Learning about Passionist Life
Meet our new friends...
Special thanks to Fr. Chris Forler, priest of the Diocese of Evansville, Indiana, and Marianne Webster, principal of Holy Redeemer Grade School, for bringing these young women for an overnight visit to our monastery to learn about Passionist life. Would that more priests and laity would organize such ventures! It was a special grace for us to meet these young ladies who are each longing to know God's will for their lives.
We challenged these young gals to enter into silence and solitude so as to hear the Lord speaking in their hearts, calling them to a deeper relationship with Himself and possibly gifting them with a religious vocation. We also shared with them about the essentials of Passionist life, our own vocation stories and also gave them an opportunity to meet the nuns in the parlor.
They took their meals in silence while listening to talks about Passionist life
We teasingly told them we had 3 Hoosiers in our monastery and there is definitely room for more...and that we would also welcome a precious Tennessean any day as well. May God continue to gift Fr. Chris and Marianne with zeal for teens and young adults to know and follow their vocations and may He strengthen them in fidelity to their personal vocations. God bless you and come again!
Speaking of Fr. Chris, as you know we are in the Year of the Priestand St. John Mary Vianney's Feast Day is just around the corner - August 4th. Let's continue to remember our priests in prayer...perhaps even offering a Triduum of prayers for them through the intercession of St. John Vianney.
The plenary indulgence available for the faithful can be obtained on the opening and closing days of the Year of the Priest, on August 4th - the 150th anniversary of the death of St. Jean-Marie Vianney, on the first Thursday of the month throughout the jubilee year, or on other days as established by the ordinaries of particular places. The faithful on these days must attend Mass in an oratory or church and offer prayers to "Jesus Christ, supreme and eternal priest, for the priests of the Church, or perform any good work to sanctify and mold them to his heart." They must also have gone to confession and prayed for the intentions of the Pope, as is always the case with obtaining indulgences.
Dear Saint John Vianney, your childhood dream was to be a Priest, to win souls for God. You endured years of toil and humiliation to attain the Priesthood. You became a priest truly after God's own heart, outstanding in humility and poverty; prayer and mortification, totally devoted to the service of God's people.
The Church has exalted you as model and patron saint of all Parish priests, trusting that your example and prayers will help them to live up to the high dignity of their vocation to be faithful servants of God's people, to be perfect imitators of Christ the Saviour, Who came not to be served but to serve, to give His Life in ransom for many.
Pray that God may give to His Church today many more priests after His own Heart. Pray for all the priests under your patronage, that they may be worthy representatives of Christ the Good Shepherd.
May they wholeheartedly devote themselves to prayer and penance; be examples of humility and poverty; shining models of holiness; tireless and powerful preachers of the Word of God; zealous dispensers of God's Grace in the Sacraments. May their loving devotion to Jesus in the Eucharist and to Mary His Mother be the Twin Fountains of fruitfulness for their ministry.
Amen.