The Unexpected Mercy of God

Mar 7th, 2010 by Sister Therese Ann Rich

My father was a very patient man.  One year he took a peach stone and planted it in a small pot.  The first year yielded nothing. The second year – a small stick that really looked dead.  He then transplanted that “dead stick” into his garden. He fertilized it, watered it, cared for that “dead stick”. We asked him why spend the energy. Each time, my father said, “Give it another year.” Today, 10 years later, that “dead stick” gives us great peaches.

As my father was patient with that “dead stick”, how much more is God patient with us?  Our Gospel today gives us the parable of the fig tree. In this parable, Jesus reveals the patience of God with us, despite our slowness to repent, despite our slowness of letting go of our narrowness of life. How merciful God is. This is God’s mercy – to take what is almost dead and coax it to new life!

Our Lenten journey, our work of repentance is to turn sinfulness toward God’s transforming mercy.

Jesus offers us a challenge – “bear fruit” or “be cut down”.  Our encouragement – God is ever patient, God is ever merciful. God does not gives up on us.

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Glory Through Self-Offering

Feb 28th, 2010 by Sister Therese Ann Rich

Most of us live too hectic lives – working, cleaning, preparing meals, answering emails and a hundred other things. I have often mused, “Oh to be bored just one day!”  Life is hectic!  When I might finally sit down in the evening I often doze off while reading or watching TV.  I might wake up when those commercials come on only to find I have missed half the program I was watching!

In our Gospel today, Peter, James and John must have really been tired climbing that mountain! For they fell asleep! Then they awakened they saw Jesus transfigured. How startling that must have been!

Luke’s account of the Transfiguration includes the necessity of the passion on the journey to glory. The point of our Gospel – glory presupposes embracing self-offering. Glory comes only through embracing the passion – dying to self for the good of others.

We have to come down from the mountain and walk our journey through death to glory. And let us remember God walks with us to glory.

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Happy 15th Anniversary of the Cafe

Feb 25th, 2010 by Sister Kathleen Minchin

The Ursuline Sisters Ministry to people with HIV/AIDS began in 1993 with a monthly support group.  The following year we started to distribute pantry bags on the 3rd Saturday of the month, and in 1995 we decided we needed to bring people together for a longer period of time to have an opportunity to talk and share and visit in a safe environment.  At that same time, one of our volunteers suggested that we feed people since not many of them were cooking on a regular basis.  That was the impetus for launching the monthly Café which soon became a monthly community.

In February of 1995 we held our first Café where the volunteers served dinner to our 25 guests!  In November of 1995 we provided each of our Café guests with a complete Thanksgiving dinner, and have done holiday basket food distribution for Thanksgiving, Christmas and Easter from then on.  The Café has served 180 meals since 1995; we have never missed a month and the number of guests continues to grow.  We now provide bags to an average of 65 households, and a sit-down meal to 130 men, women and children.  In the last fifteen years we have been blessed with wonderful volunteers who work hard to provide the food, cook it and get the auditorium and the bags ready, as well as many groups, churches and individuals who have gifted us with food and a variety of donations that we distribute each month.

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Sister Darla Jean Vogelsang

Feb 22nd, 2010 by Sister Therese Ann Rich

In a recent Community gathering, we became acquainted with the usefulness of our Community WEB page and the tab “Becoming a Nun” in introducing today’s questioning young women to our Ursuline way of life.

I began to reflect – what made me pursue becoming a nun fifty years ago?   Was it the inspiring HM and OSU women religious of my formative elementary and high school years back in the fifties?   Was it my love for

Sister Darla Jean Vogelsang

children and a desire to be a teacher that drew me to the Youngstown Ursulines?   Was it my appreciation for the Church’s liturgy, especially Eucharist, sparked in seventh grade religion class?   Was it an inner urge to prepare for an adult life that had purpose and meaning?  Was it God’s providence – God’s call?  Whatever the inspiration, I began the process of becoming a nun right after high school graduation with a sense that this is what God wanted me to do.   In the beginning of my “becoming”, I was totally unaware of what “being a nun” meant – but I was ready and willing to enter the process and soon learned it meant a life time of prayer, growth, formation, discipline, sacrifice, and a new way of being in relationship with God, with my family, my Community, the Church and the world at large.  My life as an Ursuline Sister has been formative, enriching, rewarding and I am still “becoming a nun”.

In my reading, I grab hold of quotes that inspire me and use them for spiritual snacks.   A recent quote I have been chewing on applies well to the process of becoming a nun.  It is from the memoir of Margaret Brennan, an IHM sister from Monroe Michigan:  “What Was There For Me Once”.  Margaret, a 70-something nun,  states that religious life is primarily a call to reclaim a way of life organized to pursue the human quest for God.    “To keep the question of God – and God’s questions – high on the horizon of the world is worth the gifts of our lives.” My quest for a deeper and more sustaining relationship with God, a way of living my life in response to God’s questions and call to make life better for others – is worth the gift of my life.   And so, in my becoming, I keep on giving and in the process get back so much more.

To women curious about “becoming a nun”, allow your curiosity to take you to that deep level of questioning your relationship with God and how you answer the God-questions that come to you in your journey of becoming who God intends you to be.  If you are drawn to a particular religious community, assess the members and their ministry and ask:    “Is this group a good fit for me?  Are they still becoming?  And can I be a part of the gift of their lives ?”

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To Be Tempted

Feb 21st, 2010 by Sister Therese Ann Rich

It is said that certain items are “rust-proof.”  Other things are billed as either “dust-proof” or “spill-proof” or “bullet-proof” or “child-proof” or “scratch-proof.” But here’s something which no human being ever has been or ever will be: “temptation-proof.”

Temptations are luring. They present us with a seeming good we do not presently have but want. Without a lure, temptations do not exist. Temptations always lure us to a false good.

In our Gospel today, Jesus is faced with three perceived goods. And each temptation put to Jesus involved some misguided personal gain – power, prestige and possessions. By resisting the temptations, Jesus shows us that our true gain is not in satisfying ourselves but in something better – utter fidelity to God.

Temptations are not an indication of sin, rather, they are occasions for us to show that our lives are turned to God. In resisting temptations, we are choosing who we want to be – those who faithfully serve God by doing good for others.

Lent is a focused time to grow in holiness and transformation; it is a time to take the test of who we want to be.  We don’t have to go out to the desert to find temptation. But we do need God’s nearness to resist it. And that God has promised us.

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