A Word of Welcome
Dear Sisters, Dear Friends,
The month of February 2012 was filled with much activity and life here in our Generalate on Via Nomentana. The New Provincials Meeting began on February 1st and was followed by the Enlarged General Council Meeting attended by 29 Ursulines throughout the world. This meeting in turn was followed by a meeting of Provincials and Treasurers of Europe with 52 participants, among them 12 lay collaborators. The month was grace-filled as we gathered “insieme” to evaluate and plan for the future of the Institute.
I would like this opportunity to mention that our JPIC Commission met in January 2012 and finalized the details for Project Africa. Our Roman Union Ursuline sisters in South Africa/Botswana, Senegal and Cameroon proposed local ventures linked to the development of women and the promotion of better and cleaner water services in their communities. I would like to invite you to visit our section “Justice, Peace, Integrity of Creation (J.P.I.C.), click on J.P.I.C. Commission and the on “Project Africa” for further details.
May this blessed Season of Lent be for all of us a turning to the Lord with heart, mind and soul.
Mother Cecilia Wang, OSU, Prioress General
Please click HERE for the new source documents on education published on 25 November 2011 and 25 March 2012.
Please visit our “Vocations” box on the homepage for more insights on this issue. And please click HERE to enter the back issues of Journeys, thought-provoking aids for your own spiritual journey.
(Click on the shield above to learn more Ursuline history.)
'Getting to Know Your Religious': Ursuline Sister Bernadette Mackay Posted: 04.22.2011 This is one in an occasional series of profiles on priests, brothers and sisters of the Diocese of Orlando. The profiles… More>>
Today with Saint Angela
Strive with all your might to keep yourselves as you have been called by God.
Prologue to the Rule/10
Statue of Saint Angela. Mericianum, Desenzano
Scriptures of the Week
6th Sunday of Easter – May 13, 2012
Acts 10:25-26;34-35;44-48
Psalm 98
1 John 4:7-10
John 15:9-17
 |
Today’s Sunday liturgy invites us to reflect on “discrimination.” “God does not show preferences, but welcomes each person who fears him and practices justice, no matter what race or nation he belongs to.” Faced with this passage from Acts, the first thing we must do is engage in a lengthy examination of conscience. How much discrimination exists in our progressive society! What is our own attitude? Where do we stand: with God or with the world? The second point is a theological observation: the Church has no boundaries. In fact, from his vision in Joppa, Peter understands that Christ has cleansed and redeemed everything and therefore salvation must reach all people. Saint John tells us that “everyone who loves is begotten by God” and that the Father has sent his only begotten Son “so that we might live.” Now “in the Son” we all possess the same life, so we are all brothers and sisters and children of God. Since “God is love” it follows that, by nature, we have within us the capacity to love God and all persons as brothers and sisters. Do I really love God? Do I feel that every person is my brother or sister? How do I “welcome” the other, the different one? With an open heart or with prejudice? If we want to live in the fullness of joy, the joy that only Jesus can give, the answer lies in the Gospel: “If you keep my commandments, you shall abide in my love, as I have kept my Father's commandments and abide in his love.”
Sister Fidelis Bolgiani, Province of Italy
Our visual meditation is a sculpture in stone (1196-1216), a portal relief from the baptistery in Parma, Italy, depicting acts of ministering to the poor, the needy, the stranger.
Wisdom of the week
Every time is a time of waiting, waiting for the breaking in of eternity. Paul Tillich
