Digging for Good

By Sr. Mary Valerie Schneider | February 10, 2017 | Comments Off on Digging for Good

Our unusually warm and wet winter may set our sights on spring much earlier this year. Gardeners are becoming impatient to clear the ground. George B. Shaw claimed “The best place to seek God is in a garden. You can dig for him there.” So maybe those who are saying “Isn’t it Lent yet?” are longing for that yearly season of extra prayer, reflection, and penance. Their souls are saying, “It’s about time.” Though the fields and gardens are still fallow, our souls don’t have to be.  Let the longing for Lent’s conversion be the prayerful attitude of your heart. And no one says you can’t start early to dig for God.

Who Shall I Be Today?

By Sr. Mary Valerie Schneider | February 3, 2017 | Comments Off on Who Shall I Be Today?

“Who shall I be today? The answer is more obvious than the question. Of course I’m going to be me. Me yesterday, me today, me forever. But if I were to start my day with the question “Who shall I be today?” I’d have to start with a decision bigger than Honey Nut Cheerios or Rice Chex. Actually the choice would be a commitment, which is a lot to expect in the first moments of consciousness. A momentous moment to be sure. How about this? Today I will be a person who pays as much attention to the interests and concerns of others as to my own. Would I push the unity-of-humanity gauge a little higher? Or maybe this. Today I will never lose patience. And nobody gets hurt. Or this. Today I will take the first steps to meet others. Would there be one more warm smile in the world? While brushing my teeth, I decide to make it a gargantuan day despite its paltry twenty-four hours.

 

Subtle Disguise

By Sr. Mary Valerie Schneider | February 2, 2017 | Comments Off on Subtle Disguise

Ronald Rolheiser’s book Sacred Fire is written for “mature disciples.” In one section he discusses “the religious faults of mature disciples.” Rolheiser claims that mature disciples find the seven capital sins disappearing from their lives; however, these “seven deadly sins” may just be in a subtler guise. He writes that pride in a mature disciple may take the form of refusing to be small before God, of being proud that we take the last place and give generously. Envy may take the form of nitpicking, looking for flaws, or omitting compliments. Sloth may involve settling for second-best when better is possible. Greed might not include the desire for money and possessions at all; instead we may wish to accumulate a good name. Capital sins come in small-case letters, I guess.

 

A Salute to Our Ursuline Sisters

By Sr. Mary Valerie Schneider | January 27, 2017 | Comments Off on A Salute to Our Ursuline Sisters

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 Sister Ellen, have been spiritual directors for us. Although each religious community has its own charism and its own way to contribute to the Church in the building up of the Kingdom, we are really all on the same page. Like Angela Merici and the Ursuline Sisters of today, we Notre Dame Sisters—and all religious sisters—do whatever needs to be done for God’s People. That has been our history. For the Ursulines, the need they saw was helping girls to lead a Christian life in the 1400s. For the Notre Dames it was teaching immigrant children in the 1800s. Really it’s all the same—doing God’s work of the present need. Happy feastday, Ursuline Sisters!

Did Jesus Ever Ask “Who Me?”

By Sr. Mary Valerie Schneider | January 25, 2017 | Comments Off on Did Jesus Ever Ask “Who Me?”

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, who is like us in every way, probably asked, “Who me?” Life had been so simple for 28 years or so. Go to school, learn a trade, make a living with hammer and saw. But there it was again—that little tug, that restless drive, that I-gotta-do-what-I-gotta do. Why did that little word “Abba” keep going through his mind with every turn of the lathe? Off went his apron. With surety he packed the tools and left the business in good hands. “Take care of my mom!” he said, a tear in his eye, a firm hand on his friend’s shoulder. A forward look, a forward step, and the “Who me?” became with each mile, with each desert day, “I know him, because I am from him, and he sent me” (Jn. 7:29).

