Do you find St Francis analogy of going on a trip to Paris via Lyons helpful in understanding this reflection? Why or why not? Does his description above about the person whose “whole will in this action comes to terminate and be absorbed in the love of God, only using all the other motives to arrive at this end” mean that we cannot care about those motives themselves? How can someone love virtue but not charity? How can we commit all of our daily actions to God? How does the Morning Offering p
Nov 9, 10:05 AM
Sister Susan Marie (Moderator): prayer fit into this?
Nov 9, 10:05 AM
Sister Susan Marie (Moderator): Chat Sun Nov 10 730pm est
Nov 10, 7:28 PM
Sister Susan Marie (Moderator): hello
Nov 10, 7:28 PM
Jennifer Koo: Hi
Nov 10, 7:31 PM
Sister Susan Marie (Moderator): Hi Lisa!
Nov 10, 7:31 PM
Lisa C: Hi Mother, hi Jennifer
Nov 10, 7:31 PM
Jennifer Koo: Hi Lisa
Nov 10, 7:32 PM
Sister Susan Marie (Moderator): welcome viewers
Nov 10, 7:33 PM
Dawn (Guest): Hi Sr Susan, Lisa and Jennifer!
Nov 10, 7:33 PM
Lisa C: Hi Dawn
Nov 10, 7:33 PM
Jennifer Koo: Hi Dawn
Nov 10, 7:34 PM
Sister Susan Marie (Moderator): WelcomeDawn!
Nov 10, 7:35 PM
Dawn (Guest): Thank you
Nov 10, 7:35 PM
Sister Susan Marie (Moderator): How did you all experience this chapter of te Treatise?
Nov 10, 7:36 PM
Sister Susan Marie (Moderator): Q: Do you find St Francis analogy of going on a trip to Paris via Lyons helpful in understanding this reflection? Why or why not?
Nov 10, 7:38 PM
Sister Susan Marie (Moderator): I think it was a simple enough explanation myself
Nov 10, 7:39 PM
Lisa C: Sometimes we go though life on autopilot, rather than thinking about why we are here in terms of what God wants for us
Nov 10, 7:39 PM
Dawn (Guest): I think his anaology is very good, but Im not sure I can verbalize or give rationale right now
Nov 10, 7:40 PM
Dawn (Guest): can anyone use other words here to mean virtue love etc?
Nov 10, 7:40 PM
Lisa C: The chapter kind of explains how Sr. MM used to tell us to make every action we do be a prayer or something we give to God
Nov 10, 7:42 PM
Carol Ann: Hi Everyone, I’m sorry to be late
Nov 10, 7:42 PM
Lisa C: Hi Carol Ann
Nov 10, 7:42 PM
Jennifer Koo: Hi Carol Amm
Nov 10, 7:43 PM
Sister Susan Marie (Moderator): Hi gald you are here
Nov 10, 7:43 PM
Ruth (Guest): Hi Everyone. I got here, I thought, on time, but there were audio ads making it impossible for me to pay attention. Glad I was eventually able to turn them off.
Nov 10, 7:43 PM
Lisa C: Hi Ruth
Nov 10, 7:43 PM
Carol Ann: It has been a while. My formation assistant is at a parish gathering, so no meeting today
Nov 10, 7:44 PM
Sister Susan Marie (Moderator): Virtue- perhaps we can explain as a quality of goodness across various characteristics- hard to explain! like patience, modesty etc
Nov 10, 7:45 PM
Sister Susan Marie (Moderator): Love- a quality of our will and being that goes outside of ourselves to another- or to God, complete unselfishness?
Nov 10, 7:45 PM
Carol Ann: Hi Ruth!
Nov 10, 7:45 PM
Jennifer Koo: Hi, Ruth
Nov 10, 7:46 PM
Carol Ann: Are we capable on earth of complete unselfishness, the way God is unselfish?
Nov 10, 7:47 PM
Lisa C: Virtue seems to be a quality of built in ethics, or a well formed conscience
Nov 10, 7:47 PM
Dawn (Guest): ohmy I was reading another reflection . no wonder
Nov 10, 7:47 PM
Dawn (Guest): Hi Carol Ann and Ruth!
