Greetings to dearest Sisters in Christ as we live the days of Eastertide.  While we may be living external social distancing, our internal distancing from the Lord remains fated to narrow and vanish!  Let us together acquiesce to that tender and immense love that is within us and round about us!  “O God, let me know you and love you so that I may find my joy in you, and if I cannot do so fully in this life, let me at least make some progress every day, until at last that knowledge, love and joy come to me in plentitude (St Anselm, in the Proslogion).

A radiant expression of that love and joy are your sacrifices of prayers each week for a priest or bishop.  An eternal offering, for love is never finished (Pope Benedict XVI). The Lord has prepared this work in advance for us to do (Isaiah 65:24).  Let us each seek to be as that little pencil in the Hand of God (St Teresa of Calcutta).  To who, what, where, when and how shall we go?  We are in His Hand. We trust. Dom Jean-Baptiste Chaurtard concurs in The Soul of the Apostolate: “Christ does all the work; we are only His instruments. … All that Jesus wants is our heart.”

As Seven Sisters we rest at the brink of two special months:  May, our month of discernment to remain or depart from the Apostolate weekly Holy Hour commitment; and June, our month of re-commitment to another year of prayer offerings.  Both are places of trust.

My prayers heartily join yours as you reserve this month of May to invite Jesus into the action of your discernment.  “Listen and attend to the ear of your heart” (St Benedict).  Prayer will make things clear.  With that clear sense as to your direction for the year ahead, inform your Anchoress. Kindly allow plenty of time if she needs to secure a replacement for your day – or rejoice with you in your plans of recommitment!

Be open to the call that might be to remain in the Apostolate, but also serve in an additional or different (or new!) group (e.g. Hospital Chaplain, retired priest/bishop, parochial vicar in parish where pastor already has a group, missionaries, priests serving in Seminaries, Chaplain or professors in High schools or Universities, Canon lawyers, priests who serve in the Chancery, priests in religious orders, Military Chaplains, Exorcists). Every priest deserves our prayers!  Be assured, if you ask, you will know where/how you are called.  And likewise, be assured, that God’s graces are sufficient for the task!

No matter when a group commences, each June is the uniting, universal time to re-commit the prayer efforts within the Apostolate. This prayerful action renders an unseen but sure solidarity for the Apostolate.  Re-commit together as a group (maybe in person by June – or try Zoom), near in date to the Solemnity of the Sacred Heart (this year: Friday, June 19), using the Commitment Prayer (see Web site, in English/Spanish) composed by Apostolate Chaplain, Fr Joseph Johnson. Many groups use this opportunity to gather together for Mass and a meal following to share testimonies of the past year.  The invitation may most certainly include the priest/bishop.

Please continue with resolute fidelity and focus in your Seven Sister prayer commitments through May.  In these unique times the priests and bishops tread new waters of pastoral care and expression.  Our sacrifices and prayers will serve to strengthen and buoy them up.  Concurrently, many priests will be learning of new assignments and appreciating extra graces through our extra sacrifices and prayers as they anticipate transition.  “What great blessings God grants to a soul when He prepares it to love the practice of prayer” (St Teresa of Avila).

In this month of May, we will be fortifying our intercessory base.  Apostolate materials will be mailed to some 125+ Monasteries of cloistered nuns in the USA who will be invited to offer prayers with and prayers for us, specifically for “purity, presence and proliferation” of the Seven Sisters Apostolate “in and about their diocese and state – and the world.”  You may support this outreach venture through concerted prayers and/or financially to help cover materials and postage.

The Apostolate has received a marvelous gift from Dr Elizabeth Lev, art historian and prolific writer.  She has written an insightful essay for the Apostolate highlighting our patron, Madonna of the Grapes.  In it we learn a bit about the life and art style of Frenchman Pierre Mignard who painted Madonna of the Grapes, as well as astute insights into the composition and nuances of the elements of the painting itself.   The piece is on the Web site and also attached to this Communique.  What a timely gift in this month honoring Our Lady!  Most recently Dr Lev has authored How Catholic Art Saved the Faith, The Triumph of Beauty and Truth in the Counter-Reformation Art.  Highly recommended!

