Got nuns? Anchorage needs some!

This was irresistable. H/T to Joseph K at Defend us in Battle blog, who picked up the text off the Facebook page of a priest in Alaska.

Does anybody know any monastic community that might be interested in coming to Anchorage? Our very dear Sisters of the Perpetual Adoration are all in their late 80s and desperately want to be replaced, but their own congregation down in Mexico doesn't have vocations any more. All up here agree it's absolutely crucial for our archdiocese to maintain this place of prayer, the only contemplative community in Alaska, yet no one has any ideas where to find actual nuns... The building with a beautiful public chapel surrounded by a splendid cloistered garden is waiting. Please pray that we may find a way to keep it alive...

Joe, who lives in Alaska, is originally from Michigan. He follows up his post with this:

If you know of an order that could fill this void... please contact me and I will get you in touch with the appropriate people, or just contact the Archdiocese of Anchorage.


If nothing else, PRAY.

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Note: The recommended links below are automatically generated by the tool, so they are not necessarily related content.

Dominican Sisters - Mary, Mother of the Eucharist on Oprah

If you didn't get to see it, there is a clip on the Oprah website featuring the Mary, Mother of the Eucharist Dominicans in nearby Ann Arbor.  Here is the story.

I see the something was uploaded to YouTube more than once, and apears to have been taken down.  If anyone sees other links to the segments, drop a note in the combox. 

And, here is a set of slideshows of the taping from the website of the Dominican Sisters of Mary, Mother of the Eucharist website.

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CDF launches investigation of the LCWR

The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) will conduct a doctrinal assessment on the activities and initiatives of the Leadership Conference for Women Religious (LCWR). In a letter to the LCWR, the CDF prefect, Cardinal William Levada - formerly of San Francisco - noted an assessment was needed specifically in these areas:

• Ordinatio Sacerdotalis (1994) - Pope John Paul II's Apostolic Letter in which he reaffirms that the priesthood is reserved to males only.
• Dominus Iesus (2000) - Declaration on the unicity and salvific universality of Jesus Christ and the Church
• The Church's teaching on homosexuality

Cardinal Levada came to his decision while in communication with Cardinal Franc Rode, prefect of the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life

Bishop Leonard P. Blair of Toledo, Ohio - a native metro-Detroiter, and a member of the USCCB's Committee on Doctrine, will conduct the assessment. (N.B.: Our own Abp Allen Vigneron is also a member of the Committee on Doctrine)

For those who may not be familiar with the subject, there are two councils that I am aware of for women religious in the US (at least two with significant numbers). One is the Leadership Conference for Women Religious, which is the larger of the two (and shrinking rapidly with a high average age). The other is the Council of Major Superiors of Women Religious which has fewer communities, but is seeing a steady increase and, in some of them, explosive growth. The LCWR has been around since 1956. The CMSWR is a canonically approved organization founded in 1992 whose members are committed to orthodoxy and follow a more traditional form of religious life (some moreso than others). One only needs to click around the two sites to see the difference (I almost missed it, but to see the site menu at CMSWR you need to put your cursor over the blue, vertical bar on the left that moves up and down as you scroll).

A younger generation is rejecting communities that have lost their way when it comes to Catholicism. This is evident by contrasting the average age, and the number of new candidates. New age practices have permeated some of them and they have abandoned the basics. Thankfully, the CDF has turned it's attention to this conference for the good of the Church.

For those of us who have followed their "activities and initiatives" online, this doctrinal assessment of the LCWR is long over due. On this point, I'm going recommend you read an entry by Jack Smith of the Catholic Key - the blog of Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph: Why the LCWR is being investigated.

Further reading:

• Second Women's Visitation (Tom McFeely, NC Register)
• Amy Welborn blogs the LCWR investigation (Beliefnet)
• Great news: Vatican to investigate America's bossy feminist nuns (Damian Thompson, UK Telegraph)
• Vatican will also have a doctrinal investigation of women’s religious communities (Fr Z) - note the combox is up to 60 comments as of this posting.....more reading material.

