Hello all, I am currently on the mailing list for Daughters of Mary, Mother of Our Hope. I just received an email with past newsletters and an article. All of the following was included in the email.
My dear Friends,
Greetings from the heart of St. Louis, Missouri! I’ve just returned from a most wonderful novitiate year with the Sisters of the Visitation in Tyringham, Massachusetts, and look forward with great anticipation to laying the much longed-for foundation of the new community: Daughters of Mary, Mother of Our Hope.
Our first email mailing . . .
A number of you who have followed the news of the community from its inception have been asking for email updates. To now, we have been able to send printed copies of the newsletters to those for whom we have a street or post office box address. I am happy at last to be able to send the newsletter to you by email and to include pdfs of our first three together with the most recent (Summer 2010) edition.
Please let us know - by clicking “Update Profile” at the end of this email - which, if any, version of the newsletter you would like to receive in the future. We’ll happily send both the mailed and emailed editions if you wish.
Alas, I suspect that a number of you will learn not only of the new community, but also of my having entered religious life, through this first email. How I wish to have been able to contact each of you individually. I would like you to know at least, that the only recipients of this communication are those with whom I have corresponded or who have emailed me during these past several years. Although, as many of you know, I have not always been able to respond, I do read every email I receive and commit to prayer each individual and circumstance, asking our Lord to answer those requests and needs as He alone can do.
From Jewish to Protestant to Catholic to Sister? Oy!!
The first newsletter to the right (Summer 2009) contains a brief summary of my 51-year journey from a Jewish upbringing in Brooklyn, New York, to the Catholic Church, which I have found to be both the glorious fulfillment of God’s promises to His People Israel, and the full measure of Christianity. The three letters which follow contain brief updates on the status of the new community through my novitiate year to the present day as we seek our Lord’s direction for all that lies ahead.
Live-giving words from our patron St. Francis de Sales . . .
There is much I wish to write that is beyond the scope of this email. Were we to swap stories of our lives over these past years, I imagine they would be filled with much joy together with untold sufferings, especially the sufferings that are sure to come in the lives of those who strive to live godly in this present age (2 Timothy 3:12).
I have come to trust utterly our Lord’s providential care for His children, even, or especially, in the most difficult of circumstances. St. Francis de Sales, patron of our community, in a letter to one of his spiritual directees, wrote the now somewhat well-known lines which have come under the title, “Your Cross.” I, together with thousands through the centuries, have found his words a most welcomed comfort in times of trial. Thought I’d pass them along to you for “such a time as this”, perhaps for someone you know whose spirit could use a little boost.
Your Cross
The everlasting God has, in His wisdom, foreseen from eternity the cross that He now presents to you as a gift from His inmost heart. This cross He now sends you He has
considered with His all-knowing eyes,
understood with His divine mind,
tested with His wise justice,
warmed with loving arms and
weighed with His own hands,
to see that it be not one inch too large and not one ounce too heavy for you.
He has blessed it with His holy Name,
anointed it with His consolation,
taken one last glance at you and your courage, and then sent it to you from heaven,
a special greeting from God to you,
an alms of the all-merciful love of God.
How perfect are His ways . . .
From the very beginning of the Church, our Lord has been pleased to build His Kingdom through the generous hearts of His people — reaching out to one another, helping those in need, joining together for the building of new visions, new forms of evangelization, finding new ways to reach out to this world that has so lost its way. We desire to form this new work for His Kingdom to do just that — to reach out through city streets, through parks and thoroughfares, to individuals and families, to the poor and the rich alike, to “flood the streets” with sisters in full habit who will be signposts to God, messengers of hope to those who are longing for a sign of God’s mercy.
We are grateful beyond measure for all who have assisted us from the day we first arrived into St. Louis to now, and we welcome with grateful, open arms every one — individuals and families — who desire to be part of this most thrilling venture through your prayers, gifts, time, talent, resources, and any amount of creative (name removed by moderator)ut you may wish to lend!
Continue…
I got the group note via snail mail.
Thank you for posting this. I didn’t think about it 