May 6, Death of Sister Maria Aloysia Wolbring

By Sr. Mary Valerie Schneider | May 6, 2018 | Comments Off on May 6, Death of Sister Maria Aloysia Wolbring

Sister Maria Aloysia Wolbring
Foundress of the Sisters of Notre Dame


On May 6, 1889, the foundress of the Sisters of Notre Dame, died of tuberculosis in Cleveland, Ohio. Due to extreme heat, she needed to be buried quickly, thus not allowing more than a few Sisters to be present at her burial in a common plot in St. Joseph Cemetery. Since the time of her death the Sisters have continued the charism which was her gift to the People of God; namely, trust in God’s goodness and provident care. We are blessed to have eight postulants and 20 novices in Bataan, where we have a House of Formation. These sisters are from Vietnam, Korea, Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, and the Philippines. There are also several sisters in initial formation in the Western Hemisphere, especially the United States and Brazil.
Please pray today to Sister Maria Aloysia that more women will answer the call
to
proclaim God’s goodness and provident care.

The Baptismal Font is a Tomb

By Sr. Mary Valerie Schneider | May 1, 2018 | Comments Off on The Baptismal Font is a Tomb

From the earliest years after Jesus rose from the dead, the tomb has been a symbol of the baptismal font. Just as the women carrying spices wondered how they would ever roll back the stone, the earliest Christians wondered whether they could surmount the impediments to new life in Jesus Christ. Could they roll back their fear of persecution, rejection, and the comfort of a religious path they had known all their lives?

The newly baptized are a month old now. 

At the Easter vigil they faced death as they were baptized into the death of Jesus.
Water dripping from their heads, they rose to new life in Christ.

 

What does that new life mean now?
Is it a new way to spend Sunday mornings perhaps with some inconvenience?
Are they missing their old friends from their former church?
Do they feel welcomed?
Are they learning parishioners’ names?

The reality is that all obstacles have been removed by the power of Jesus’ resurrection.
Let us help the newly baptized and one another feel that nothing separates us from Christ.

The Vine is the Branches

By Sr. Mary Valerie Schneider | April 27, 2018 | Comments Off on The Vine is the Branches

“I am the vine. You are the branches.” Not a horticulturalist, I never stopped to think about what this really meant. I always thought the vine was the more important  structural part of the plant, and the branches were less important—just leaves and stems. But the vine IS the branches. Beatrice Bruteau reminds us that Jesus doesn’t call himself the trunk and we the twigs. Rather she writes: “He is the whole vine, and the vine is its branches, the

branches make up the vine. And his Blood—the wine—flows through the entire system as a unifying stream, a single life principle.” The close union between Jesus Christ and us/me escapes me. I believe He and I are one. I believe that everyone is the extended Body of Christ, that what I do to my neighbor I do to Christ. I get it. It’s just that I don’t really get it. I am almost embarrassed how God has raised me/us up to equality with Him—as christified.

 

 

 

Becoming What We Eat

By Sr. Mary Valerie Schneider | April 17, 2018 | Comments Off on Becoming What We Eat

Within the past couple weeks have you eaten ham or jellybeans or Easter eggs? Those foods have now become yourself. The ham is no longer in the refrigerator or the jellybeans in the candy dish. They are no longer just in us either; they are us. This might not be the most exciting thought for us, but it is profound when we realize how much life-sharing Jesus Christ desires for us. “He wants to mingle his life thoroughly with ours—and of course, ours thoroughly with his” (Bruteau, The Easter Mysteries). And so Jesus gave us the food of the Eucharist, so that he could claim “I am in you and you are in me.” Through the Eucharist we have become the extension of Jesus Christ. Beatrice Bruteau continues: “But when this has happened to each of us, when each of us is engaged in life-sharing with Jesus, then he is living in the whole community of us: his Body has been intimately joined to the body of every person in the community. And since his Body is the most vital and the most vitalizing—the most life-giving—element in any of us, all of us together constitute a kind of extension of his Body.  And that enlarged Body acts as any living body does: it grows and unifies and develops; it supports diversity within itself by being secure in its unity; it operates as a system, without superiors or inferiors.”

Spend some time today reflecting on this:  We are the Body of Christ.

Washing Feet Upsets the Whole Social Order

By Sr. Mary Valerie Schneider | April 11, 2018 | Comments Off on Washing Feet Upsets the Whole Social Order

 

Beatrice Bruteau writes in The Easter Mysteries that we like to keep the roles straight, something Jesus didn’t do when he washed the feet of his horrified apostles. The Lord and Master was acting out of character. Aghast at the improper role undertaken by Jesus, Peter may have said (in Bruteau’s words), “You’ll upset the whole social order by this kind of behavior. We can’t have this. If you start acting like a servant, what are the rest of us supposed to do?  If I let you wash me, why I might even be expected to wash my wife’s feet! People won’t know their place anymore, what their station in life is.” Of course, we know Jesus’ answer: “Go along with this, or don’t be my disciple.” Two thousand years after that famous night when the activity of a servant became inextricably tied to Eucharist and fifty years after Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech, we still cling to our roles, our prestige, our elitism. We really should know our place and keep everyone else in their places—the least ones of whom the Kingdom of Heaven is comprised.

