Pages from the Past: the Eleventh Hour Workers

This parable highlights a shift from a contractual relationship (I’ll do this much; you’ll recompense me that much) to a relationship based on trust: I will trust you to pay what is fair; you pledge yourself to be merciful and generous. And the “equal recompense” is Jesus, whole and entire.

I have to admit that this connected with me on the level of “the worker is worth his wage” and the other passage about wages, “when one fulfills the Law he gets what is due… but when one trusts…” that trust is “credited as righteousness.” 

God considers his laborers to be worth their wage; he guarantees “what is fair.”

"Pages from the Past" are randomish excerpts from my old journals. I process things in writing, so there were a lot of volumes, but here and there I found notes that were still pertinent or helpful. I got rid of the books (hello, shredder!) and typed up the things I wanted to save, whether for myself (mostly) or to share. 

Our Rosary Novena archive and a Nunblogger update

We completed our online Rosary novena last Friday, the 100th anniversary of Mary's final appearance to the three children of Fatima. It was an intense nine days for me and the sisters in the digital department here in Boston: we were the scriptwriters, the producers, and the on-screen talent twice a day. The "set" was the "office/studio/chapel" in our conference and break room. We liked it so much that we're keeping the curtain and lighting up for future, more impromptu video broadcasts. (Alas, the lovely statue of Our Lady of Fatima had to be returned to the community!)

Behind the scenes (mostly), I was thrilled to see the numbers of people who were joining us in real time for the prayer sessions. One evening there were 14,000 "views" (our video was seen, if only for a few seconds, by 14,000 people); by the next morning that number had soared to 30,000. A rapid succession of prayer intentions was monitored by Sr Mary Elizabeth in the next office. As I inserted images of Jesus and Mary into the video stream, little hearts and "likes" went flying across the screen, acts of love of God sent by the hundreds from those viewers. Images of Jesus in his sorrowful mysteries drew the greatest response of loving devotion. It was very moving for me to be a part of that.

Since we broadcast the Rosary on Facebook Live, the videos are all archived--which means that you can pray the Rosary with us whenever you want! As the days went on, I got better at using the "studio" software. At first I thought I was doing enough by putting a piece of art with each mystery, but by the final days I was adding music, too. (Sr Kathryn or Sr Marie Paul was at the next computer, monitoring the live feed to make sure all went well, and to let me know when the music was too soft--or too LOUD!)

The videos contain the whole of our Mission Appeal as well as the Rosary (we are nowhere near our fundraising goal, so the donation box remains open!), but you can always skip right to the chase and begin the prayers about 6 minutes in. In each Rosary, one mystery was singled out for special treatment with a personal reflection from one of the sisters on her favorite Rosary mystery.

One lasting fruit of this experience is that since the novena ended, Sister Kathryn or Sister Marie Paul now offer a reflective moment of prayer each evening on the Ask a Catholic Nun Facebook page. (Sister Martha has been offering a prayer each morning on the same page since about spring.) The morning prayer is usually around 9:00 Eastern Time; the evening reflection is at 8:00 Eastern Time. You can also scout around our video archives on Facebook to find other treatments of the mysteries of the Rosary; I selected for the blog those that featured music.

The next big thing on the Nunblogger calendar is our Christmas concert series, extended this year to New Orleans (home!) and Culver City, CA (Los Angeles). I hope that if you have been hearing about the concert for years and live in driving distance of any of the venues that we will have a chance to meet!

Pray the Rosary with Us!

The Joyful Mysteries




The Luminous Mysteries




The Sorrowful Mysteries




The Glorious Mysteries

Pages from the Past: Two Women of Great Faith

From 2013? Written as a prayer to Jesus.

Andreas Herrlein [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Today’s Gospel of the Syro-Phoenician woman absolutely delights me, as her faith delighted you, Jesus. I “heard” it today in a TOB context, in which she appears unexpectedly to you, as Eve did for Adam, suddenly revealed in her vulnerability and openness as a “helper fit” for you. Her faith corresponds in such a way to your gift of self in your ministry as to suddenly manifest the communion of persons that this life is all about. She was “bone of your bone and flesh of your flesh” and your “O woman! Great is your faith!” was the cry of the new Adam on seeing—finally—someone who corresponded to his call.