The winds of the Holy Spirit blow where they may, enlightening and enlivening where welcomed.  As Seven Sisters, how readily you have become humble instruments in the sure Hand of God.  Fr. Jean-Pierre de Caussade (Abandonment to Divine Providence) perhaps says it best: “We are in an age of faith, the Holy Spirit no longer writes gospels, except in our heart; saintly souls are the pages, suffering and action the ink.  The Holy Spirit is writing a living gospel with the pen of action, which we will only be able to read on the day of glory, when, fresh from the presses of life, it will be published.”

United in prayer and mission…

that our prayers may find the heart of every bishop and priest…

… eternal gratitude continues as you each remember to offer a wee Hail Mary for me every day….  “One Ave Maria makes hell tremble” (St John Vianney). Pray that I will not ‘spoil the beautiful work that God has entrusted…’  (St Teresa of Calcutta)

… your kind emails and notes and phone calls and generous support always arrive to my heart door at the right moment! Your financial sacrifices are for 100% furtherance of Apostolate.  THANK YOU!  The letters of testimony are so beautiful and edifying! What glory is given to God through your writing! Eternal gratitude is mine for YOU! Be assured of my continued daily prayers for you at the altar.

Janette
+JMJ+
sevensistersapostolate@gmail.com

About the LOGO: Central in both the design and our mission is prayer before our Eucharistic Lord. The cruciform serves as both monstrance and as reminder that our prayers find merit through the sufferings and resurrection of our Lord. The hands all at once can represent a perfect trifecta: a Seven Sister intercessor offering prayer, a priest offering prayer/Mass, and the Lord Himself bringing our offerings heavenward. The seven stars (Pleiades) represent the Seven Sisters – their position on the bottom and almost transparent is the mark of humility, the wellspring of the Apostolate. The shades of blue: every shade that cloaks Mary – and us too! One-liner on bottom: Apostolate in a nutshell. It is striking in black and white too! All is fitting!

Greetings to dearest Sisters in Christ as showers of Lenten graces meet us in these unprecedented times, generously preparing us to live more deeply and boldly our Holy Week, Easter glory and Eastertide joy. God is with us! All will be well! (St Julian of Norwich) …

An early pioneer of long-distance radio transmission, Gugliemo Marconi, held fast to a notion later in his life that sound never dies.  He surmised that it simply became too quiet for our ears to perceive.  He believed if he fashioned the right device, any sound could be recoverable. His heartfelt longing was to hear Jesus utter the Sermon on the Mount.  Marconi’s dreams were just that.  Sound vibrations do not perpetually exist, but rather vibrate less and less until the sound vanishes. Or does it?

When my mother passed, I could not recall her laughter. It was both perplexing and painful.  Then one day that lilting laughter fully returned and filled my heart!  Oh, the consoling effect as it broke through a veil of grief.  Laughter. I love you. I am so sorry. Will you marry me? It’s twins! Utterances can “live” long after sound waves dissipate – in the archives of memory and recesses of heart.

Seven Sister intercessors often ponder the life of the priest.  It is essential. Our weekly prayers are formed by this intentional consideration.  Have you ever reflected on the words of a priest/bishop? The sacramental words of Institution, Baptism, Absolution, Confirmation, Marriage, Holy Orders, Anointing of the Sick stand as the most powerful. There are innumerable prayers offered with and for others, countless blessings, daily Gospel proclamations, homilies, praying the Liturgy of the Hours, immeasurable words in due season – on the street corner, hospital, marketplace, meeting settings.  A priest is looked to in the crossroads with the “right word”: in both dispute or celebration, for the penitent, engaged couple, grieving family, parochial teacher and student alike, waiter with a question, a brother priest.  He whispers heaven-sent words of wisdom and encouragement (Luke 12:12). He is expected to impart knowledge or levity through the full spectrum of time: from current affairs to the ancient lives of saints to eternity.  The words are ordained to be life-giving!  Resting oft times in our memory and heart, they can be readily evoked when needed: guiding, strengthening, comforting.  The words and actions of a priest mark us – as children of God, as ones loved!  Love affects all things. Eternally.

