Greetings friends!  We have a two-week old aspirant!  Her name is Nora and she is from New York.  I thought you would enjoy reading the following account of her journey to the monastery. Nora arrived safe and sound after a rather harrowing trip with her family (mom, dad and 4 of her 5 brothers).  Only 5 minutes away from their house her Mom saw something fly out of the carrier on the top of their van.  The boys went running down the highway to retrieve it to find that the suitcase had exploded but surprisingly only a few of the articles inside had come out.  The contents of the bag that her toiletries were in also exploded so she had toothpaste and hand cream and everything all mixed together.  Needless to say, they had to return home and clean things up, make another trip to Wal-Mart to buy supplies and this time tie the carrier closed.  We washed her bathrobe here Monday.

Traveling through Ohio they met a lot of bad weather, often creeping along at 25 miles an hour, observing all the vehicles abandoned along the sides and ditches of the highway.  They started looking for a Motel at 8pm and did not find one until 1:30 in the morning, everything was full because of the winter storm.  Thanks be to God they had given themselves plenty of time so they were able to sleep in the next morning.  We enjoyed visiting with them.  The trip here took them over 16 hours, their trip home took a little more than 11 hours and was without incident.  Although Nora isn't a "runaway prophet" as she is seeking to do God's will with all her heart, she laughingly said they threw Jonah, herself, over board and all their troubles ceased.

Our Novitiate is named after our Passionist St. Gabriel of our Lady of Sorrows. We just celebrated his feast day February 27. Here Nora is holding her St. Gabriel candle. Currently our novitiate consists of the novice directress, Postulant Elizabeth and Aspirant Nora. Please keep them in prayer and all the other women whom God is calling to join them!