Like the rest of the northeast and mid Atlantic areas, New York City and its Brooklyn borough has been submerged to some extent under snow.
And so has Visitation Monastery in Bay Ridge!
Our prayer lives go on within the enclosure as usual, except that a Communion Service had to be held in place of Holy Mass as the priest was unable to travel to the Monastery.
Perhaps this afternoon we will have recreational sledding!
The Feast of St. Francis de Sales is approaching..on Saturday January 24th and our Church has also begun to celebrate the Year of Consecrated Life.
As a preparation for St. Francis de Sales’ Feast, we thought it might be good to consider his perspectives on religious and consecrated life.
This short series will focus on such topics he wrote about, such as:
Abraham as the Model of Religious
Aim in entering religious life
Common life
Community spirit
Consolations in religious life
Courage to persevere in religious life
Self-denial, desire for virtue
Esteem for Vocation
Life of union with God
May these topics deepen your contemplation of and prayer for religious life and those consecrated to living for the Lord completely.
Today with start with ABRAHAM:
Consider, I beg of you, that great pattern and model of perfect religious St. Abraham; see how God treats him, “Go forth out of thy country and from thy kindred, and out of thy father’s house, and come into the land which I shall show thee.” What sayest Thou, O Lord, that I am to go out of the town? But tell me then whether I should go to the East or to the West? He makes no reply: he sets out quickly and goes where the Spirit of God leads him, to a mountain which has since been called “The Vision of God:” inasmuch as he received great and signal graces on that mountain, to show how agreeable to God is promptitude in obedience.
Source: Spiritual Conferences, Chapter 3
Our beloved Sister Mary Vincent Morgan went home to God early in the morning of Jan 7.
Viewing/wake will be held Friday Jan 9th. Funeral Mass will be Sat Jan 10 at 9:45AM in the Monastery’s Sacred Heart Chapel.
The Visitation Sisters in Bay Ridge wish all our neighbors and all web viewers a very Blessed New Year in Our Lord.
St. Jane de Chantal has said, ”
We are at the end of another year. Soon, this present year will take its place among so many others that have come before it.
Time passes, the years come and go, and we come and go with them. Nevertheless, we must make a strong and absolute resolution that, if our Lord wills that we might enjoy this coming year, we will make a better use of this New Year than the many that have preceded it.
Let us walk with a new and lively spring in our step in the service of God and one another. Let us renew our efforts to grow in our perfection. Let us take great courage to earnestly labor and master ourselves, and to purify ourselves of those things which prevent us from being more of who God calls us to be.
It is easy to begin a New Year: it is not so easy to see it to completion. It is not so easy to put our hands to the work that God expects of us during every day of this approaching year. To begin the year without planning to tend to our labors is to run the risk of allowing yet another year to slip away without any profit to our soul. Don’t let this happen to you; rather, consider how well you are making use of each and every present moment that God gives you.
We are growing older and drawing nearer to death every day. Our days, months and years flow on, ultimately coming to an end. How should we respond to this reality? By doing all that is good and by hoping in the Lord! Let us embrace our state and stage of life as fully as we can. Let us employ the time that God gives us with great care. While we ultimately must depend and rely upon God’s mercy, let us at the same time remember to do as much good as we can in the time that God gives us now.
So, let us begin another New Year in the name of our Lord. Let us resolve to do the best we can with what ever little we possess. While God wants only what we can do, God clearly expects us to do what we can. Therefore, let us be careful to give what – in justice – is due to God and to one another. Let us do what is good, and place our hope and confidence in God’s infinite compassion.
(Based upon an exhortation by St. Jane de Chantal given on the last Saturday of December, 1629. See the original and entire text in St. Jane Frances Fremyot de Chantal: Her Exhortations, Conferences and Instructions. Westminster, MD: Newman Bookshop, 1947, page 106.)
You are welcome to join us for our Christmas Liturgies:
Christmas Eve- 730PM Mass in our Sacred Heart Chapel
Christmas Day- 9:00AM Mass in our Sacred Heart Chapel
Celebrant: Father Frank Jones, CssR
The Year of Consecrated Life has begun!
We welcome you to join the Sisters to pray for vocations every Sunday between 4-5:30PM in the Sacred Heart Chapel.
Prayer will include Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, the Glorious Mysteries of the Rosary and Evening Prayer.
