Some happy news:
On Saturday, July 22, two novices made their profession as Little Sisters of the Poor at our novitiate in Queens Village, NY. Sr. Mary Gerard (pictured on the bishop’s right), originally from upstate New York, received her first assignment for our home in Palatine, Illinois. Sr. Faustina Clare (pictured on the bishop’s left), from southern Maryland, has been assigned to our home in Philadelphia. Two new novices were received into the Congregation the previous day. Most Rev. James Massa, auxiliary bishop of Brooklyn-Queens, NY was the main celebrant and homilist for the Mass.
From Bishop Massa’s beautiful homily:
The founding of the Little Sisters dates back to the day in 1839 when a single act of mercy was made on behalf of an old blind woman. The world changed that day. A community was formed out of this one small sacrifice. One great act of love, shared within a community attentive to the promptings of the Holy Spirit, began then to attract other young women who sought to care the elderly poor and the sick, to make of themselves what St. Paul calls in our second reading “living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God.” How is this possible? Out of the giving of one’s self in love comes an immense joy that no one can steal. Little Sisters of the Poor are happy women precisely because they live from the living sacrifice of the Eucharist, which puts every believer in touch with the founding event of faith itself: the Cross of Jesus Christ. From this encounter with Christ’s self-offering at Mass, the Sisters are formed in a wisdom that St. Paul describes as “not of this age”—and we can add, or any other. Their minds and hearts are constantly being transformed by the love the Bridegroom has for them and for all of us, the love that is channeled from the saving event of the Cross to each one of us as we partake of the Eucharist. The Sisters live what Pope Francis calls the joy of the gospel in the way they honor one another’s distinct gifts and help build up every convent and nursing home they run. The elderly on whom they pour out God’s mercy, in countless ways, find in them a cheerfulness that heals. …Joy is perhaps the ultimate mystery. So much of the world finds its joy in acquiring and dominating, whereas the Little Sisters of the Poor find their it in giving and serving. Herein lies the wisdom that remains hidden to the wise and learned, but is revealed to the friends of Jesus.
Read it all. And congratulations to these new Little Sisters!
And today we celebrate...