Consider the sheer volume of words and actions offered through the life span of a retired priest. (Is retired even a proper descriptor?)  They have challenged and changed the course of history for countless individuals.  An eternal ripple effect. The sacraments alone!  The sound of their words is not too quiet to still be heard. (Marconi would be thrilled to know!)  I carry a personal indebtedness for the love and care of retired clergy in my own return to the Faith.  Retired Bishop Paul Dudley (+2007) was a significant mentor and intercessor in my months of discerning a return to the Church.  Retired Army Chaplain, Fr Martin Fleming (+2018), heard my Confession of reconciliation (1999).  Unlike men retiring from a place of employment, the priest remains ever-deployed by the Lord Himself.  I was grateful to be in their paths!

Currently several retired priests have the benefit of Seven Sisters groups.  This Communiqué is a special appeal for launching more. Emphasizing the Apostolate Guidelines, the pastor of one’s parish should have an established group first and foremost.   Given that, groups for other priests are encouraged from members of that parish.  Our mission includes all bishops and priests!

If you sense a call to this Apostolate, there is a priest who needs your prayers.  If God has called you, He will provide.   Schalcken’s serene Lady Holding a Candle might hearken to someone sent to do just that.  The light of the sole candle seems sufficient for her mission.  The light of one’s prayers will make clear (enough!) the path to begin.  Our Lady, mother of all priests, will help.

A retired priest’s group is a bit unique.  He will not receive a new assignment.  Thus, this group may be more long-term then some.  The intercessors may not regularly see or know the priest.  This may be challenging in prayer for some, not others.  Conversely, some groups do know the priest and desire to form a friendship.  Some have been known to plan jubilee gatherings, share meals and prayers, offer rides when needed, even keep vigil during the final days and hours of life.  Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI in a letter (02/07/18) to the editor of the Italian newspaper, Corriere della Ser, wrote, “I am on pilgrimage Home.  It’s a great grace for me to be surrounded on this end of the route, sometimes a bit tiring, by a love and kindness that I could never have imagined.”  Likely this is a shared sentiment from a retired priest with the gift of a Seven Sisters group.

A fruit of the Apostolate has arisen regarding prayer for retired priests. Long-time Seven Sister, Deb T (Minnesota) combines her gifts of quilting and intercession to initiate, Appreciated and Loved.   Lap quilts are fashioned with a particular priest in mind. The first was given March 12! Two more are in the making.  The back of the quilt bears a corner label (black with a white collar, of course!) with an embroidering of the priest’s name, “Appreciated and Loved by Seven Sisters Apostolate”, and date.  Ideally the quilt is presented to the priest by the Seven Sister group. This is hoped to also be a way for new groups to start.  Quilters can pray for a group to form as they sew or solicit another group to intercede/form a new group.  Team work at its best! Our Web site will feature photos of the quilts/priests and stories about the lives of the recipient priests.  To learn more on how to begin or financially support the efforts, contact Deb through QuiltsbySevenSisters@gmail.com

“At the evening of life, we shall be judged on our love,” says St John of the Cross.  It is true for the retired priest; it is true for each one of us. “Let us love until we die of love” (St Therese of Lisieux).  Love affects all things. Eternally.

Most Blessed continued Lent – and Holy Week, Easter, Eastertide ahead!

United in prayer and mission…that our prayers may find the heart of every bishop and priest…

… eternal gratitude continues as you each remember to offer a wee Hail Mary for me every day….  “One Ave Maria makes hell tremble” (St John Vianney). Pray that I will not ‘spoil the beautiful work that God has entrusted…’  (St Teresa of Calcutta)

… your kind emails and notes and phone calls and generous support always arrive to my heart door at the right moment! Your financial sacrifices are for 100% furtherance of Apostolate.  THANK YOU!  The letters of testimony are so beautiful and edifying! What glory is given to God through your writing! Eternal gratitude is mine for YOU! Be assured of my continued daily prayers for you at the altar.

Janette
+JMJ+
sevensistersapostolate@gmail.com

Greetings to dearest Sisters in Christ as Lent arrives to stir our hearts to radical newness. This is no time for the faint of heart!  Let us embrace the course!

