ALLELUIA!!!

"Christ is risen from the dead, trampling over death by death. Come awake! Come awake! Come and rise up from the gave! Christ is risen from the dead! We are one with Him again! Come awake! Come awake! Come and rise up from the grave!" ('Christ is Risen' by Matt Maher)

The Lord is risen as He has promised! Sin has lost it's power! We have just spent 40 days fasting and praying. Now let us rejoice and celebrate the great mystery of our faith! United with all of Heaven, may we sing the praises of Him who died for our sins! As we enter into this joyous Easter season, may we immerse ourselves into the Love that was shed for our salvation!

We ARE an Easter people and Alleluia IS our song!!!

Written by Alycia, Special Events Coordinator for the Carmelite Sisters for the Aged and Infirm.

Vocation of Love

God, at His very essence, is Love. Made in His image and likeness, we too, are called to imitate that love. "[Man] is 'the only creature on earth that God has willed for [his] own sake,' and he alone is called to share, by knowledge and love, in God's own life. It was for this end that he was created..." (CCC 356). Each person is called to this vocation of Love and all other vocations stem from this first vocation.

The model of this vocation is Jesus Himself. From the Incarnation to the Resurrection, Jesus never ceased to love. He walked the streets of Bethany and Judea. He saw the stains of sin on souls, but those stains never held Him back. He healed the eyes of the blind. He helped the lame walk and sinners to return to the Father. It wasn't fear that brought them back to union with God. It was Love. "[Love] is a unity" (I Believe in Love (IBIL), 156). It is love which draws souls into union with God and into union with one another. We are together in the Body of Christ and our source is Love.

Our greatest devotions are often times our greatest struggles. If you look at any devotion in the Church, whether it be to the Sacred Heart, Our Lady of Mount Carmel, Divine Mercy or the Cross, it's source is Love. Often times we struggle to love. We struggle to love ourselves and those around us. But when we take a step back, pray for the grace to see souls the way that the Lord sees them, then, we truly begin to love. However, we must remember that the "desire to love is already to love." We would not have a desire to love if we did not already love in the first place. And the Lord, as great as He is, "cannot fail to fulfill, beyond even our greatest hopes, a desire that He himself has inspired" (IBIL, 117 & 118).


"Truly to love someone is sincerely to will good for him, whatever feelings we may have at the moment" (IBIL, 153).


To truly foster first a vocation of love and secondly a vocation to the married life or religious life, we must set aside ourselves and our own will. For it is not ourselves who know best what will aid our brothers and sisters in Christ, but the Lord. We are simply vessels and must see ourselves as such. To do so, we must humble ourselves, remembering that we are dust and to dust we shall return. "Humility is an abyss which attracts torrents of grace, which attracts Jesus Himself into a soul" (IBIL, 126). When we humble ourselves, we simplify our lives. "Simplicity creates an agreeable atmosphere for everyone, put people at their ease, brings hearts back together. This is because it presupposes a true forgetfulness of self" (IBIL, 130). The more we are empty of ourselves, the more we can be full of Love.

The Lord grants us the desires of our hearts. He will not call us to a vocation which we do not desire. Truth be told, we desire to love and to be loved. Actually, we long for it. Our hearts seek it everyday and how that longing is fulfilled reveals where the Lord is calling us.

Whether we are in our permanent vocation or still seeking one, we must foster vocations. First and foremost a vocation to love. If you look to Our Lady or any of the great saints, you will see that their lives permeated love and it was from that love that their vocations sprang forth. When we foster a vocation of love, we foster a love relationship with Him who created us. It is our obligation to foster a vocation of love. If we fail to do so, we inadequately live out the faith we profess. We do a great disservice to our brothers and sisters when Love is not the forefront of our lives. Let us radiate Love to and be edified by one another so as to build up the Kingdom of God.

From fostering vocations of Love we foster vocations to the Church. Each vocation in its fullness fosters love and promotes all other vocations, whether it be to the priesthood, religious life, married life, or single life. May we constantly speak of vocations and discernment, for these things are universal and are asked of us every day.

We are together in the Body of Christ and our source is Love.