Mary at Cana is exactly the same kind of “fit helper.” And probably every bit as spunky and wry, giving as good as she got.

The Wedding at Cana; Mosaic by Ivan Rupnik, SJ; 
Photo by Lawrence Lew, OP

Where you told the Syro-Phoenician that “the children’s food cannot be given to little dogs,” you told your own mother that the problem she was bringing up was not  your problem. And both women of great faith turned the tables on you. (It is also interesting that both stories involve the image of food—one of bread, the other of wine. And there is Jesus, the real food, in the middle.)

“Woman, great is your faith!” is like the cry of the woman sweeping her house and suddenly—there it is! the coin she had lost! “Rejoice with me; I have found the coin I lost!” Delight, surprise, dancing, celebration, acknowledgment to all others around.

I ask, on the basis of nothing more than the fact that you desire it and that it can be for your Father’s glory, that my faith might become such as to reveal me a “fit helper” at  your side, and will cause you to explode with amazement and joy and delight and acknowledgement. I’m not giving you much to work from, with my measly, nervous, cerebral faith. I guess you yourself will have to provide…the rib for my faith to be built on.

I asked for a kind of confirmation sign of this insight. Later that day I dumped onto my retreat house desk the contents of a little bag of adapters and a small silver coin with a Hebrew inscription rolled out; it turned out to be a shekel. (I have no idea how it ended up in my adapter pouch. It’s a keeper, for sure!)

Duly noted: “to be conformed to the image of the Son” hints that being made into “a helper like himself” is a process that extends through our life (and through time, for the “we” of the Church). It’s not simply a one by one, individual, atomized thing.



"Pages from the Past" are randomish excerpts from my old journals. I process things in writing, so there were a lot of volumes, but here and there I found notes that were still pertinent or helpful. I got rid of the books (hello, shredder!) and typed up the things I wanted to save, whether for myself (mostly) or to share.

On Icons, the Amish and Me

Relics, left to right: Bl. Francis X Seelos, St.
Peter Chanel (above globe), St. Therese,  St
Maria Goretti, St Ignatius of Loyola (at the 
feet of O.L. of Montserrat!). Bl Alberione's
relic is out visiting the sick.

Since I moved here to Boston (almost three years ago?!) and set up my little "altar" in the office, I have wanted to provide the saints' relics and statues a somewhat more dignified treatment than having them perennially posed upon a plastic spice rack. And so after a twenty year gap, I again picked up my embroidery thread and cross-stitch fabric to make an ecclesiastical style carpet for the office shrine. I determined on a motif of fleur-de-lis and crosses, in colors truly fitting the nobility of the persons represented on those plastic risers.

Part of the fun of cross-stitch for me is making my own pattern, even if it is cobbled together from bits I found online. So I found a basic fleur-de-lis pattern and enhanced it with some shading. (I'm still working on what kind of border to use, but I definitely want one!) I chose regal colors: gold and burgundy (you can't see it yet; that will be the background), and then I started stitching away.

The pattern I came up with calls for eight fleur-de-lis surrounded by randomly positioned Greek crosses. I finished the last of the fleurs last week, and I can assure you that no two are exactly alike.

That was not the plan.


My sister Mary tells me, "That's the charm of handmade items." The sisters here assure me, "The Amish always put an error in their quilting." Granted. And from time immemorial, iconographers have always left an incomplete patch on the image as a sign of human imperfection. I suppose I have surpassed them all, since I do not need to include a deliberate inconsistency in my needlework!

One day, when the burgundy has filled the background, and the fleurs-de-lis and crosses have been outlined and gold, and the blessed saints and martyrs have taken their place on it, not even I will see the manifold mistakes that will have been so carefully stitched on the Aida fabric. Even now, just seeing the crosses start to fill out the background gives me a little thrill. And as I look at it (with all the mistakes only I can see), I have to admit: God sees our life like this. He knows the original plan; he sees the misplaced stitches--and yet he still finds joy in having us as his children.

