Open Forum chat on Sunday September 22 led to a variety of topics!
Sister Susan Marie: No specific topic tonight but I imagine you have lots of thoughts
V: lol, yes, I do, including based on today’s Gospel reading. So much I have been thinking about.
Sister Susan Marie: What point struck you in particular?
V: the idea of dishonesty as a good steward.
L: Does God really care how old you are to serve him? I don’t think so!
Sister Susan Marie: In the Visitation it’s hard to get too old! Mobile had an 80 year old novice
Sister Susan Marie: now she’s temporary professed
L: That’s one of the things I love about it!
V: God is SSOOOOO GooD!!!
L: You are soooo right! Lol
Sister Susan Marie: There are several communities that have no real age limit in Visitation; Mobile, Brooklyn for the most part, Snellville, Rockville
Sister Susan Marie: This week we have a 61 year old with us who is discerning
L: Oh marvelous!
I can’t hardly wait until it’s my turn!
Sister Susan Marie: Less than a month
L: Horray!
V: I had been looking at North Minneapolis. I’m 59. I was so much younger when I first felt the call. Now I am eager to say, “yes, Lord!”
V: less than a month, l?
L: Yes,until my first retreat with the Brooklyn Visitation siste
Sister Susan Marie: The Lord calls at all ages. Look at Abraham! and Sarah!
V: you are right, Sister Susan Marie, but, selfishly still, so bad of me, I feel called to vowed religious life.
L: I also was younger when I felt something but I could not believe God was looking at me!
Sister Susan Marie: Yes we are looking forward to your visit/retreat and praying for you!
Sister Susan Marie: Not selfish- if it is God’s call you are responding to HIM
L: Will someone make sure I am doing or going where I am supposed to when I come?
Sister Susan Marie: Oh yes. It is a big Monastery so you will need a guide at first
l: That’s good to know!
Sister Susan Marie: If you’re not in sight we go looking!
V: Where will you be coming from?
l: Boise
V: ah! I’m in Olympia
l: That’s beautiful up there!
V: yes, it is!
l: I grew up in the Yakima valley!
SSM, what did you think of today’s Gospel reading?
Sister Susan Marie: I was very struck by the priest’s explanation – it’s true- a person immersed in the world and worldly things can do astounding stuff, but those who claim to be religious might not even sing in church!
V: true! I love Pope Francis’ attitude!
Sister Susan Marie: In other words, dedication is so essential and sometimes we learn from the unlikeliest folks
Sister Susan Marie: Pope Francis seems to be revolutionizing the world
Sister Susan Marie: Did you both read the interview anywhere
l: Isn’t that the truth?!
V: you made my face and spirit smile big and wide, SSM.
Sister Susan Marie: I wanted to print it out for the novices but it was 20 pages- too much ink! so they can read it on line and we;ll talk about it
l: I did not I’m afraid; just bits and pieces in other things
Is there a specific site to go to?
Sister Susan Marie: Read the original because what the secular media picks up and what the entire interview contains is not even comparable
V: I would LOVE to talk about it more. I’ve been so inspired by him!
Sister Susan Marie: America magazine site
Sister Susan Marie: I’ll see if I can find it
Sister Susan Marie: http://www.americamagazine.org/pope-interview
A Big Heart Open to God | America Magazine
Sister Susan Marie: There it is!
Sister Susan Marie: America magazine site
Sister Susan Marie: Herer’s a quote from the Holy Father:“The image of the church I like is that of the holy, faithful people of God. This is the definition I often use, and then there is that image from the Second Vatican Council’s ‘Dogmatic Constitution on the Church’ (No. 12). Belonging to a people has a strong theological value. In the history of salvation, God has saved a people. There is no full identity without belonging to a people. No one is saved alone, as an isolated individual, but God attracts us looking at the co
Sister Susan Marie:complex web of relationships that take place in the human community. God enters into this dynamic, this participation in the web of human relationships.
Sister Susan Marie: We’re sort of in that complex web of relationships right now!
l: I like the part that says no one is saved alone!
Sister Susan Marie: So God is entering into our chats
V: so true! every person, every thing that is a part of my world has influenced me and taught me. Including my dog
Sister Susan Marie: And if we are not saved alone, then we are all helping each other be saved- even now
Sister Susan Marie: and look at this : He says: The people itself constitutes a subject. And the church is the people of God on the journey through history, with joys and sorrows. Thinking with the church, therefore, is my way of being a part of this people. And all the faithful, considered as a whole, are infallible in matters of belief, and the people display this infallibilitas in credendo, this infallibility in believing, through a supernatural sense of the faith of all the people walking together.
l: I need to move over and let God work through me for others!