Women are specialists at both gift-giving and gift-wrapping.  We are masters at selecting the right gift at the right time and the right details for every perfectly placed ribbon and scrunch of tissue paper.  The wrapping itself can prove quite an adventure for the recipient to work through. Who hasn’t given a gift to another and happily prodded, “Oh, there’s something else in the box!”

We likely learn from Our Lord Himself whose gifts to us are bottomless treasure troves. He is always encouraging us to keeping looking.  There is ever more.  Seven Sisters are beneficiaries of the divine gift of the desire to pray.  Alongside come the gifts to initiate the prayer, discern its ways, quell distractions and at times welcome sweet silence.  In the multi-faceted gift of prayer perhaps for some there is an undiscovered aspect at the “bottom of the box” – the gift of fasting.  This Lenten season is an ideal time to unfold the gift.  Grace upon grace will help embrace it.  Fasting is not merely will power.  Grace is necessary.  It is worth the asking, for fasting enlivens prayer and prayer invigorates fasting.  Team work at its best!

From her beginning, Mother Church has encouraged self-denial, oft times taking the form of fasting. It serves us well to accept the encouragement as more gift than gruel.  As Catholics, we partake in an intentional Eucharistic fast not just as a point of obedience but in it recognizing the Church is emphasizing that our Eucharistic experience is set to be enhanced by it. Would it be that this daily or weekly practice launch us into greater lengths and depths of the practice of fasting!  Tempering or even mortifying (putting to death) our passions for a time brings gifts to the soul.  Listen to St Basil the Great: “Fasting gives birth to prophets and strengthens the powerful; fasting makes lawgivers wise. Fasting is a good safeguard for the soul, a steadfast companion for the body, a weapon for the valiant, and a gymnasium for athletes. Fasting repels temptations, anoints unto piety; it is the comrade of watchfulness and the artificer of chastity. In war it fights bravely, in peace it teaches stillness.”

This intentional bodily fasting is enhanced with a dovetail into an intentional spiritual fasting from sin. St Basil helps here too: “Let us fast an acceptable and very pleasing fast to the Lord.  True fast is the estrangement from evil, temperance of tongue, abstinence from anger, separation from desires, slander, falsehood and perjury.  Privation of these is true fasting.”

Our Apostolate Chaplain, Fr Joseph Johnson, concurs.  At the November 2019 St Paul- Minneapolis Seven Sisters annual time of Reflection and Renewal, he encouraged us to consider adding fasting to our prayer efforts.  “The benefits will be beyond what you today imagine.  Your prayer will be clearer.” This invitation is extended to all Seven Sisters.  Standing at the threshold of this richly grace-laden Lenten season is the perfect occasion.  May we unite our hearts to the mystery of Jesus in the desert and learn and live the liberty and clarity and strength brought about through fasting.  Our prayers for our priests and bishops will profit!  Made clear like a mountain stream!

On March 26 (Thurs), feast of one of our patrons, St Margaret Clitherow, an invitation is extended to all Seven Sisters to anticipate and plan a Day of Fasting for strengthening and sanctity of all priests.  St Margaret Clitherow will help us!  She is a stellar model of the Eucharistic life and staunch defender and supporter of the priesthood. And she loves Seven Sisters! Plan now how you will participate – and mark your calendars!

The gift of fasting is so fitting to our Apostolate, hidden from the eye of most.  In quietness and trust is our strength… (Isaiah 30:15).  We appear to do nothing at all, yet much is accomplished.  Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI reminds, “The ultimate goal of fasting is to help each one of us to make a complete gift of self to God.”  And so you do and so you do…  St Jane Frances de Chantal speaks right to our hearts, as well: “God hides the prize of eternal glory in our mortifications and in the victory of ourselves, which we always strive for with great gentleness.”  Afterall, dear Sisters in Christ, we are specialists at gift-giving and especially love the hidden gifts!