Join us in “Waking Up the World” to Jesus’ Real Presence, Prayer and the call to Religious Life!
On Friday, November 21st, the glorious Feast of the Presentation of Our Lady, Visitandines around the world will renew their holy vows of poverty, chastity and obedience. In Brooklyn, we will renew our vows during the 7:15AM Mass.
As the Oblate Father Alexander Pocetto OSFS put it, “By renewing our vows, we become more aware of how essential it is, with the help of Jesus, to cleanse the temples or our bodies so as to give fitting worship and praise to God. It is a strong reminder that commitment and fidelity are values that are meant to last..”
“Francis de Sales insists that perfection consists in struggling against our imperfections. As long as we are willing to continue fighting, then we will be victorious; we will be winners. In his sermon on the Presentation of our Lady, he gives a word of encouragement to those early Visitandines and to us on this occasion. “For this custom of renewing our vows,” he says, “can repair any faults we may have committed when we first made them” (Sermons on Our Lady, p. 43).
Read Father Pocetto’s article ” T0 Make Beautiful Music Together” and grow in your appreciation of this blessed tradition.
http://web1.desales.edu/assets/salesian/PDF/ATP-VowObedience.pdf
See if you can find our Sister!
Poster-Year-of-Consecrated-Life_flyer
Video: http://dioceseofbrooklyn.org/vocations/yocl-videos
Brooklyn Visitation Monastery’s Sister Anne Marie Young, VHM, was interviewed and included in Patrick McNamara’s book on New York Catholics, pages 178-180.
In the section of the book called “Contemporary Voices” Sister Anne Marie, who has been in the Monastery the longest among the current membership, for 67 years, shares about the life, location, ministry and call to vocation in this oasis of prayer.
She said, ” A monastery is like a light in the darkness… It’s a joyful place”.
Sister Anne Marie also advised to those considering a vocation here, ” You have to love prayer. If you don’t love prayer, you won’t stay here very long. You have to love God very much and be sure it’s what you want.”
This book which contains bios of 72 New York Catholics, deceased and living, can be obtained from Orbis Books. Read an excerpt about Sr. Anne Marie here: https://books.google.com/books?id=uLodBAAAQBAJ&pg=PT219&dq=brooklyn+visitation+monastery&hl=en&sa=X&ei=vfTgVN_yNtWAsQShmYCQAg&ved=0CDAQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=brooklyn%20visitation%20monastery&f=false
On the glorious Feast of All Saints, our community welcomed a new postulant with these words:
Live + Jesus
Welcome Kim to the Postulancy
St. Francis de Sales said in one of his letters, “ Conduct and hold your spirit fast to the glorious paths of the heavenly Jerusalem, where from every side you hear the praises of God resounding.
Look at the variety of saints and find out how they arrived in heaven. You will learn that the apostles got there especially through love, the martyrs through their constancy, the doctors through meditation, the confessors through mortification, the virgins through purity of heart, but all of them through humility.”
As you begin your postulancy with all of us in the Brooklyn Visitation Monastery, Kim, you will recognize that as St Francis also said, “ the opportunity to do great things does not come very often, but at every moment we can do little acts with great love.”
You will receive grace to bear patiently the small trials of everyday life, those inconveniences that give us the chance to show God that we really love Him.
A prayer for this great Solemnity of All Saints says in part, “We celebrate the festival of this city, the heavenly Jerusalem…towards her we eagerly hasten as pilgrims advancing by faith..”
As “pilgrims advancing by faith” we look to the saints today to guide you, especially our Founders-Saints Francis de Sales, St. Jane de Chantal and St. Margaret Mary.
It is providential that members of our community first met you when we were literally pilgrims, with you, on a pilgrimage to Annecy in France, our Holy Source, where our Saintly Founders are laid to rest. That pilgrimage anticipated this current one.
Now you continue your religious pilgrimage here in Brooklyn, leaving behind your native region of the USA to come to be within an oasis of prayer in this large city.
As you begin your postulancy, may the Sacred Heart of Jesus enfold you, as all of our hearts intercede for your vocational fidelity and growth. Know that you have the support of your Novice Directress, Sr Mary Pauline, each of your novitiate companions, all the Professed Sisters and myself.
May your heart be blessed and may you rejoice with the Saints today, as they accompany you in new beginnings.
May God be praised!
