In my Christmas post I shared with you about our early Christmas present - the monastery entrance of Ruth! Here are a few photos, and also Mother's exhortation given during II Vespers of the Immaculate Conception, December 8, the day Ruth entered the monastery.

Our Lady – Holy and Immaculate Guide – Companion on the Journey, pray for us. It is the Advent Season and we ponder our Lady, the Immaculate One, who left her family, and all she knew and cherished, to follow Joseph for the census in Bethlehem, the City of David.

Ruth, you too have left all that is familiar…your rocks and mountains for the Mystic Rock, your ocean deeps for the Living Water, your martial arts for the Mighty Warrior.

Our Lady has called you to join her in the wilderness journey with Joseph to Joseph’s Monastery. Our Lady will not lead you astray. Ruth, we your Sisters say to you today, do whatever she tells you. Follow her as Ruth followed Naomi to Bethlehem.

Dearest Ruth, your journey to Kentucky was along one, oh yes…it was a long night on 3 different planes, with hours sitting in airports seeking…watching…mourning…texting…waiting…rejoicing…thanking…But this journey, an inner journey with the Passionists, began over 5 years ago on July 26, 2011 when you first contacted us.

Since that time the Lord has brought you to a deeper level of intimacy so you could hear His will and a higher degree of trust and self-sacrifice so you would have the courage to follow it; but the journey is not over. Now you begin a new journey…a journey of following Mary Immaculate in Passionist life.

Ruth, we your sisters, have prayed for you and we rejoice with you and, as your sisters, we pray you stay near our Lady as Ruth clung to Naomi and followed her to a strange land and a new God. You have come to a strange land where it is normal to rise at 4:30 a.m.  :) You have come to anew God who gives back everything you sacrifice for him.

With you, we pray to Our Lady of Advent, our guide on the Journey, the words Ruth said to Naomi… “Wherever you go I will go, wherever you lodge I will lodge, your people shall be my people, and your God shall be my God.”

In Chapter 2 of the Book of Ruth, Boaz said to Ruth, “You have left your father and your mother and the land of your birth and have come to a people whom you did not know. May the Lord reward what you have done! May you receive a full reward from the Lord, the God of Israel, under whose wings you have come for refuge.” Ruth…we can attest to you…you will receive a full reward from the Lord, you will receive back your mother, your father and the land of your birth - 1000-fold! And as Ruth became the grandmother of King David, so may you become the Spiritual Mother of a multitude of royal children of God.

Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel! For today, after five years, on the solemnity of the Immaculate Conception, Ruth Thompson officially enters St. Joseph’s Monastery. Let us repeat these words – Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel!

Ruth, your postulant crucifix has lain here before the Tabernacle of the Lord throughout this holy day. Please come forward now to receive it and then to be greeted by each of your sisters…and Welcome, to St. Joseph’s Monastery.