 United in prayer and mission…that our prayers may find the heart of every bishop and priest…

 … eternal gratitude continues as you each remember to offer a wee Hail Mary for me every day….  “One Ave Maria makes hell tremble” (St John Vianney). Pray that I will not ‘spoil the beautiful work that God has entrusted…’  (St Teresa of Calcutta)

… your kind emails and notes and phone calls and generous support always arrive to my heart door at the right moment! Your financial sacrifices are for 100% furtherance of Apostolate.  THANK YOU!  The letters of testimony are so beautiful and edifying! What glory is given to God through your writing! Eternal gratitude is mine for YOU! Be assured of my continued daily prayers for you at the altar.

Janette
+JMJ+
sevensistersapostolate@gmail.com

Blessed Christmastide into Epiphany to dearest Sisters in Christ.  Happy and prosperous New Decade of the Lord 2020.  Truly, the best is yet to be!  He makes all things new (Rev 21:5).

Our noble and good work as Seven Sisters does not shield us from the shared experience of anyone who prays: distraction.  And how utterly distracting to be distracted when we are so earnestly offering that prayer for another’s benefit!  While such disturbances can appear as a huge hindrance in our prayer efforts like Hokusai’s looming Great Wave, they can also serve as an opportunity for growth in humility, trust and perseverance.

The Catechism devotes one of its four parts entirely to prayer. It brims with information and inspiration alike, reminding that prayer is both a gift of grace and a determined response on our part … that always presupposes effort (2725).  It is a work of heart, and often a battle of heart.

Following is an abridged version of a talk I recently presented in Bismarck, ND, of Seven Strategies for Harnessing Distractions in Prayer.  May it serve to deepen and direct our prayers.

#1 & #2.  Pray with and from a place – outside and in.  Sources of distraction are exterior (dog barking, whirring fan) and interior (to-do list, wandering thoughts, worries).  The Catechism encourages the use of a prayer corner or “little oratory” in one’s home.  Seven Sisters practice the discipline of going to a public oratory:  an Adoration Chapel or to a sanctuary before the Tabernacle.  This sacred space lessens, albeit does not eliminate, distractions.  An interior preparation fortifies one’s resolve against distraction.  St Teresa of Avila, entitled the Doctor of Prayer, taught it essential to call to mind one’s relationship as beloved in Christ whenever initiating a prayer time.  She believed this strengthened an interior focus that in turn affected the whole of the prayer time.  St Ignatius of Loyola, likewise reminded for similar results, to pause before prayer and remember that God is already waiting for us and beholding us: “Consider how the Lord my God looks upon me.”

#3.  Pray with a Pen.  Two ways: (a) writing thoughts that are wandering through your mind (to-do lists, competing images/ideas), and (b) intentional journaling of thoughts/prayers.  Both can convert the distraction into opportunity.  Jotting down drifting thoughts helps curb temptations to linger in them and ‘records them’ so one could return to them later (grocery item, remembering to attend to something at home, etc.).  In intentional journaling, the concentration required to write generates a mindset less likely to succumb to distraction.  An added benefit is returning to notes, even years later, to gain perspective/insight on how God is working in one’s life.

#4.  Pray with Fasting.  An empty stomach can remind one to earnestly pray, “Lord, fill my soul!” Fasting sharpens an interior vision and listening. Scripture reminds that some things come about by prayer and fasting only.  A fruit of the Apostolate is the initiative of Fasting Brothers where groups of six men have risen up alongside various Seven Sister groups.  Each man chooses a day to fast (excepting Sunday, a day of feasting) and offers this alongside a Seven Sister who is offering a Holy Hour that day.  Intentionally refraining from social media, radio, conversations or the like, in preparation for a Seven Sister Adoration Hour is another aspect of fasting.  Too much information can clutter one’s consciousness and reduce an ability for the disciplines of meditation, reflection and interior quietness.  Being scattered and distracted in prayer may find its genesis in being scattered and distracted outside of prayer.  A form of fasting may serve as remedy.

#5.  Pray with the company of Saints.  Gaining wisdom from Saintly examples of resolute prayer practices is invaluable.  Soliciting their help (especially in moments of distraction) always meets with reward.  Our Lady’s model and active assistance in your Holy Hour is sure.

