Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception

Yesterday was the Patronal Feast of The Sisters of Our Lady Immaculate. We wish for each of you the Blessing of Almighty God through the intercession of His Most Holy Mother Mary! We had a beautiful Mass this morning with Father Higgins and at the end of Mass our entire Community renewed its Total Consecration to the Blessed Virgin Mary in the spirit of St Louis de Montfort. We place ourselves in the loving hands of Our Lady Immaculate and ask her to draw both you, our friends, and our little community ever deeper into the heart of her Son and that we may love Him with her own Immaculate Heart.

Father Ryan ~ " I believe that in spite of the many evils of our present day, one of the many reasons for us to feel fortunate to be living in the present century is that we have such a great help through this emphasis on devotion to Mary, and by making our spiritual life based on devotion to Mary, we will find a wonderful means to grow in our love for our Lord".

 O Mary Conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to Thee.

Days of Discernment - Peterborough ON

 
The Church and the world need courageous, competent, committed religious women for a new era of evangelization! 

This past weekend, Sister Elizabeth Marie and Sister Teresa Joseph were invited by Father Norbert Glasmacher, director of the Vocations, Evangelization and Youth Office (VEYO) in the Diocese of Peterborough, ON,  to participate in their first Days of Discernment weekend held for young women at the VEYO Center in Peterborough.  The young women listened to talks on what a vocation is, the different forms of consecrated life within the Church, the three evangelical counsels by Father Norbert, discernment (given by Father Tom Lynch of the diocese), and heard from the sisters about their own vocations and Religious Community with ample opportunity for questions and answers concerning the consecrated life.

A Vocation Vacation

SOLI welcomes the York University's Catholic Chaplaincy 

Vocation Vacationers!

This past weekend the SOLI Community enjoyed hosting of a number of young women from the Catholic Chaplaincy of York University in Toronto who had bravely ventured out on a Vocation Vacation! Together with their chaplain Father Daren Bryk , of the Companions of the Cross, and Mrs. Sam Cummings, assistant chaplain, the seven university students came to Cambridge to check out what a day in the life of a SOLI sister might be like! This was actually our third hosting of vocation vacationers!

From Friday evening until Sunday morning the group joined the sisters in their daily prayers and duties, listened to a number of talks by individaul sisters on our Community's charism, foundation, history, spirituality / prayer life, and on vocations in general with emphesis on religious life and the three Evangelical Counsels. We also had a question and answer session where the sisters shared with the young women their own journey to religious life.  In the evening on Saturday, the girls shared their beautiful gift of music with all of our seniors in Marian Residence Retirement Home.

Be assured vocation vacationers of our continued prayers for you as the Lord leads you toward discernment of His Holy Will in your lives. Open your hearts wide and you will see the Lord fill it with love for His holy will...and the courage to follow it. God bless you!

Mother Dorothy shares about our Foundation

as Sisters of Our Lady Immacuate

and introduces the young women to our Community's Founders

Sharing the gift of Music together

Sister Teresa Joseph enjoyed singing again

with some of her old friends from York University

One of our happy seniors who thoroughly enjoyed the evening of singing! 

Tu Rex Gloriae, Christe!

Tomorrow is the thirty-Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time, and the Last Sunday in the Church's Liturgical Calendar. The Church closes her liturgical year with the celebration of Feast of Christ the King. The Feast was instituted by Pope Pius XI on Dec. 11, 1925 and it is the most recent of feasts in honor of our Lord.

Let us celebrated this Feast Day with the Church in a tone of triumph. Let us rejoice because Jesus our Spouse is the King of the world and the prince of peace. May He reign in our hearts and in our minds with his reign of peace, justice and love. May Christ Our King blessed us all in a special way today and grant us peace in our heart as we move towards the advent that will usher in the great feast of his birth..

