Archive for January 2017

Today is the feast of St. Angela Merici, the foundress of the Ursuline Sisters. We Sisters of Notre Dame have close connections with the Ursuline Sisters here in Toledo. These sisters and their employees have taken care of our older Sisters with much love for several years. Some Ursuline Sisters, such as Sister Stephanie and…

Between Christmas and Lent the little space of Ordinary Time gives us stories of Jesus’ boyhood and young adulthood. Jesus grows up.  And Jesus goes out—away from the carpenter shop, away from his home town. He heard a call or he felt growing pains or maybe his mother said, “It’s time.” Whatever it was Jesus,…

Many parishes distributed the book Resisting Happiness by Matthew Kelly as Christmas presents. The title and its cover message “why we sabotage ourselves” stop us in our tracks. Who would resist happiness?  Who would sabotage themselves? Yet Kelly writes almost two hundred pages to showhow we really do resist happiness. Each chapter proposes a remedy.…

Recently I was told this true story.  The husband had died in early December. Christmas was a sad time for the bereaved wife, children, and grandchildren. His presence was felt, though, when the wife gave her children and grandchildren pillows made from his shirts. Each had a pocket containing a message reflecting what Dad or…

God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit. That Jesus of Nazareth really was the Anointed One of God was the earliest profession of faith. To be a Christian, one had to believe that Jesus was the Messiah or the Christ (both terms meaning “anointed one”).  The earliest believers in Jesus of Nazareth as…

Sister Maria Ignatia (Lisette Kühling) is the co-foundress of the Sisters of Notre Dame, the faithful friend and co-teacher of Sister Maria Aloysia Wolbring. It is interesting that their birth dates are only one day apart. Of Sister Maria Ignatia it is written “Everything reminded her of God and spoke to her of God’s goodness.” …

On January 9, 1828 Hilligonde Wolbring was born. As her parents held the newborn, they wondered, “What will this child be?” Both parents died before Hillligonde was eight years old. It was only from their heavenly vantage point that they discovered Hilligonde became the foundress of the Sisters of Notre Dame, along with her co-sister…

Badges and identification speak volumes. They shout, “Official!” and “I’m representing something/someone bigger than both of us.” Let’s imagine that each of us wears under our jacket or on our vest a badge that claims “Agent of God’s Reign.” What power we’d feel! How official we’d become! Imagine yourself walking into a situation of conflict.…

Ronald Rolheiser in his book Sacred Fire writes that our emotions, appetites and thoughts are so huge and insatiable because “we have the image and likeness of God inside of us.” And “God is fire, infinite fire, and that infinite fire…is also inside us,” causing our hearts and minds wanting to be everywhere. When Mary…