Motherhouse Moments: Mission Day!

I would have to be obtuse indeed not to have gotten the Lord's hint that today would be a good day to reflect on the meaning of the call to evangelize. First off, it was in the Gospel: after a series of miracles in Peter's village, Jesus was being sought by "the crowds" who wanted him to stick around. "But he said to them, 'To the other towns also I must proclaim the good news of the Kingdom of God, because for this purpose I have been sent'."

Sr Ancilla Christine and Sr Kathryn James
(awaiting the blessing of the Portuguese apostolate).

At our community Mass, after the homily there was a missioning ceremony for one of the sisters who is being transferred to Rome. A second sister left for her new assignment (Miami: what a suffering!) where she will be the director of our Spanish language distribution service. (If you are a bookstore owner who wants to carry Catholic material in Spanish, this is the "clearinghouse" for imported titles.)

At breakfast, I ran into Sr Ancilla Christine, who just finished a family visit in her native Wisconsin and will be returning to Germany, where she has been stationed for going on ten years.

Padre Eduardo blesses the tiny Portuguese
"book center" as the community looks on.

In the afternoon, there was a second Mass, to which all our employees were invited--it marked the launching of the publishing house's new tag line, "Discover Hope" (which matched the first reading perfectly). After that Mass, I went down the hall to our new Portuguese-language media center (tucked away near the front entrance, all of 40 square feet). The priest in charge of the Brazilian apostolate came to bless the new service, for which our community in Brazil sent two missionary sisters. They have been in the US only since June, but have already become a vibrant part of the Brazilian Catholic scene in New England.
All in all, a day of witnessing sisters following the example of Jesus and accepting the challenge of the Gospel: " I must proclaim the good news of the Kingdom of God, because for this purpose I have been sent."