Vocation Essay

This essay is on how Sisters, Priest and Deacons help us hear God’s call in my life. There are two different ways they help us to hear God’s calling. I am going to try to help you understand how they help me!

The first way I feel is Religion class with Sr.Nicolette. In class, when she is teaching us about what happened in the Bible, I feel like I get so much out it. I think that the reason I get so much out of it is, because I see what God did in the past. I think another way that Sr.Nicolette helps me on my way to God is Adoration. Adoration helps me so much because when I am in Adoration, I feel so close to God. When I pray in Adoration I feel like I am talking to God. Sometimes in there I can actually see God and I feel like He is listening intently. Those are some of the many ways Sister Nicolette helps me see God’s calling.

The next way that a religious person helps me see God’s calling is when a Priest says mass. I think this is one of the most important things a priest does to help me hear God’s call, especially when we receive communion. When I receive Jesus I feel very close to Him. This is when I get most of my time to talk with just Jesus I feel like communion is the most important time to talk to God. That is what I think the most important thing that a Priest does to help me hear God’s calling.

Those are the things that religious people do to help me hear Gods calling.

Pete P.
8th Grade

Sr. Mary Sylvester Will, OSB celebrates 80 years of Monastic Profession!

In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, Amen. With gratitude to God who has called and sustained me in this life, I, Sr. Mary Sylvester Will, renew the promises made 80 years ago of stability in this monastery, fidelity to the monastic way of life, and obedience according to the Rule of St. Benedict and the norms of the Federation of St. Gertrude. I renew these promises before God and the saints, before Sr. Juliann Babcock, Prioress, and the Sisters of Our Lady of Grace Monastery. I rely on the grace of Our Lord Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit that this good work, begun in me, may continue to the day of Our Lord Jesus Christ to whom be glory and thanksgiving forever. Amen.

Sr. Mary Sylvester is 97 years old. She has lived...and continues to live...a life totally dedicated to God. She is a witness to all her sisters and the many students she has taught during her lifetime...including my mom and dad! Today we celebrate her Jubilee and give God thanks for her monastic vocation. We join Sr. Mary Sylvester in singing the Suscipe: Accept me O Lord, according to Your Word and I shall live; and let me not be confounded in my expectation!

Live a Life Worthy of Your Calling!

The following is the homily Fr. Matthias Neuman gave at Sr. Mary Sylvester's 80th Jubilee Mass this morning! Yes, 80 years of monastic life!

Wow! It has been a long time, hasn’t it, Sr. Sylvester? You’ve been a Benedictine for a longer time than most of us have lived. Quite an achievement!

I think that what the Letter to the Ephesians urges all believers to in today’s second reading are illustrative of some of the same qualities of a monastic vocation. It’s appropriate to reflect on them as we celebrate a monastic jubilee. "I urge you to live in a manner worthy of the call you have received, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another through love, striving to preserve the unity of the spirit, through the bond of peace...." I'd like to briefly reflect on each of these.

"To live in a manner worthy of the call you have received..."
* The Rule of Benedict see the monastic life as a response to God’s call. That’s very clearly expressed in the Prologue. We are to listen carefully to God addressing us and we are urged to respond honestly to that call.

"With all humility and gentleness..."

* This call is not our doing and therefore we humbly accept that. If that’s true, then the only way we can deal with our life and the lives of others is with gentleness. It demands gentleness because we are dealing with a gift and with other lives as gifts.

"With patience...."

* Patience with ourselves and patience with one another. The first two items were a vision. Now we are getting down to the nitty-gritty living of the monastic life and that requires patience. lots of it. I was challenged early in my monastic life. When I entered the novitiate the person who sat next to me for the noon and evening meals chewed with his mouth open. Thank God, that only lasted a couple of years.

"Bearing with one another through love...."

* Not just putting up with one another, but bearing with them "through love." You can put up with someone and still harbor a lot of animosities in your heart. Bearing with them through love means we give them the benefit of the doubt and move on.

"Striving to preserve the unity of the spirit..."

* That we are all of one mind. It’s important to remember that all of us are in a monastic community because we all come to seek God. There’s an established way of doing that in the Rule, but each of us lives it in our own unique way. Rather than focusing on differences (which can separate us) we remember the unity of spirit that unites us.

"Through the bond of peace..."
* This is God’s greatest gift of all. If we do the above, we will have peace. Oh, there will always be irritations, differences of opinion, rivalries—all the things that accompany people living together. But it’s important to see below that—where most of your day is not driven by anger and resentment. There are far too many families and businesses that are. That deep peace is the peace we seek in the monastery.

These are reflections fit not just for a monastic jubilee, but also as you look forward to your Chapter Meeting this coming week.

A Commentary for the 17th Sunday in Ordinary Time by Sr. Kathleen Yeadon, OSB

John 6:1-16

Where can we buy enough food for them to eat?
Last week it was about compassion, this week it is about generosity.

I was taught to be generous early on in my life. It was almost a mortal sin not to be generous in our family. We began going on Spring break trips somewhere around my 12th year. All who could—seventh grade on up needed to give money for gas and then be expected to treat the family one day to ice cream. You could match up with another person if you didn’t have adequate funds. Anyways, it was an honor to be the one who treated that day. After an afternoon at the beach, we always stopped for ice cream. On the last day, we stopped for hot dogs and that was my dad’s treat. He made more money. Also, on these long trips to Florida, Colorado and once to California, we would buy bags of candy always with the idea of sharing.

When I begin living at Covenant House, we received a $12 a week stipend. Living in New York and Houston created a challenge on how to live so frugally. In Central America, we cut it down to $6 a week so to be more like the people we worked with in those countries. No matter how much money I had, there was always the initial fear of not having enough. Then I reminded myself that God provides and to keep a generous heart.