On the Road with Jesus

By Sr. Mary Valerie Schneider | April 5, 2018 | Comments Off on On the Road with Jesus

I love the stories during the Octave of Easter. My favorite is the story of the two disciples walking to Emmaus, scoffing at a Stranger who “does not know of the things that have taken place” but soon becoming quite impressed by the wise Stranger’s understanding of the Scriptures. I like this story so much that I have on file that this story should be read at my funeral, if the occasion lands during the Easter Season. I never tire of the story. I could hear over and over again Jesus’ trick of pretending to go on farther, their discovering Jesus’ identity in the breaking of the bread, and the two apostles’ recognition that each had their hearts burning within them.  Best of all, “they set out at once” to spread the news—the Good News.

Where did you discover Jesus today?  In which stranger? At which meal? And did you spread this Good News?

Friday of HOLY WEEK

By Sr. Mary Valerie Schneider | March 30, 2018 | Comments Off on Friday of HOLY WEEK

Good Friday

Darkness. Emptiness. There is nothing left. That is how it must have been for the disciples. For his friends. Dark. Empty. He was dead. All their hopes were shattered. . . . On Good Friday no one thought about Easter, because Easter hadn’t happened yet, and no one could dream of such an impossible reality.” (Madeleine L’Engle, The Irrational Season)

During my childhood on Good Friday any time not spent in church during the three hours had to be spent in quiet. My parents knew that it was good for us kids to get the feel of darkness, emptiness, sorrow. We learned to “feel with Jesus.” But we knew the end of the story. Fullness.  Light. Life. Hope. We knew the hour of darkness would give way to the dawn of Christ’s day. We were eager to hear: “Come now!  The Risen Lord calls us into his marvelous light!”

Thursday of HOLY WEEK

By Sr. Mary Valerie Schneider | March 29, 2018 | Comments Off on Thursday of HOLY WEEK

First and Always Compassion

Jesus spent his last days on earth doing works of compassion. Jesus could have stayed away from Martha and Mary’s home, but he went to comfort them with the reassuring words that he was the resurrection. Compassion. Although the apostles did the legwork to prepare the Passover meal, Jesus had made arrangements for the Upper Room. Compassion. When the apostles questioned, “Is it I, Lord?” Jesus did not point a finger at Judas; he let the Eleven think Judas had gone to give something to the poor. Compassion. When Jesus needed companionship in his agony, he let Peter, James, and John sleep. Compassion. Jesus stopped along the road to Calvary to speak to the weeping women. Compassion. Mother and Son met. Could there be any other word than compassion (“suffering with”) to describe that meeting?

How can we spend the last days of Lent and the Sacred Triduum in compassion?

Wednesday of HOLY WEEK

By Sr. Mary Valerie Schneider | March 28, 2018 | Comments Off on Wednesday of HOLY WEEK

When Self-Emptying is Self-Acceptance

In Words Made Flesh Fran Ferder writes: “The true kenosis of Jesus lay not in self-abnegation but in self-embrace, saying a consistent and honest yes to all the demands that being fully human made on him. . . And his self-emptying took two forms: profound self-acceptance and radical self-disclosure.” I don’t always want to accept myself as I am. I’m not mathematical or mechanical. I know only the rudiments of technology. I don’t have a green thumb. And I’m not disclosing on a blog my faults. But when I accept myself as I am (though still working on improvement), I give over to God in gratitude the person who I am. The giving-over is a self-emptying, for I empty myself of wishing I had gifts other than those uniquely given to me by God, and I accept the talents I lack. When I can say, “Thank you, God, for the gifts I don’t have,” I think that is a kind of kenosis, an emptying-out of myself.

Tuesday of HOLY WEEK

By Sr. Mary Valerie Schneider | March 27, 2018 |

God Empties Out

The kenosis of Philippians 2:7 is Divinity poured out and thus Love poured out, for God is Love. In this pouring out, the Second Person of the Trinity became human, taking the form of a slave. This pouring out continues as love is poured out over the universe, God taking on the form of the cosmos as an extension of the Godself.  In the essay “The Ecstasy of Agape” by Kerrie Hide we read: “Agape incarnates, becomes flesh through speaking the Word into creation, and God’s ecstasy creates the world.”  Hide also writes, “Incarnation is an organic expression of the Trinity’s endless self-sharing.” Thus I receive my being in the self-surrender of God. Creation evolves as divine life loves. I grow as I receive divine life.

How open am I to divine life? How am I pouring out my love to extend love-energy?