The Sisters Corner

Hi! I am Sister Monica and I am very happy to share with you that I moved to Tempe last week to join my sisters in their mission here. It is a real blessing for me to be able to serve in Our Lady of Mount Carmel and I am very much looking forward to meeting all of you. Everyone I have met so far has been very welcoming and I already feel very much at home!

We are entering the month of  May and in many countries throughout the world,  we celebrate the memory of Our Lady with special devotions. Some countries in South America, for example in Chile, the schools and some companies all the activities are halted. Time is scheduled to gather all together, dedicated to  honoring our Mother with special prayers. In Peru, Ecuador and other countries, where some of us are from, we have big processions in the streets and people sing beautiful songs with a lot of love and emotion with a very special and strong devotion to her.

Easter is a time of hope. The light of Christ’s Resurrection has overcome all darkness. So, what is hope?

Hope is theological virtue; a gift bestowed by God through which one trusts God will grant us eternal life. Our hope is deposited in God’s promises to take us to heaven. This very hope brings us joy, a joy so deep that no one can take it away.  Our work is to never lose this hope and to let it shine through us.

The Divine Mercy Sunday is a beautiful celebration in the Church, rooted in God’s wonderful love for all of  humanity. 

After praying and discerning about how to celebrate on a deeper level for this feast in our Church, we (my team and I ) decided to host a Divine Mercy Celebration open to all the children of the parish so as to spread God’s merciful love to all. 

It has been such a wonderful blessing for me to witness the ways God has been present and working in the lives of all the RCIA participants during this past year. Some of the many amazing graces have been witnessing as they were getting baptized, receiving Confirmation and First Holy Communion, then fully belonging to the Catholic Church.

Today is a great day to remember God's Mercy for all the Church. God invites us; through Sister Faustina, the story of the Church and throughout the Story of Salvation, to open our hearts to His Merciful love for all of humankind.

In our charism as Servants of the Plan of God, it's very important to us that we have present in our lives the Mercy of God. We have a devotion to the Master of Mercy. It's an image of the Child Jesus that from his chest he takes his own heart to give it to us freely. When you look at His child face, He's with a smile, showing us that He is happy to do it. When we see a child we can't help but to receive the love from the child. That's why He wants us to perceive Him as a little child.

During this Lenten time, we have experienced God's love and grace in our hearts working differently both individually and as a community. We also experienced, through our different ministries, the grace of God’s work in those we serve as part of the parish and school.

"Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me" Mt 25:40

As we begin Holy Week and it is the Lord who invites us, in many ways, to accompany Him during the days of his Passion and death through His resurrection.

This past weekend Pope Francis invited our church to have “24 hours with the Lord” in Adoration to the Blessed Sacrament and confessions. Some of us had the opportunity to participate in a retreat for consecrated sisters in Phoenix where we could participate in this beautiful initiative of the Church,  thus receiving the mercy and love of God.

During this Lenten season, we remember our brothers and sisters who are being persecuted. We have a song, that gives honor to them, called Heroes. Even though it’s in Spanish and you can listen to it online. Below, are the translated lyrics. We ask you to meditate on the words while reading. Please pray for our brothers and sisters around the  world who are dying for their faith.  The picture in the bulletin is the Nazarene symbol (Isis put this mark on Christian houses) (look familiar?)

This Lent, God asks each of us to have our hearts opened to receive His grace and, as Pope Francis has said, “to keep it not cold for the needs of our brothers and sisters, especially those who are poor.”

Today we share with you some of the service and evangelization that our sisters in our community perform in Angola, Africa. In Angola, Africa,  one of our sisters is working in a hospital as a doctor. The need there is very vast. Daily she treats babies and children who are malnourished and with many diseases that perhaps in our countries people would not die of. In Angola, they die due to the shortage of medicines.