Nov 10, 7:48 PM
Lisa C: With virtue it would be hard to do something very evil
Nov 10, 7:48 PM
Dawn (Guest): I switch back and forth from my email page and chat. usually it works ok
Nov 10, 7:49 PM
Sister Susan Marie (Moderator): No probably not capable Carol Anne but for a definition of it- that’s what came to me
Nov 10, 7:49 PM
Dawn (Guest): with virtue I would say we may detest what is evil
Nov 10, 7:49 PM
Carol Ann: Yes, you are right Lisa. I’ve also noticed that since I made my temporary profession that I am responding to things differently
Nov 10, 7:50 PM
Ruth (Guest): How, Carol Ann?
Nov 10, 7:50 PM
Sister Susan Marie (Moderator): Beautiful! Grace is working and the older Sisters used to say that very thing- that Profession brings new grace
Nov 10, 7:50 PM
Jennifer Koo: Profession brings new grace, that’s great
Nov 10, 7:51 PM
Carol Ann: Well, things that used to irritate me just don’t. When I have a relationship need I say so, but can do it a softer way
Nov 10, 7:51 PM
Sister Susan Marie (Moderator): God is so good!
Nov 10, 7:52 PM
Ruth (Guest): Beautiful!
Nov 10, 7:52 PM
Carol Ann: Of course that still doesn’t mean that people will listen to me But I am suddenly able to express myself
Nov 10, 7:53 PM
Ruth (Guest): Maybe part of it is feeling you are accepted, part of the family now.
Nov 10, 7:53 PM
Dawn (Guest): this is wonderful Carol Ann
Nov 10, 7:53 PM
Carol Ann: It did mean many new graces, one even that was visible to leadership, even though I didn’t see it.
Nov 10, 7:55 PM
Sister Susan Marie (Moderator): Q- this one is somewhat difficult-Does his description above about the person whose “whole will in this action comes to terminate and be absorbed in the love of God, only using all the other motives to arrive at this end” mean that we cannot care about those motives themselves?
Nov 10, 7:55 PM
Ruth (Guest): God is good. He always gives us the graces we need. Trouble always comes in US, in accepting them, and His will for us. Making profession is a way of saying YES to all He has in store, in this particular situation — that is, of accepting the graces.
Nov 10, 7:56 PM
Dawn (Guest): He allows things, or not ,which will aid us in growing in holiness . in all things give thanks!
Nov 10, 7:59 PM
Ruth (Guest): I don’t think it does, Sister. It is as if Love is the matrix in which we live and move and do all the rest. The “lesser” — but good — motives make for the concrete expression of that love in a particular situation.
Nov 10, 8:00 PM
Sister Susan Marie (Moderator): Good explanation!
Nov 10, 8:02 PM
Ruth (Guest): “We perfume all those other motives with the holy sweetness of love,” says it well, too.
Nov 10, 8:03 PM
Carol Ann: Does this atone for those times that our motives might be more mixed?
Nov 10, 8:04 PM
Sister Susan Marie (Moderator): Perhaps if we offer it as such???
Nov 10, 8:06 PM
Carol Ann: It is hard to truly, deeply examine ones own motives, but we can always try to purify them before we act
Nov 10, 8:06 PM
Ruth (Guest): I wonder if those “mixed” motives need atonement? Think of SFdS example of singing in order to please God. Don’t we also sing because we love to sing? Usually, anyway. And that love of singing helps us to be better singers — usually, anyway, I would think.
Nov 10, 8:07 PM
Ruth (Guest): Using the gifts God gives us is a way of giving Him glory.
Nov 10, 8:07 PM
Sister Susan Marie (Moderator): We here talk about mixed motives when we enter religious life as God using all these elements to bring us to where He wants us
Nov 10, 8:08 PM
Carol Ann: So someone might enter religious life because their family wished it, and then grow to love it?
Nov 10, 8:09 PM
Jennifer Koo: That must be hard to enter religious life for the wish of others
Nov 10, 8:10 PM
Ruth (Guest): The Rule of Benedict, originally, was written to help “tame” wild 14 year old boys sent there by their parents!