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Apostolic Visitation of Women's Religoius Communities

Long over due....

And, it ought to be interesting. There are many faithful sisters who have given up their lives to serve the Lord in various ways. What is interesting is the sudden explosion of vocations in traditional religious orders where there is a focus on the fundamentals: Building virtue and holiness through the grace of Marian and Eucharistic devotion. Some would say that time spent in prayer is time lost working with the needy. Consider that Mother Teresa spent 4 hours daily in prayer, and probably only as much time sleeping. The rest was all work. And, the graces that followed in her work, were the fruits of that prayer.

Unfortunately, many religious orders in the US have moved away from that Marian and Eucharistic focus, with some even slipping into new age spirituality. It is also interesting to note that if one were to compare vocation statistics of these kinds of orders, to those which are more traditional, there is a real contrast. Those with a new age focus will reveal an older, average age with few new vocations. Those with a traditional focus don't have enough beds to handle all the young women who want to come on discernment weekends, and there are constant expansions being made on chapels, dorms and convents. In some cases, a handful of nuns must leave their communities to start a new branch in some distant location, such as that case with sisters from Mother Angelica's order in Alabama, who went to Phoenix.

Vatican begins visits to strengthen women religious in U.S.

Washington DC, Jan 30, 2009 / 01:25 pm (CNA).- The Vatican announced today that it is initiating the first-ever visitation of women’s religious communities in the United States. The visitations are being undertaken to help strengthen religious communities in the U.S., which are suffering from a sharp drop in vocations and gentrification of their ranks.

On the heels of issuing a report on the health of U.S. seminaries—which were found to be in relatively good condition—the Vatican’s Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life, headed by Cardinal Franc Rodé, is embarking on a comprehensive study of the more than 400 congregations present in the United States. The visitations will only assess those religious who engage in apostolic or active work, and will not involve contemplative communities.

The visitation process is being spearheaded by Connecticut native Mother Mary Clare Millea, A.S.C.J., who was appointed by Cardinal Rodé. Mother Clare is the superior general of the Apostles of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, a group of sisters that is based in Rome but has 135 sisters in the U.S.

According to a December 22, 2008 Vatican decree authorizing the visitations, the study is being undertaken “to look into the quality of the life” of the members of U.S. religious institutes.

Mother Clare estimates that the project will take about two years to finish, and says that upon completion she will submit a confidential report to Cardinal Rodé. There are no plans to publish the findings.

Sr. Eva-Maria Ackerman, a member of the Sisters of St. Francis of the Martyr St. George, explained how the several-stage process will work at a press conference in Washington D.C. on Friday.

Continue reading at Catholic News Agency: Vatican to Begin Visitation of Women's Religious Communities in US

Also visit: AposotlicVisitation.org

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Reform of the Reform: Cistercian Monks Turn Liturgical East

H/T to Fr. Z

I have featured several stories of parishes turning liturgically east - ad orientem during their ordinary form Masses (novus ordo), but this is the first religious order I have been able to share. If someone knows of others, please drop links into the combox and I'll follow up on them, or email me at TeDeumBlog@gmail.com.

I would actually like to make a post or post series on orders and parishes celebrating the new Mass ad orientem.

It is very heart-warming to see some of our monastics - specifically Cistercians doing this.

Some Grotto-goers may recall a monk who comes to Grotto a few times yearly to stay with a parishioner.

Fr. Logan, also a military chaplain, is seen hooded in these Memorial Day pictures (with one pic to the right) ahead of the 9:00am, Mass. When Father is with us he enjoys celebrating ad orientem, as well (I am not sure if he has celebrated the TLM at Grotto yet or not. Grotto Masses are in both ordinary and extraordinary forms and even the ordinary form has been celebrated ad orientem for many years now in both English and Latin. The vernacular Mass features much Latin, as well (the ordinaries and the Eucharistic Prayer).

