M
Moonflower
Guest
Dear All,
I feel like I am called to become a sister a Benedictine sister of Mary Queen of the Apostles. It was with this vision and with these words that Sr. Therese McNamara and Sr. Wilhelmina Lancaster joined forces to begin our community in 1995. We were named the “Oblates of Mary, Queen of Apostles,” because they believed we needed to prove ourselves first before being so bold as to call ourselves Benedictine. The purpose of the name ‘Oblates’ was two-fold: first, to indicate that we offered ourselves to the Benedictine family (Oblatae is Latin for offered) and also because we had consecrated ourselves to Our Lady, and offered ourselves to her service.
Having been founded under the wing of the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter, in the Diocese of Scranton, Pennsylvania, we began collecting dossiers of women from all over the country who were interested in a new traditional community. The first postulants were admitted in 1996. The little band began living out our call, eventually settling in Starrucca in the farmlands up north, close to the New York border. Her it was easier to answer our call to follow a monastic horarium as laid out by St. Benedict in his Rule, chant the Divine Office according to the 1962 Breviarium Monasticum, and observe the ancient monastic practice of fasting.
By 2003, the community numbered eight, but quickly saw a rise in vocations. Young women shared the vision of the Priory of Our Lady of Ephesus, and came to join the little band. In March 2006, with the blessing of our former bishop, the Oblates of Mary accepted the invitation of the Most Rev. Robert W. Finn, D.D. to transfer to his diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph in Missouri. He had been praying for nuns to come to pray and sacrifice for his priests. Our new bishop offered firm support and protection of our charism and traditional liturgy, and has approved and encouraged our canonical advancement by erecting the Priory of Our Lady of Ephesus as an official novitiate in keeping with Church’s canons.
I feel like I am called to become a sister a Benedictine sister of Mary Queen of the Apostles. It was with this vision and with these words that Sr. Therese McNamara and Sr. Wilhelmina Lancaster joined forces to begin our community in 1995. We were named the “Oblates of Mary, Queen of Apostles,” because they believed we needed to prove ourselves first before being so bold as to call ourselves Benedictine. The purpose of the name ‘Oblates’ was two-fold: first, to indicate that we offered ourselves to the Benedictine family (Oblatae is Latin for offered) and also because we had consecrated ourselves to Our Lady, and offered ourselves to her service.
Having been founded under the wing of the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter, in the Diocese of Scranton, Pennsylvania, we began collecting dossiers of women from all over the country who were interested in a new traditional community. The first postulants were admitted in 1996. The little band began living out our call, eventually settling in Starrucca in the farmlands up north, close to the New York border. Her it was easier to answer our call to follow a monastic horarium as laid out by St. Benedict in his Rule, chant the Divine Office according to the 1962 Breviarium Monasticum, and observe the ancient monastic practice of fasting.
By 2003, the community numbered eight, but quickly saw a rise in vocations. Young women shared the vision of the Priory of Our Lady of Ephesus, and came to join the little band. In March 2006, with the blessing of our former bishop, the Oblates of Mary accepted the invitation of the Most Rev. Robert W. Finn, D.D. to transfer to his diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph in Missouri. He had been praying for nuns to come to pray and sacrifice for his priests. Our new bishop offered firm support and protection of our charism and traditional liturgy, and has approved and encouraged our canonical advancement by erecting the Priory of Our Lady of Ephesus as an official novitiate in keeping with Church’s canons.