Nov 10, 8:10 PM
Sister Susan Marie (Moderator): That happened with the great grandaughter of St jane herself
Nov 10, 8:11 PM
Sister Susan Marie (Moderator): The family put the child in as a boarder and later became a Visitandine and I believe Superior
Nov 10, 8:11 PM
Ruth (Guest): Tell us more about this great granddaughter, Sister.
Nov 10, 8:12 PM
Jennifer Koo: But I suppose she chose to join out of her free will
Nov 10, 8:13 PM
Ruth (Guest): I might also compare it to “arranged” marriages — as in previous centuries in Europe and even today among upper class Indians.
Nov 10, 8:14 PM
Sister Susan Marie (Moderator): Marie Blanche de Grignan was the great-great granddaughter of the Visitation Order’s Foundress, St. Jane de Chantal, and the granddaughter of the famous letter writer, Madame Sevigne. Her mother Francoise, married to François Adhémar de Monteil, comte de Grignan, traveled very often, and left the little girl , born in 1670, with her grandmother Madame Sevigne, who cherished her.As was common in those days, children of the nobility were often placed in the care of religious in boarding schools where they ob
Nov 10, 8:14 PM
Sister Susan
Marie (Moderator): obtained a fine education.
Such was the situation with Marie-Blanche who at nearly six years old was sent
to the boarding academy of the Visitation Nuns of the First Monastery of the
Visitation in Aix-en-Provence.
In her case, she never left!
Between 16 and 18 years of age, she pronounced her vows as a Visitation Nun,
and remained in the same community in Aix until her death at 61 years old in
1730.
Nov 10, 8:15 PM
Sister Susan Marie (Moderator): she lived her whole life as a monastic and was even elected Superior. The Annee Sainte publication, Tome X, with the brief story of her life shows her to be a model religious.This sister did not degenerate from her illustrious origin, and, abandoning vain grandeur, all her ambition was to follow the footsteps of her illustrious great great grandmother, our holy Mother Jane de Chantal. Her talents led her to be given various charges in the Monastery: portress, infirmarian, bursar, sacristan, assistant to th
Nov 10, 8:15 PM
Sister Susan Marie (Moderator): Superior, and towards the end of her life, Superior. She died a holy death after tremendous suffering, in 1730.
Nov 10, 8:15 PM
Carol Ann: My thought was to live life by the hours of prayer, centered on God, with the church calendar supreme over the secular. Quiet, simple. But God keeps putting me back where it’s noisy and chaotic and not always safe
Nov 10, 8:16 PM
Ruth (Guest): I once had a female physician from India as a student. Her marriage had been arranged by her parents — and the parents of her husband. It was a good marriage, she felt. She said that that was partly because of the good choices of her parents, and partly because of reasonable expectations of the newlyweds — that they grew to become really loving partners.
Nov 10, 8:17 PM
Jennifer Koo: I know a Benedictine sister who went to a school run by the sisters and join at her teen age
Nov 10, 8:17 PM
Dawn (Guest): Thank you Sr Susan, very interesting.
Nov 10, 8:17 PM
Sister Susan Marie (Moderator): Not safe, Carole Anne
Nov 10, 8:18 PM
Sister Susan Marie (Moderator): How do you mean that
Nov 10, 8:18 PM
Jennifer Koo: Thank you Mother for the story of Marie-Blanche
Nov 10, 8:19 PM
Carol Ann: In my job, I see all sorts of people, mostly kind. But some are not, and can be quiet cruel
Nov 10, 8:20 PM
Dawn (Guest): like in nursing…
Nov 10, 8:20 PM
Carol Ann: I love this story, Sister, thank you! It sounds like the ideal life for me!
Nov 10, 8:21 PM
Ruth (Guest): Thank you. Yes, it is interesting how variously God leads people to exactly where they can best become the people they were meant to be!
Nov 10, 8:22 PM
Dawn (Guest): sometimes, when you are living out what you believed was Gods will…and was for awhile, things can suddenly change. I imagine life in a monastary is more predictable….but then not always! so I retract that statement
Nov 10, 8:22 PM
Ruth (Guest): IF they accept the Divine Will and try to live lovingly.
Nov 10, 8:23 PM
Sister Susan Marie (Moderator): Yes!