#6.  Pray with Purpose.  Let us pray with the heart of Nathaniel, one without duplicity.  Distraction flourishes with ambiguity and a divided heart.  The primary purpose of praying for the highest good for the priests (sanctity) both fortifies and forms the Holy Hours.  Many Seven Sister intercessors share that they are not “fitting this Holy Hour into their day’s schedule”, but rather a distinction of “allotting this time within their life of prayer” for this purpose.  One Seven Sister shared that after her first weekly Hour was offered, she was able to claim this as the first Holy Hour she ever finished… “I had a mission, a purpose – and it was accomplished!”

#7.  Pray with Confidence.  Responding to Our Lord’s call to this type of prayer, assures His help. His grace is sufficient… His strength made perfect in weakness (II Cor 12:9). Reality dictates that some Hours offered may meet distractions the likes of Hokusai’s wave.  Even the wave has its course. It dissipates.  While another may rise, it too will pass. Scripture firmly reminds, “Do not throw away your confidence, which has a great reward.” St Teresa of Avila helps us: “Prayer is an act of love… even if sickness distracts from thoughts, all that is needed is the will to love.”  Indeed, the strength of His love compels our hearts (II Cor 5:14). With all said, a Seven Sister can offer the suffering of distractions for the benefit of the priest.  Only in the marvelous perfection of Divine economy can there be such dividends!  St Alphonsus Ligouri offers a word of support, “If you have many distractions at prayer, that prayer of yours may well be upsetting the devil a great deal.” Let us remain of good heart, dear Sisters in Christ, and persist, united, with great confidence, in that to which we are called!

SAVE the DATE:  National Seven Sisters Pilgrimage – Washington, DC.  18-20 Sept 2020.  Check Website for details and registration info.  Our prayerful presence here is significant!

United in prayer and mission…that our prayers may find the heart of every bishop and priest…

… eternal gratitude continues as you each remember to offer a wee Hail Mary for me every day….  “One Ave Maria makes hell tremble” (St John Vianney). Pray that I will not ‘spoil the beautiful work that God has entrusted…’  (St Teresa of Calcutta)

… your kind emails and notes and phone calls and generous support always arrive to my heart door at the right moment! Your financial sacrifices are for 100% furtherance of Apostolate.  THANK YOU!  The letters of testimony are so beautiful and edifying! What glory is given to God through your writing! Eternal gratitude is mine for YOU! Be assured of my continued daily prayers for you at the altar.

 Janette
+JMJ+
sevensistersapostolate@gmail.com

Advent season into Christmas season greetings to dearest Sisters in Christ,

It is said that more people return to their Christian faith, or open the door to it for the first time, during the Advent and Christmas seasons.  Yes, even more than at Easter.  What heart doesn’t soften with the tenderness and sweet love of a newborn?  One can perhaps approach the Babe with greater ease than He Who is bearing the vulgar cruelty of wounds and death.

God’s plan is a masterful marvel.  As GK Chesterton, prolific writer and Catholic convert, muses, “Bethlehem is emphatically a place where extremes meet… where heaven meets earth. … God comes to make a home in the world and finds himself homeless. … the hands that had made the sun and stars were too small to reach the huge heads of the cattle.”

The King of kings arrived in the lowliest form – an echo of every creature’s beginning.  In this detail of LeNain’s painting, Nativity with a Torch, it is striking how Mary’s hands grasp the swaddling cloth.  The artist has captured a seemingly deliberate pause, a uniquely profound suspended moment.  In it, perhaps Mary is aligned with St Mother Teresa’s thoughts expressed centuries later: “I can understand the greatness of God, but I cannot understand His humility.”

Each priest is bestowed innumerable graces for an ever-deepening identity with Jesus. That identity includes every aspect of Christ’s life – even that of the Christ Child.  Vulnerability. Trust. Tenderness. Dependence. Conduit of love. Recipient of love. Needing silence.  Needing rest.  A reassuring ordinariness.  An evident uniqueness.  Bearer of pain, joy, truth, peace. Humility.

As Seven Sisters we have the opportunity in this Advent season of perhaps praying for a more heightened awareness for the priest/bishop for whom we are committed to pray, of a recognition of this aspect of his priestly identity.  Christ came, and comes now, that we may have life and life to the fullest (John 10:10).  The priest exists for the same. He grows too, in wisdom and stature.