And we with all our fumbling, all our errors and even sins, are still giving him glory.

Fatima Rosary Novena--and an Invitation

This week the community will kick off our 2017 mission campaign with a Rosary Novena that will conclude on the evening of October 13--the 100th anniversary of the final apparition of Our Lady at Fatima (the day of the "Miracle of the Sun"). When we looked at Our Lady's exhortations from Fatima, and the headlines in our papers to this day, the mission campaign theme seems more sadly appropriate than we had planned: The Word Heals.

I was remembering what happened after Hurricane Katrina which largely spared the Pauline bookstore. (Our building sustained roof damage, and there was some wind-driven water damage in the chapel, but the flood waters never crossed the threshold.) As people moved back into the city and began stripping away the moldy drywall and putting soaked couches and cabinetry out for pickup, they started visiting our bookstore. People wanted to rebuild family libraries, starting from the most important books. There was a run on Bibles. One by one, the area's Adoration chapels reopened starting with a few hours each day. (It would be a year before perpetual adoration had fully resumed in New Orleans.)

With all the destruction that was before everyone's eyes, people knew it wasn't enough to rebuild homes. Hearts needed rebuilding, too. And the first place they looked was to the Word of God in the Scriptures and in the Eucharist.

Right now our country is desperate for healing in several places: Houston (remember that?) is still, yes, hauling moldy drywall and furniture out from millions of homes, while in Puerto Rico people are still without power, and in Las Vegas thousands are reeling from the shock of one man's murderous rage. And these are only the most obvious examples, from only one country in a world that is hurting all over.

The material needs are many, and they can be overwhelming. Invisible needs are even bigger, and
harder to identify.

You already know how far our mission can reach!

During our Rosary Novena, we will pray each day in a special way for people in need of a different kind of spiritual healing. You can send in your special intentions, too, and we will be praying three times a day for those needs. We'll also be sharing stories of how the Pauline mission has touched people in need of healing (sometimes in dramatic ways) and projects we are working on right now to reach still more people.

Often the projects that are meant to do the most good are precisely the ones we cannot expect will even cover the costs of producing them. So part of #thewordheals mission campaign will be inviting Catholics and other people of good will to help raise funds for the Pauline mission. We are using a really easy format that allows anyone to create a fundraising web page for sharing on social media. All they have to do is sign up and begin sharing daily updates, using the images that we have already created. Donations go straight to the Pauline mission; there is no hassle at all for collaborators.

Fundraising experts say that the number one reason people donate to a charity is because someone asked them. You may not be in a position to donate to #theWordHeals (you may be in Houston with a houseful of wet books, like my cousin) but you can be a part of bringing a healing word to others simply by creating one of those pages and sharing it with your social media circles or email contacts.  A Pauline lay cooperator who set up a page this morning has already inspired people to donate--and the campaign hasn't started yet! (It couldn't be easier; I just made a page myself in two clicks.)

So start this low-key fundraising with us, and then starting Thursday (Oct 5), go to #theWordHeals to pray with us three times a day: a short day-starter with Sr Mary Martha around 8 a.m. (Eastern Time); the noontime Angelus with me and the other sisters here in the Digital offices at the Pauline motherhouse; and an evening Rosary at 8 p.m. with sisters from the motherhouse. (You can also follow the prayers via Facebook at the Ask a Catholic Nun page.)

See you then!
And thanks.

Sr Julia's Movie Recommendation for Therese's Feast Day

Over the summer, Sr Julia Mary made a phenomenal discovery: a movie version of St Therese's autobiographical Story of a Soul, with all the parts interpreted by the same actress. 

As far as I can tell, you can only get it digitally (by streaming it or buying a digital copy on Amazon; if you have Prime, you can stream it for free). And you have to be content with French audio and English footnotes. 

You'll be glad you did.