Nov 10, 8:23 PM
Sister Susan Marie (Moderator): Last Q How can someone love virtue but not charity? How can we commit all of our daily actions to God? How does the Morning Offering p
Nov 10, 8:23 PM
Sister Susan Marie (Moderator): prayer fit into this
Nov 10, 8:24 PM
Carol Ann: Morning prayer begins our day with the focus on God. If we pray sincerely for His help and blessing even in the human moments when we forget He is there
Nov 10, 8:26 PM
Dawn (Guest): I think it is important to not focus on our feelings so much
Nov 10, 8:27 PM
Carol Ann: You are right
Nov 10, 8:28 PM
Sister Susan Marie (Moderator): I think as we mentioned in the past on virtue, the Stoics respected virtue on their own terms but not charity, so the virtue was not perhaps true virtue
Nov 10, 8:28 PM
Ruth (Guest): Forming good intentions, and asking God for help to carry them out — daily in the morning, many times throughout the day, or even before we lose our ability (if this should be our lot) to form intentions. These questions relate back to earlier discussions of intentions.
Nov 10, 8:28 PM
Sister Susan Marie (Moderator): I think virtue and charity go together
Nov 10, 8:29 PM
Sister Susan Marie (Moderator): and prayer helps us grow in both
Nov 10, 8:29 PM
Jennifer Koo: Tonight I were too busy, never get to sit at the computer for long. Missing most of the discussions. Good night and have a blessed week.
Nov 10, 8:30 PM
Ruth (Guest): That is a good example, Sister — the Stoics. At first question #3 seemed to me rhetorical.
Nov 10, 8:30 PM
Dawn (Guest): good night Jennifer!
Nov 10, 8:30 PM
Carol Ann: Good night Jennifer!
Nov 10, 8:31 PM
Sister Susan Marie (Moderator): Have a blessed week, all!
Nov 10, 8:31 PM
Dawn (Guest): goodnight everyone.thank you and God Bless us!
Nov 10, 8:31 PM
Carol Ann: Good night Sister, good night Dawn
Nov 10, 8:32 PM
Carol Ann: Still there Ruth?
Nov 10, 8:33 PM
Ruth (Guest): It is good that these chats are always at the same time, same day. It makes it a bit easier to carve out the time it takes — although I am often late. One of the very attractive things about monastic life is that the prayer times generally take precedence over all else.
Nov 10, 8:33 PM
Ruth (Guest): Yes, Carol Ann.
Nov 10, 8:34 PM
Carol Ann: You and I think so much alike. Prayer does come first in the monastery
Nov 10, 8:35 PM
Carol Ann: And you are not punished for taking the time out to pray
Nov 10, 8:35 PM
Ruth (Guest): I’m almost always a step or two behind. It amazes me how Sister Susan is able to be so REGULAR, punctual. I think I used to be better at it.
Nov 10, 8:37 PM
Carol Ann: I know I was once also, but now I find I am getting places either just barely on time or a couple minutes late
Nov 10, 8:38 PM
Ruth (Guest): Carol Ann, I imagine that even in the monastery, however, you need to “fit” your prayer times into the prescribed schedule. Even lection divina. I am so slow, now, that I think I’d have trouble “finishing” my prayers at the prescribed times. Not that one is ever finished. Maybe it becomes easier because you know you can come back at another prescribed prayer time.
Nov 10, 8:39 PM
Carol Ann: I see what you are saying. Some of the monasteries I visited were extremely regimented. One visit the inquirers were making jokes about Benedictine boot camp
Nov 10, 8:40 PM
Ruth (Guest):
Nov 10, 8:41 PM
Carol Ann: Alas, the Benedictines themselves were not amused
Nov 10, 8:42 PM
Ruth (Guest): And that is essentially the way the Rule of Benedict worked originally. I think that with “interpretation” most Benedictine monasteries have adapted the Rule to the present situation.
Nov 10, 8:43 PM
Carol Ann: Yes, it is both rigid and flexible at the same time.
Nov 10, 8:43 PM
Ruth (Guest): I wonder if those humorless Benedictines are seeing their monastery grow.
Nov 10, 8:46 PM
Carol Ann: They were one of the modernized ones that were allowing older vocations, which is how I snuck in there. I don’t think it grew much, because the vocation director commented that no visitors wrote afterwards expressing interest in them. I asked if they wrote to potential candidates expressing interest in them. She said no.