When awake in the morning, our source is Love. When we discern our vocation, our source is Love. As we foster vocations, our source is Love. As we go throughout our day, our source is Love. As we unite generations, our source is Love. As we blend traditions, our source is Love. And as we journey to our eternal glory, our source is Love.

Written by Alycia, Special Events Coordinator for the Carmelite Sisters for the Aged and Infirm

Via Dolorosa

"Suffering is a great grace; through suffering the soul becomes like the Savior; in suffering love becomes crystallized; the greater the suffering, the purer the love." - St. Faustina (The Diary, pg. 29)

This quote reminds us of the importance of meditating on the Via Dolorosa (Stations of the Cross). The more we meditate on the sufferings of Christ, the more we, too, can embrace that suffering which won our salvation. The Via Dolorosa allows us to walk with Christ step by step, embracing the Cross and the sufferings of our lives and offer them, out of love, to the Father, in reparation for our sins.

When presented with an opportunity to bear our crosses, may we say, "Rejoice my heart! Rejoice my soul! My Savior God has come to thee!" (Lyrics from "O Love That Will Not Let Me Go" by Robbie Seay Band)


Written by Alycia, Special Events Coordinator for the Carmelite Sisters for the Aged and Infirm

Update!

REGISTRATIONS ARE OPEN!


Due to the popularity of this conference we encourage you to register early as space is limited! 

Sacrifice

"I urge you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God, your spiritual worship. Do not conform yourselves to this age but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and pleasing and perfect."    -Romans 12:1-2 

This Lenten Season, may our lives be a living sacrifice, transformed by the unconditional Love of the Cross.

Leniency of God

"When you fail to measure up to your Christian privilege, be not discouraged for discouragement is a form of pride. The reason you are sad is because you looked to yourself and not to God; to your failing, not to his love. You will shake off your faults more readily when you love God than when you criticize yourself.... You have always the right to love him in your heart even though you do not love him in your acts.... Do not fear God for perfect love casts [out] fear.  God is biased in your favor.... God is more lenient than you because is perfectly good and, therefore, loves you more. Be bold enough, then, to believe that God is on your side, even when you forget to be on his."

           -Fulton J. Sheen, Lent and Easter: Wisdom from Fulton J. Sheen

United in Conversion

"Call a solemn assembly; gather the people. Sanctify the congregation; assemble the aged; gather the children..."(Joel 2)

During the holy season of Lent we unite as brothers and sisters in Christ from every time and place, generation with generation, in acts of fasting, prayer and almsgiving. Together we turn from sin to grace. Together we enter into Christ's suffering and death that we may also rise with Him. Lent is a particular time of penance, a particular time of conversion, and a particular time of grace. It reveals to us the beauty of being one united Church, united in suffering and united in our need for conversion. There is need for conversion in every time and every place, and in every generation. We are united in our longing for heaven, and we help one another to get there. We are sharers not only in Christ's, but in one another's sufferings. We "Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep" (Romans 12:15). Lent calls us to reject selfishness in our relationship with God and in our relationship with others. It is a time to deny ourselves and return to the Lord, bringing our brothers and sisters with us. Let us bring the aged, the youth and the children before the Lord, and "rend our hearts, and not our clothing."

Lent is one of the "intense moments of the Church's penitential practice" (CCC 1438). It calls us to become more sensitive to the role of sin in our lives and its effects within our personal surroundings and our larger society and culture (Lent and Easter Wisdom from Fulton J. Sheen (Liguori, MO: Liguori Publications, 2004) ix). A major part of conversion, of turning away from sin and back to God includes some form of penance. Without penance we are unlikely to advance in holiness. Time and time again we hear Jesus say in the Gospel, "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand'" (Matthew 4:17). Through the holy season of Lent, we immerse ourselves into the death of Christ so that we may also rise with Him. By the grace of our Baptism we are moved everyday to immerse ourselves into this death and resurrection. "You were buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him." (cf. Col 2:12) Through the grace of our Baptism, we realize "the great mystery in which man dies to sin, is made a sharer in the new life of the Risen Christ and receives the same Spirit of God who raised Jesus from the dead (cf. Rom. 8:11). This free gift must always be rekindled in each one of us, and Lent offers us a path" (Message of His Holiness Benedict XVI for Lent 2011 [ML], 1).