V: I have always thought it was a little bit selfish to be primarily concerned with ones own salvation. I care less about my personal salvation than about my relationship with God, with Jesus
Sister Susan Marie: These are very generous dispositions!
l: There is a prayer statement I read somewhere that says ” when you look at me, see only Jesus” I love that
V: I LOVE that
Sister Susan Marie: And if God the Father sees only Jesus in you as well, then you are truly living Jesus
V: I remember YEARS ago, while I was staying at the Federal Way Visitation, Mother Mary Ruth sharing a similar thought.
Sep 22 2013, 7:53 PM
l: Yes, I don’t remember where I heard it; but it has stuck with me!
Sister Susan Marie: Pope Francis also said in that interview: “I see the sanctity of God’s people, this daily sanctity,” the pope continues. “There is a ‘holy middle class,’ which we can all be part of
V: amen, SSM
M
Valerie Kolárik: that interview has been like not just a prayer but a retreat for me
Sister Susan Marie: That is an apt way to describe it
Sister Susan Marie: I see the holiness,” the pope continues, “in the patience of the people of God: a woman who is raising children, a man who works to bring home the bread, the sick, the elderly priests who have so many wounds but have a smile on their faces because they served the Lord, the sisters who work hard and live a hidden sanctity. This is for me the common sanctity.
Mary Roberta Viano: My spiritual director calls the pope clever for having engaged the media.
Mary Roberta Viano: and led them down the “garden path”!
V: I think he was clever and inspired and inspiring!
Sister Susan Marie: For those of us struggling, this line really touches me: I often associate sanctity with patience: not only patience as hypomoné [the New Testament Greek word], taking charge of the events and circumstances of life, but also as a constancy in going forward, day by day.
J: yes they are painting him as a really liberal Pope all over TV…haha
V: I like your picc, SMR
Mary Roberta Viano: He’s still totally faithful to the Magisterium. That’s what the media doesn’t think he is.
V: he is,they will come to understand
he is liberal, but in his own way
J: yes Sr Roberta…some of the ultra conservatives are up in arms…but he knows what he is doing..he is completely true to the church’s teachings
Mary Roberta Viano: The media is being loved by the pope. That, at least, they do understand.
V: God’s way. I think he is God’s gift to us today, to this world today
Sep 22 2013, 8:07 PM
l: I agree Valerie! He is much needed
Mary Roberta Viano: Today’s Mass readings about being poor and focusing on the poor are right up Pope Francis’ alley!
V: I know so many ex-Catholics who are now excited to come back to the Church, to feel welcomed by their church
Mary Roberta Viano: The pope’s arms are wide open, like Christ’s on the cross!
l: Oh I like that!
Mary Roberta Viano: Our Jesuit Mass celebrant said about today’s Gospel, “If you can choose to be poor, you’re not poor.” Hmm…
Sep 22 2013, 8:09 PM
J: and once they are in his arms he will whisper a lil something something in their ear haha
V: when he said our first response to anyone should be to love and accept them where they are, I love that.
: there have been some ugly things said on-line by people who do not like the Catholic Church
Mary Roberta Viano: And he said, “Don’t give until it hurts. Give until it feels good – until you know you’ve done the right thing – been generous enough.
Mary Roberta Viano: Yes, loving the person, not the sin. Always wondered how that was done!
l: I like that he is realistic and compassionate all at the same time
V: when it is done in love, giving is always a joy, even when it “hurts”
Mary Roberta Viano: and it’s amazing how he can wrap the media around his/Christ’s little finger!
l: I have wanted to go to work in a missionary setting in my younger years! I wanted to see what poverty looked like through God’s eyes!
Sister Susan Marie: I like the explanation just given about the media.
Mary Roberta Viano: Our Jesuit priest said poverty is lack of security.
J: yes a lot of people are confused if they don’t listen closely but just to what the media is projecting
Sister Susan Marie: She read the secular reports on the interview and it really threw her. I told her to read the original
Mary Roberta Viano: I was confused, too, until I read the actual words Holy Father used.
Sister Susan Marie: I deeply appreciate the Holy Father’s orientation toward the poor and it always brings me back to what our MN Srs are doing in the Northside
Mary Roberta Viano: and how well-received they have been there in MN!
Sister Susan Marie: Then I have to face the reality of what does our community do?
V: that’s who I’ve been thinking about, SSM!
l: I read about those Sisters and their work! Amazing!
Sister Susan Marie: and how can we weave our vocation in with the needs of the poor
Sister Susan Marie: I await the Pope’s encyclical on poverty which I understand he will be doing