Nov 10, 8:47 PM
Ruth (Guest): I once had to “humor” a mistress of novices by staying longer than I intended. I was only a guest, spending a week or so of my Advent plus a few days of the Christmas season at a monastery in Munich while preparing for medical school exams. I attended all prescribed the prayer times — sitting in the area designated for guests — including some who came from the neighborhood and left right after the prayers/Mass, etc.
Nov 10, 8:47 PM
Carol Ann: So I informed her that she wasn’t hearing from us because we were not hearing from them. She didn’t like that either
Nov 10, 8:48 PM
Carol Ann: Ooh, what fun, a monastery in Munich!
Nov 10, 8:48 PM
Ruth (Guest): Lack of humor, lack of humility!
Nov 10, 8:50 PM
Carol Ann: It seemed to be a common thread. But it was that same place where the retired prioress noticed something about me and called me aside for a private chat
Nov 10, 8:51 PM
Carol Ann: Set me on the path to my two directors and ultimately changedc my life
Nov 10, 8:52 PM
Carol Ann: Of course I both on trouble from the vocation director for skipping mandatory recreation. The fact that thevprioress had ordered me elsewhere was no excuse. Seems I had a problem with obedience!
Nov 10, 8:53 PM
Ruth (Guest): I was studying medicine in Munich at the time. I hadn’t the least interest in “entering” the monastery, at least not at that point in time, and certainly not after I got to know how things were there (long story).
Nov 10, 8:54 PM
Carol Ann: Some day we will have to meet each other and tell each other our stories
Nov 10, 8:54 PM
Ruth (Guest): O, my goodness! Failing obedience “test” for being obedient and not attending recreation! Yikes! Glad all worked out well for you, Carol Ann.
Nov 10, 8:55 PM
Carol Ann: Sr Judith understood what was happening to me but wasn’t able to help as I wasn’t hers
Nov 10, 8:56 PM
Ruth (Guest): My test involved helping the Mistress of Novices save face by my staying on at the monastery longer than I intended. Here’s what happened:
Nov 10, 8:57 PM
Carol Ann: Yes, we were given a schedule that was filled from 5:30 am til mandatory bedtime. Every 15 minutes. I kept expecting to heasr them blow reveille in the morning
Nov 10, 9:00 PM
Ruth (Guest): After a while, the mistress of novices asked me [ — reveille! ] if I would like to sit in the choir — where the sisters and novices and postulants sat — in a very strict order/seat assignment. I agreed to do so and was assigned a place.
Nov 10, 9:03 PM
Carol Ann: At the end of the week I asked when we were supposed to have squeezed in the contemplative prayer and was told it was the time right after breakfast. The only time we had to take a shower…
Nov 10, 9:06 PM
Ruth (Guest): When it came time for me to go home, and I began my good-byes on the date we had agreed to even before I came, the mistress of novices told me very emphatically: “You can’t go now. You are a novice! I had to present you to eveyone in the monastery and we took a vote before I invited you to sit in the choir. That means you are one of us! It would be very embarrassing if you left now. . . ”
Nov 10, 9:07 PM
Carol Ann: You became a novice without being a postulant? Wow!
Nov 10, 9:07 PM
Carol Ann: How was that even possible?
Nov 10, 9:16 PM
Ruth (Guest): I had not once been asked directly nor expressed any interest in joining the monastery. I had my “work” cut out for me as a medical student — and I had even had the assistance of a sister in a different convent, one whose role it was to decide which sisters went on for further studies, in discerning God’s Will for me in undertaking my medical studies. (I was already a teacher and working in medical research.) Opps! My error, here: she must have said I was a postulant. I had not understood her “code l
Nov 10, 9:19 PM
Ruth (Guest): “code language,” that, at least in her mind, my accepting her offer to sit in the choir, instead of with the more transient guests in a sort of side wing of the chapel, was tantamount to accepting an invitation to become a member of the monastery.
Nov 10, 9:22 PM
Carol Ann: It might have been in her hi d, I can see how it would be, but talk about miscommunication!
