surprised how often these come up. Behind these images are the…
Franciscan Sisters of Perpetual Adoration Affiliate Emily Dawson works at St. Rose Convent in vocation ministry. She was asked to write about the correlation between St. Rose of Viterbo, the patron saint of the FSPA (whose feast day is today), and life in the convent. When I asked a FSPA in the know about St….
I remember when and where I first learned the word. I was 18 and sitting on a folding chair among a crowd in an enormous gymnasium-converted auditorium. It was dark in the giant room; only the stage was lit. Eager to be an excellent Christian, I was at a conference sponsored by The Navigators (an international,…
A vivid memory has been speaking to me all summer: a sunny spring day, as the fourth period of the school day began, a few excited ninth-grade boys came to class eager to ask a question. Their energy was animated and slightly nervous (“You ask her.” “No you ask her!”) for I believe they knew, at…
Sister Sarah Hennessey is a spiritual advisor for her local conference of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul’s National Council of the United States and serves as an emergency contact for those who find themselves in urgent need. The call came on a Sunday evening. A woman was at our grocery story and had…
Union with God: we pray for it, long for it, work for it. But, are we prepared for what it can do to us? How much could we be transformed if, for example, we start to see the world as God sees it? And, what does love got to do with it? Last night I renewed my…
By guest blogger Nicole Steele Wooldridge I always used to find it challenging to live out the value of simplicity in a contemporary Western context. Now, as a mom, I find it nearly impossible. I am blessed to be the mother of a twenty-month-old daughter and another little girl due in two months. I desperately…
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