I think that is the test. Can we live with generous hearts with money, time and resources?
The Gospel tells us to give and let God multiply what little is given. In our world that loves to capitalize on fear, we have to keep generous hearts and willingness to trust.

Tomorrow we will witness the fidelity of Sr. Mary Sylvester to the monastic life. I am sure there were times when her generosity was tested. Here she is –still giving her heart and life to God and us.

The suscipe is about trust and generosity. As we pray it tomorrow, let us renew our commitment to be generous with all of our lives.

Vocation Essay

How do priests, deacons, and religious brothers and sisters help us hear God’s call in our lives? I believe it is in their teachings. They tell us that in prayer we are talking to God. Fr. Eric Johnson said, “God calls us each by name. Part of hearing God’s call is opening our hearts to the invitation of others ,learning from their example, and allowing them to share in our discernment.” Fr. Eric Johnson also said, “It is a call that leads us in to a deeper knowledge, love, and service of God, summons us to love and serve God’s people. At its heart, our unique vocational call is a reflection of whom we are and who God intends us to be. It is a relationship with the one who calls us each by name, and desires our fulfillment and happiness.”

Everyone has their own call in life. Some peoples’ call in life might be to become the Pope or a bishop, cardinal, deacon, priest, or nuns. Fr. Eric Johnson said, “This means that part of our task as Christians is to open our heats to hear God’s call in our lives. We need to humbly ask the Lord what you calling me to do?” Fr. Eric Johnson also said, “God calls each of us by name and makes us his own, but while this call is deeply personal, issued to us in the silence of our hearts.”

I also believe that people should believe that sooner or later God will send them their call. God never forgets someone’s call. Everyone has a call in life. Some people don’t try to hear their call in life. But our religious brothers and sisters, priest and deacons help us hear our call. That is how they help us.

Deven L.
Grade 7

Fr. Matthias Neuman's Homily for the 16th Sunday in Ordinary Time

The images of shepherd and shepherding dominate the readings this Sunday. Indeed, the image of the Good Shepherd is one of the most pervasive in all Christian literature and art. Probably the oldest Christian image of Jesus Christ is as a young Roman shepherd carrying a lamb on his shoulders. It’s found in the catacombs of Priscilla in Rome. (A postcard of it is in the lobby.) Unfortunately most of us have no immediate experience of shepherds or shepherding, so it’s hard to "flesh out" all that is included in the image.

For myself I like to think of someone who is a devoted caregiver for the young, the sick or the elderly. In particular, I have in mind several sets of parents that I knew in St. Ann’s parish in Nashville, TN. Each of these sets of parents had one or more severely handicapped children in their family. To see the way that they cared for them and nurtured them has always been for me the best image of the "good shepherd." There are lots of aspects to the quality of their "shepherding" of these children. They had to have a real sense of the child’s limits, of what the child simply could not do. Yet they still loved the child as all the other children in their family. They also had the conviction and the patience to nurture the child to improve and move forward, fully knowing that the child would never come up to the achievements of their other children. They had to have patience, patience and more patience. All that is part of the image of the "Good Shepherd" and how Jesus deals with us.

As beautiful as that may be, it’s important for us to remember that these qualities of the Good Shepherd are supposed to be the model for all Christian ministry. The bishop’s staff (his shepherd’s crook) reminds us of that. Benedict’s Rule certainly rephrases it correctly in all the directives he gives about the qualities that the Abbot should possess. But again it’s not just the abbot, but those attitudes should pervade all the members of the community as they serve each other. And again it’s not just the bishop, but all the ministries of the diocese should follow the model of the Good Shepherd.

I think we need to face the facts that this style of ministering is severely challenged in our time. Many commentators on modern society have noted how dominated our modern Western society is by the dynamics of the open market economy. The style of free market economics is beginning to pervade all aspects of life. The goals of the free market are production and more production each year. It takes no account of the needs and limitations of individuals. If you don’t produce, then you are replaced. Many people have noted how much the language of free market economics has invaded the fields of medicine and education. Everything becomes a commodity—to be produced, then bought and sold. Even the realm of religion is influenced by this. What often drives the mentality of dioceses and parishes is the challenge of producing more than last year. All you have to do is look at how much the diocesan assessment for parishes is expected to grow each year. It’s the exact opposite of the dynamics of the Good Shepherd.

For each of us, in whatever area of ministry we are in, or in the quality of our relationships in community to each other, this Sunday’s readings are a call to examine how we model the qualities of the Good Shepherd in our actions, how we reflect the qualities of those parents of handicapped children, how we show patience and, above all, how we try to respect the limitations of those people we serve.

A Commentary for the 16th Sunday in Ordinary Time by Sr. Kathleen Yeadon, OSB

The theme on the altar cloth for our Christ Renews His Parish at St. Joan of Arc was: Come apart and rest awhile. Since, these weekends were in the middle of my college days, I thought we were to literally “come a part” at the seams. If you ever have been on one, it made sense as people told their life stories. How important it is to have time, space and friends with whom you can come apart.

This short passage gives us all the aspects of being people of the Gospel. We are excited to tell all that has been happening in our ministry. We need renewal and yes, there is always more people waiting to have needs fulfilled.

All week long, I have pondered what it means to have compassion for the crowds. Mostly, I was frustrated that the disciples never reached their deserted place to have quiet time. So I wondered what compassion they felt. This Gospel also gave me the chance to think about what groups/people I show compassion to. I feel like compassion is very different from pity.
Anyways, no surprise that teenagers are the group that elicits my compassion. I also feel that compassion is similar to grace. It is a mystery why we are drawn to one group over another.
I hope you take time to see what type of people you show compassion to and reflect on areas of your life in which you received compassion.

In the mean time: may you come apart and rest awhile.