The priest is ever-connected to Calvary.  Caryll Houselander in The Passion of the Infant Christ (1949), reminds that Bethlehem holds the imprint of Calvary:  On Calvary Jesus was naked, stripped of His garments and all He had. In Bethlehem the same was true.   On Calvary He was lifted up, helpless, and held up for men to look upon.  In Bethlehem, likewise. “Lo, if I be lifted up, I will draw all men to me!” On Calvary Christ was laid upon a wooden cross.  In Bethlehem, within a wooden manger.  By the Cross stood Mary, by the crib knelt Mary. Jesus was mocked at His birth by Herod.  At His death, by the crowds and the Roman soldiers.  Angels were near at His birth and so too stood beside the empty tomb. In Bethlehem Christ slept His first sleep in His Mother’s arms; on Calvary He slept His last sleep in the same arms.  Through a deepened understanding of his identity with the Infant Christ, the priest understands that here too he is indisputably linked with the passion of Christ.

Houselander continues: “Christ came out of the darkness of the womb… (and the tomb).  He is the Light of the World.  He came to give the world life. … At Bethlehem, Love and Death met in the body of Christ, and Love prevailed.”  His Resurrection perpetuates the mission. The priest is called into the immortalization of this mission!  Over and again he is called afresh and anew to both the altar and to crossroads of life to be the Light bearer, the conduit of Love, the one who reminds that Love prevails.  Through the conference of the sacraments, through prayers and blessings, through wise counsel, through presence and silence … the priest is sent to remind of Love.  He is the ambassador of love.  The aspects of the Infant Child assist:  tenderness, vulnerability, dependence on God for all.  We are privileged to pray for this fullness of identity in Christ in each priest/bishop.

Our God does not disparage smallness.  He put Himself there.  He entered the world as a baby. Later his arms were stretched on the wood of the cross which, against the expanse of the sky, appeared miniscule.  In the most seemingly absurd move, He makes Himself smaller still, more vulnerable, lowlier – as our Bread of eternal Life.  Oh, sublime condescension! He fore-ordained that He would call simple men to humbly follow His Way and in turn they would shepherd others to embrace the Way.

The seeming smallness of our weekly hidden-to-the-world prayers likely impart substantial delight to Our Lord and are fated to great merit in His economy.  He has a Way of making small things colossal!  Let us continue in our committed prayers and sacrifices in this Season where many hearts will return to life through the Faith and where many priests are needed to be the conduit.  Our prayers significantly support the extra labors of the priests in these days of additional Liturgies, confessions, counsel, home visits, hospital calls and in the crossroads of both life and death.

St Therese of Lisieux articulates our eternal way of love as a Seven Sister in united partnership of prayer for our priests: “I understood that Love comprised all vocations, that Love was everything, that it embraced all times and places…in a word, that it was eternal! Then in the excess of my delirious joy, I cried out: O Jesus, my Love…my vocation, at last I have found it…My vocation is Love!”

A most heartfelt Blessed and Joy-filled Advent and Christmas season to you – as we together embrace Love beyond all telling – both now and forever!

SAVE the DATE:  National Seven Sisters Pilgrimage – Washington, DC.  18-20 Sept 2020.  Check Website for details and registration info.  Our prayerful presence here is significant!

United in prayer and mission…

that our prayers may find the heart of every bishop and priest…

… eternal gratitude continues as you each remember to offer a wee Hail Mary for me every day….  “One Ave Maria makes hell tremble” (St John Vianney). Pray that I will not ‘spoil the beautiful work that God has entrusted…’  (St Teresa of Calcutta)

… your kind emails and notes and phone calls and generous support always arrive to my heart door at the right moment! Your financial sacrifices are for 100% furtherance of Apostolate.  THANK YOU!  The letters of testimony are so beautiful and edifying! What glory is given to God through your writing! Eternal gratitude is mine for YOU! Be assured of my continued daily prayers for you at the altar.

Janette
+JMJ+
sevensistersapostolate@gmail.com