V+J
This Lenten week of March brings us TWO jubilees of our Sisters to celebrate!
Sister Mary Antonia has been Professed 57 years
and Sister Mary Cecilia has been professed 10 years.
May the Lord, the Spouse of their hearts and souls, enfold them in the warmth of His Sacred Heart.
Refresh your soul before the Lord in the Blessed Sacrament, adore Him in the Monstrance, praise the Father in the Divine Office, petition Our Lady during the Rosary.
Make the Stations of the Cross in choir, Chapel or outdoors in the cloistered gardens.
Join the Sisters for meals and prayer.
Whether you are a married woman, single, a college student, working mom or Senior Citizen, you are welcome to a monastic Lenten retreat at the Brooklyn Visitation Monastery.
View our Retreat Video here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bOxKkvoCWVI
Call 718 745 5151 to make a reservation. For First-time retreatants, a letter of reference is required for an overnight stay.
The Vocation Discernment Program is active and vibrant in our Monastery!
Just completing a 6 day visit was a young woman from Scotland. Upcoming retreats include two women from Queens, NY and a hopeful entrant next October from Kentucky.
Some inquirers from Connecticut and Florida have begun a more remote discernment journey with us.Our Brooklyn Monastery seems to be attracting women from many geographical areas.
Most central to our life is our devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. His blazing Love captures hearts!
The Joy of the Visitation Overflows in Our Lives
March 8 -14th is the newly designated National Catholic Sisters Week!
The purpose of this week is to increase awareness for religious Sisters:
“National Catholic Sisters Week is launching the second week of March as part of National Women’s History Month. It is intended to shine a national spotlight on the good works and good will of Catholic sisters. It recognizes past and present sisters, from the movers and shakers pressing the front lines of social change to the faithful praying in cloistered chapels.”
All religious orders find joy in living as brides of Christ, but as Visitation Sisters, joy is especially important to our order! The very story of the Visitation is one where John the Baptist leaps for joy in Elizabeth’s womb. Elizabeth welcomes Mary in joy, and in joy Mary sings her “Magnificat” of praise to God, her savior.
Please read our article, “Sisters Share the JOY of a Visitation Vocation”.
For reflection:
Lent: Fuel Up for the Rest of the Year
Ash Wednesday will soon be here, bringing us into the Lenten season.Traditionally, Catholics have practiced prayer, fasting, penance, and almsgiving during Lent as ways to grow closer to Christ, and better model their lives after him. Will this Lent be a fruitful one for you?
St. Francis de Sales writes,
“Lent is the autumn of the spiritual life during which we gather fruit to keep us going for the rest of the year. Enrich yourselves with these treasures, which nobody can take away from you and which cannot be destroyed. I am accustomed to say that we will not spend Lent well unless we are determined to make the most of it. Let us, therefore, spend this Lent as if it were our last, and we will make it well. Listen to the sermons, because holy words are pearls; they are ships of infinite mercy – the true ocean of the East.”
Indeed, he makes a good point that the four practices will not make us holy if our heart is not involved. In this excerpt from St. Francis’ sermon for Ash Wednesday, the saint reminds us,
“Prepare yourselves to fast with charity, for if your fast is performed without it, it will be vain and useless, since fasting, like all other good works, is not pleasing to God unless it is done in charity and through charity. When you discipline yourself, when you say long prayers, if you have not charity, all that is nothing. Even though you should work miracles, if you have not charity, they will not profit you at all.”
ASHES WILL BE DISTRIBUTED AT VISITATION MONASTERY AT THE 7:30am MASS AND ALSO AT 9AM WITH THE CHILDREN OF VISITATION ACADEMY.
Check out our Free Salesian Courses for Lent!
Sign up for our Chat Room
Living Jesus Chat Room, Sunday 7:30 PM to 8:30 PM Eastern Time U.S.
The Vatican and Pope Francis have designated October 2014-November 2015 at the Year for Consecrated Life.
The three objectives of the Year of Consecrated Life are: gratefully remembering the recent past, HOPE, and living the present passionately.