A most blessed Feast of Christ the King to each and everyone of you!In Our Lady Immaculate,
Mother Dorothy, SOLI

More Thoughts from Father Ryan for the Year of the Priest

 Father Lloyd Ryan, Co-Founder of SOLI

Priesthood: No man goes to heaven alone

These are just a few of the spiritual notes Father Ryan wrote for himself while still a seminarian. Father was a priest whose everyday life was a passing from prayer to charity towards his neighbour and back to prayer again. For me, reading over his little notebook is always like seeing Father again...everything that he wrote in that little black book so long ago was truly reflected in his priestly life, as many who knew him would agree. His love for Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament, His devotedness to Our Blessed Mother, his love and fidelity to the Church and his vocation to the priesthood, together with his zeal for souls could be said to be his very person. May the Lord grant the Church more holy priests like that of our Beloved Father Ryan.  

The time has passed when a priest can sit back and not take part in civil affairs which concern him. He must get out there and speak and act when cause arises. He must not take a back seat, and let someone else do the talking when he should be doing it. He is a leader, and as such has the obligation to lead his flock well and look after their needs and their rights. He is their shepherd.

Get out among the people. Show them you care for their good, that you wish to help them and are willing to make sacrifices for them. This will win more souls than words from the pulpit. Time, energy, sacrifice of self, though sometimes seemingly in vain, will all have their reward in saving souls.

No man goes to heaven alone. He takes and must take others with him. This is true most of all, as regards a priest, for it is his work to take other souls to heaven, in order to get there himself. Therefore in all your duties, spiritual and temporal, remember our neighbour and never become individualistic. God has made us social beings and given us duties to those around us. Therefore we go to God through and along with our neighbor. Remember this especially in prayer.

In anything we do we must put all our energy into it—the results will be in proportion to the amount of energy and prayer we expend.

Remember always the teaching in “The Soul of the Apostolate”—it is the supernatural, the spiritual force which you have and which you must foster which will make your apostolate fruitful—it is God working through you.

Feast of Our Lady of the Rosary

St. Pius V, after calling on all of Europe to pray to Our Lady for victory,  miraculously witnesses from his window the destruction of the Ottoman fleet at the Battle of Lepanto, on October 7, 1571, a victory won by the power of the rosary. 

The Battle of Lepanto was at first celebrated liturgically as "Our Lady of Victory." Later, the feast of October 7th was renamed "Our Lady of the Rosary" and extended throughout the Universal Church by Pope Clement XI in 1716.

Fall at The Formation House...

The view of Glen Morris from the top of our meadow

 The pond just behind the Formation House

 

The fullness of joy is to behold God in everything. 

-- St. Catherine of Genoa

Life Chain Sunday 09

 Our Lady of Guadalupe,

   Protectress of the Unborn, Pray for us!

Prayer to End Abortion

Lord God I thank You today for the gift of my life,

And for the lives of all my brothers and sisters.

I know that there is nothing that destroys more life than abortion,

Yet I rejoice that you have conquered death

By the resurrection of Your Son.

I am ready to do my part in ending abortion.

Today I commit myself never to be silent,

Never to be passive, never to be forgetful of the unborn.

I commit myself to be active in the pro-life movement

And never to stop defending life. 

This Sunday, together with so many others across the nation, some of our sisters took part in the 2009 Life chain, praying for the end of abortion and for the conversion of those who seek to take the life of the unborn and for healing for those who have already had an abortion. As we stood on the side of the highway this afternoon, silently praying and holding our pro-life signs, I couldn't help but think of St. Francis of Assisi who feast is celebrated on this day, the 4th of October. St. Francis taught his brothers, by his own example, that one's actions can speak louder to another soul than any words one might say.  We pray that the courageous witness of all those who came out today to stand up for the right to life for all our brothers and sisters spoke a powerful and loving message of God's mercy, healing and forgiveness as well as the dignity of each person He has created out of His infinite love. We encourage each of you to try to sign up to take part in the 40 Days for Life going on in your areas as well.  Canadian Abortion Fact Sheet 

 God bless you all!