Get Busy Living

By Sr. Mary Valerie Schneider | January 24, 2017 | Comments Off on Get Busy Living

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. Chapter 10 calls the reader to “get busy living.” Really?  Aren’t we always busy? Yet such busyness can prevent our living. Brian Doyle writes “Words and miracles are swift and rude/And they don’t wait.” How many words have we missed today? Have we been deaf to pleading words? Do words uttered without response die, the breath in them sucked out through indifference? And what about the miracles? A prayer answered even before the Amen? A kid who steps out of shyness? Hands clenched in armpits moving outward. A math problem solved in a eureka moment? Reconciliation achieved across a room with forgiving eyes? Attentive to words and miracles, we will be busy living in happiness.

The Thin Veil

By Sr. Mary Valerie Schneider | January 23, 2017 | Comments Off on The Thin Veil

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 Grandpa would have said, each fitting the son, daughter, or grandchild exactly. After this gift-giving one granddaughter wanted to give her grandmother a gift. Shy, she asked her grandmother to go upstairs to unwrap the gift more privately.  Only two grandchildren were there. The younger, a grandson, started crying because he missed his grandpa. His grandmother consoled him by saying, “When I miss him, I sit in a chair and imagine him sitting next to me. I talk to him, and he talks to me.”  The grandson, quite surprised, took this message literally until the grandmother explained that she listens with her heart. To further console him, she added, “”We don’t see him, but he sees us.”  With that the granddaughter said, “I see Grandpa,” and she pointed next to her grandmother.  Further questioning proved this to be true. The mother attested that her daughter occasionally sees those who have died. Certainly the veil between heaven and earth is very thin.

Anointed One of God

By Sr. Mary Valerie Schneider | January 15, 2017 | Comments Off on Anointed One of God

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 Lord, Messiah, the Anointed of God took on the same name—Christian. Ever since, Christians are the Anointed People.

Anointing was the way to show one had authority and power from God. So when Jesus began his public ministry, he read aloud this text from Isaiah: “The spirit of the Lord is upon me; therefore, he has anointed me.”

We, too, have been anointed at baptism and Confirmation. Like Jesus, we are marked with power and authority. We have received the same gifts of the Holy Spirit that were bestowed upon Jesus of Nazareth: wisdom, understanding, knowledge, courage, and more. What did Jesus do with the gifts of the Holy Spirit? “Jesus rejoiced in the Holy Spirit.” What are you doing with the Spirit’s gifts? Are you rejoicing in them? Are you living the life of Christ as you were meant to live it, or are you living the life that others want you to be?

Happy Birthday, Sister Maria Ignatia Kühling!

By Sr. Mary Valerie Schneider | January 9, 2017 | Comments Off on Happy Birthday, Sister Maria Ignatia Kühling!

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.”  In honor of Sister Maria Ignatia, let everything today remind you of God and God’s goodness.  Challenge yourself today to say “God is so good!”  Wouldn’t that make a great birthday present for Lisette?

Happy Birthday, Sister Maria Aloysia Wolbing!

By Sr. Mary Valerie Schneider | January 8, 2017 | Comments Off on Happy Birthday, Sister Maria Aloysia Wolbing!

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 Lisette Kühling.

Perhaps we’ve held a newborn and wondered “What will this child be?” Many other times we’ve held a “newborn”—a new thought, an incipient plan, a heart’s desire that calls for action. Hilligonde and Lisette held a newborn thought: “We need to do something more for the poor children.” Within two years their concern became an orphanage that was also the convent for the first two Sisters of Notre Dame, Sister Maria Aloysia (Hilligonde) and Sister Mary Ignatia (Lisette).

Now we Sisters of Notre Dame hold a newborn: What shall our congregation become? Where is the Spirit leading us?  Our recent general chapter in Coesfeld, Germany points to commitment to living incarnational spirituality, growth in life-giving relationships, and oneness in diversity. Although the direction may start with our own religious communities, the thrust is outward to all cultures and creation.  Happy birthday to us, too!