Here is more from Brother Stephen's blog - Sub Tuum - which has been added to my sidebar under the blogging priests, religious and deacon's section.

In my last entry, I said that there might be liturgical developments on the very near horizon and so it has come to pass. This morning the Conventual Mass for the Solemnity of Mary the Mother of God was celebrated ad orientem, which will now be the normative position for saying Mass at Our Lady of Spring Bank. (The Mass was solemn Latin in the ordinary form using the Cistercian Graduale.)

There are still many kinks and questions to address pertaining to the rank of feasts, the customs of the ordinary form v. Cistercian usage, the size of our community, and the layout of our oratory. The draft customary will certainly see much fleshing-out and many amendments over the coming months, but Fr. Prior thought that today was the appropriate day to begin to face God together, it being the first of the year and a solemnity of Mary.

I'm sure to have more to say later on this topic as we begin to sand off the rough edges, but I wanted to get the news up since I knew it would be of particular interest to some of you and, perhaps, to a somewhat broader audience, since I believe that this makes us the first house in our order to return to ad orientem celebration. (There are a few more photos here.)

Deo gratias!

See more photos in the original blogpost of Br. Stephen

I go back to something that bears repeating....

Seek not the face of the priest in the Mass,
but the Face of Almighty God!

For those men interested in a more traditional, monastic life - not necessarily "tridentine", you might want to consider the Spring Bank Abbey in Wisconsin, in your discernment.

I might point out, as well, that we should support these religious orders with purchases when we can. Go visit these Cistercians at Laser Monks, as well.

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Cardinal Rode on the hermeneutic of discontinuity and rupture in religious Communities

Cardinal Franc Rode - the Prefect for the Congregation for Religious while in the US had some interesting things to say about what has happened in various communities over these last few decades. Many of us have been observing that newer religious communities which are of a more traditional bent are growing while others are dying out, most especially "new age" communities, as I will call them. These he attacks quite hard. He makes some pretty fair generalizations here. Emphasis mine in bold.

In the last forty years, the Church has undergone one of her greatest crises of all times. We all know that the dramatic situation of consecrated life has not been marginal in this state of affairs. In practically all Western countries, observers note that most religious communities are entering the end-game of a prolonged crisis whose outcome, they say, is already determined by the statistics.

In many of these Western countries, religious have lost hope....

Under the umbrella of “consecrated life” and behind the statistics there lies a variety of situations.

First, there are many new communities, some better known than others, many of which are thriving and whose individual statistics are the reverse of the general trends.

Second, we have older communities that have taken action to preserve and reform genuine religious life in their own charism; they are also in a growth mode, contrary to the general trend, and their median age is lower than the overall average for religious.

Neither of these two groups sees “the writing on the wall” in the sense that observers of the general trends use it; on the contrary, the future looks promising if they continue to be what they are and as they are.

Third, there are those who accept the present situation of decline as, in their words, the sign of the Spirit on the Church, a sign of a new direction to be followed. Among this group there those who have simply acquiesced to the disappearance of religious life or at least of their community, and seek to do so in the most peaceful manner possible, thanking God for past benefits.

Then, we must admit too, that there are those who have opted for ways that take them outside communion with Christ in the Catholic Church, although they themselves may have opted to “stay” in the Church physically. These may be individuals or groups in institutes that have a different view, or they may be entire communities.

Finally, I would distinguish those who fervently believe in their own personal vocation and the charism of their community, and are seeking ways to reverse the trend. In other words, how to achieve authentic renewal. These may be whole institutes, or individuals, pockets of individuals or even communities within institutes....

Operating at the root of this “pseudo-aggiornamento” was what can best be described as “naturalism”. It supposed the radical centering of man on himself, the rejection of the supernatural, and operated in a climate of radical subjectivism.