Nov 10, 9:23 PM
Carol Ann: Though in some places we did sit in the choir for prayer–whwn it was just the sisters
Nov 10, 9:25 PM
Ruth (Guest): So, to save her the embarrassment of having to tell the rest of the sisters that there had been a misunderstanding, and that she had never discussed with me whether or not I wanted to join the monastery or discerned that it was God’s will for me, or what that would involve, I agreed to stay a couple more weeks, into the New Year, was invited to a meeting where the singing in Latin of the responses/prayers was practiced and to a meeting where the Prioress gave out calendars. I also had access to a priest
Nov 10, 9:26 PM
Carol Ann: So you went ahead and got an unparalleled crack at discernment
Nov 10, 9:27 PM
Ruth (Guest): a confessor-professor who lived there. When I did leave, it then looked like it was MY choice to LEAVE the monastery/postulancy, not her lack of clarity in inviting me to “sit in the choir.”
Nov 10, 9:28 PM
Carol Ann: Very clever really
Nov 10, 9:34 PM
Ruth (Guest): Actually, I mostly enjoyed being there, but even to this day, when I would consider — again ( I had considered it long before that ) entering a religious community, even a monastery, IF they would take me, I remain quite clear that that particular one was NOT where God wanted me to be: a remarkably unhealthy atmosphere, psychologically and probably also spiritually in spite of the structured prayer life.
Nov 10, 9:35 PM
Carol Ann: I’ve come across that situation too, but I didn’t have enough info to avoid it
Nov 10, 9:36 PM
Carol Ann: Well, it is getting late where you are so I should probably let you go
Nov 10, 9:41 PM
Ruth (Guest): My “discernment” that that place was NOT for me was confirmed by my spiritual director — a famous Jesuit author/professor and editor or Zeit und Geist, a German spiritual journal. He knew the community and certain members of it very well and later shared with me about the situation there — some things I’d pretty much already observed. Still, it turned out to be a good experience for me. In the night before the Feast of the Circumcision [now the Feast of the Mother of God] I wrote the only poem I’d ever
Nov 10, 9:42 PM
Ruth (Guest): written in German.
Nov 10, 9:43 PM
Carol Ann: I’m glad there was so much positive about the situation, and that you didn’t stay
Nov 10, 9:44 PM
Carol Ann: How fun to write poetry in German
Nov 10, 9:44 PM
Ruth (Guest): the rest of what I wrote here was cut off. (I wish there’d be an indication of when one is writing more than is allowed in one block) Rather than re-creating what I wrote here, I think you are right, I’d better sign off for now. It is late. Nice chatting with you.
Nov 10, 9:45 PM
Carol Ann: I miss our chats. Must find your email address!
Nov 10, 9:45 PM
Ruth (Guest): The first few stanzas of the poem were “given” to me. I just awoke at midnight and they were there, in my head. I had to write them down.
Nov 10, 9:46 PM
Carol Ann: Our viewer is gone too. May you have a blessed week!
Nov 10, 9:46 PM
Carol Ann: A gift out the Spirit
Nov 10, 9:47 PM
Ruth (Guest): You, too, Carol. A blessed week! I am so happy for you that you are finding it a bit easier as a professed.
Nov 10, 9:48 PM
Carol Ann: Makes it stickier at work, haha
Nov 10, 9:48 PM
Carol Ann: I must find your email again so we can talk more
Nov 10, 9:51 PM
Ruth (Guest): Yes, stay in touch. But please forgive me if I do not respond promptly. And sometimes I even miss important e-mails. My life of late — a year almost to the day — has not been what I would have planned, but I am probably, in spite of health issues, happier than I’ve been in a long, long, time; I think it is because I may be learning to TRUST God more.
Nov 10, 9:52 PM
Ruth (Guest): If I find yours quickly I’ll e-mail you so that you have it. Good night. God bless you!
Nov 11, 12:44 AM
brian (Guest): Sorry I missed Chat tonight ! God Bless You All 11 Keep Shining for Jesus !!! Please Keep our Kairos Prison Ministry Ladies Group At Albion Correctional in your prayers . Their four day retreat in prison begins Thursday through Sunday this week . Should be around 35 new ladies participating for first time in Kairos Community !!!
Nov 11, 12:46 AM
brian (Guest): God Bless You All !!!