Our Brooklyn community will be planning to enter into this year in a welcoming spirit, and we will post the events and retreats that will represent our engagement with the Holy Father’s celebration of religious life.
Look for these notices as well as a deeper sharing of our Founders’ vision and charism in the months ahead!
The Feast of the Presentation of Our Lord, February 2, 2014 is also dedicated as the World Day for Consecrated Life.
St. Francis de Sales spoke some of his thoughts about this Feast.
In his sermon on Feb. 2, 1622 this Founder of the Visitation Order of Holy Mary preached that,
“This mystery is admirably represented by the candles which we carry today.
The fire, which is the first and most excellent element in the candle, is a symbol of the Divinity. The other two elements of the candle, the wick and the wax, symbolize the soul and body of Our Lord.
Now the Divine Nature is so united and joined to the human nature and they form such a union and communion that God became man…”
Our Brooklyn Monastery celebrates this day with deep and persistent prayer for those discerning their vocations to religious life.
At our 9AM Sunday Mass on this day, the Sisters, holding lighted candles, will process through the outer Chapel into the cloister as part of the ceremonial for this Feast. Join the Sisters and several women discerning their vocations, for the Eucharistic Liturgy celebrated by a Redemptorist Father!
Wondering what other discerners have asked and how the Sisters answered? Read our free on line book on discernment,here:
Today is the Feast of the Holy Founder of the Order of the Visitation of Holy Mary, St. Francis de Sales. Visitation Sisters around the world are united spiritually in deep gratitude for his life, his teachings, his “Living Jesus” and for our monastic vocations.
St. Francis de Sales was a spiritual guide for laity and religious alike, and is best known for his book The Introduction to the Devout Life which continues to guide followers of Jesus to holiness today.
He was also a Bishop, an eminent preacher, and is a Doctor of the Church.
We celebrate his Feast all throughout this day in our Monastery.
Our Liturgy of the Hours is sung with exquisitely composed chant melodies that raise our hearts and minds to deep appreciation of our saintly Founder and his love for God.
The early morning Mass, also with uniquely composed hymns, is celebrated by our parish priest who always comes prepared with deep reflections on St Francis de Sales and his relevant meaning in our lives.
To enhance our devotion, we place a first class relic of St Francis in the center of the choir to be reverenced by each Sister as she enters.
Also each Sister receives a “legacy” from him; a special quote prepared earlier from his writings that she takes to heart and follows throughout the day and year.
In the afternoon we expose the Blessed Sacrament for adoration and in gratitude thank Jesus for all His gifts to us and the world through St Francis de Sales.
Our lively recreation includes talking at meals rather than the usual silence, with food often provided by benefactors.
Two Sisters in particular celebrate this day; as for one, it is her birthday, and the other her Feast day, so they receive cards and flowers at their place in the refectory.
Our evening recreation is equally as animated as we round out the day in community with joy!
Sunlight streams into the spacious novitiate room at the end of the retreat corridor as the novices gather to await the arrival of the Directress.
When she enters they greet her with “God be praised!” and all sit down in a semi-circle to pray and dedicate this time to the Lord. The spontaneous invocation varies at each session and flows from the heart.
The current novitiate class may be on the Introduction to the Devout Life, the Conferences of St Francis de Sales, the Constitutions of the Order, the Vows, St. Margaret Mary’s life, or Scripture.
Slowly, paragraph by paragraph, we read the work aloud, taking turns in a meditative fashion to absorb the deep meaning, and then pausing to discuss what we have understood, following the inspiration of the moment as the conversation proceeds to envelop our personal experiences and profound sentiments.
With some works, the text is read privately before class, and the class time involves a discussion with prepared questions and/or personal insights.
These classes hopefully bond our novices spiritually and intellectually and give the Directress the opportunity to get to know them better. There is a mutuality of sharing between Directress and novice.
Salesian Spirituality is “caught”, not “taught” and we honor our Founders by our meticulous focus on their works with the hope that their teachings become part of our soul, with the Holy Word of God from the Scriptures that we pray.