It showed itself in multiple ways: In talk about holiness that is totally divorced from fulfillment of Christ’s law and the concept of grace. In minimizing sin. In the acceptance of the world as it is, with no need of conversion. In taking the world as the criterion according to which the Church ought to be reformed. In a notion of apostolate or ministry that consists in being at ease in the world rather than changing it. In rejection of authority, and especially divinely constituted authority, hence the rejection of the magisterium and all canonical and disciplinary ordering in the Church....

Towards the end of the Second Vatican Council, I was in Paris finishing my doctoral thesis on “miracles of the modernist controversy.” At that time in France there was a pervasive atmosphere of enthusiasm for the Council as the press and other media presented it, which was a partial image of the Council as a “victory of the liberals over the conservatives.”

When I returned to Slovenia I found that the communist regime was isolating the Catholic faithful, suffocating public expression of the faith and reducing it to a merely private affair. I found a faithful people within a society shaped by the ideology of materialism. I soon realized that what I brought with me from my studies in Paris was of very little use for my pastoral work. I needed to be close to the people and to respect the traditional ways of expressing of their faith. I learned so much from the Christian faithful! They taught me to love the Church, to respect the Pope and the bishops in communion with him.

The great lesson I learned from that experience was this: The religious who secularized consecrated life were not doing so for the sake of the faith of the people of God. It was not the good of God’s people that they were seeking. Rather than God’s will, what they were seeking was their own.

Religious life, being a gift from the Holy Spirit to the individual religious and the Church, depends especially on fidelity to its origins, fidelity to the founder, fidelity to the particular charism. Fidelity to that charism is essential, for God blesses fidelity while he “opposes the proud.” The complete rupture of some with the past, then, goes against the nature of a religious congregation, and essentially it provokes God’s rejection.

H/T to Rocco Palmo at Whispers, who has a link to the full address and additional links of interest embedded in his post.

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Help the Dominican Nuns of Summit with their Capital Campaign

There is a cloister of Dominican Nuns in Summit, NJ who are in need of some funds. They have launched a Capital Campaign. It is explained in this post on their blog, "Moniales OP".

We’d like to tell you about our first-ever capital campaign: Building a Future Full of Hope. We are working to raise $500,000 for crucial renovations to the monastery and also to establish an endowment fund of $1,000,000 for the daily upkeep of the monastery. Our dream is also to raise enough to build a new wing, housing infirmary, library, guest rooms, parlors, and gift shop, although architects estimate that such a wing would cost a whopping 7 million dollars.

The renovations are necessary in order to make our hallways, refectory and kitchen fully accessible to all the nuns and to bring them up to safety codes.

The endowment is direly needed because, in spite of the constant generosity of so many of you, our good benefactors, we are having to dip into our savings every month in order to make ends meet.

The addition of a new wing would allow us to bring our infirmary and guest area up to safety codes, as well as allowing us precious space for the adequate care of the sick which we have never had. There would also be room for private guest visiting areas and for a new library, so intimately related to the life of contemplative nuns.

We are counting on the support of you, our good friends and loyal blog readers, for the success of this capital campaign. For more information, click on the picture or go to http://www.futurefullofhope.com/

I should add that you may occassionally see a comment from "Moniales". Now you know that the comment is coming out of a cloister. I have had many friendly discussions with them.

Some post samples from the Moniales OP blog (most are photostories):

• Q & A with Dominican Nuns
• Do Cloistered Nuns Vote?
• Thinking of becoming a nun? Check the website
• From Grapes...to pie
• If you ever visit their side of NJ, you gotta see this...
  

The sisters have an entire line of handmande soaps and other products. Here are some select blogposts introducing the line and some of the products. You can browse and order online through a special site. Rumor has it you may be able to pick up some of these products in our Grotto giftshop soon! Consider each of these are made with prayerful hands and support a worthy cause.

• Mocha Java Soap???? Yes.
• Other products
• Article on the sisters soaps (how can you say "no" when you see this pic)

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The obedient are not held captive by Holy Mother Church; it is the disobedient who are held captive by the world!