No more doggies to git along

but certainly another subject for country music.

With No More Cowboys Taking Vows, Monastery Quits the Cattle Business

I never thought that we'd be mourning the drop in cowboy vocations along with vocations in general. Such a very sad thing (I think?)...

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Incredible!

"For the last 84 years she has spent every day of her life behind the cloistered walls of a convent to the north of Madrid but on Friday Sister Teresita, aged 103, will venture into the world outside – to meet the Pope. "

God bless her - a living example of faithfulness to her vows and to the love of God!

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There is a huge loss

The Departure of an Order

In my city and school district it was very gradual, with fewer and fewer Religious teaching until, suddenly, they were all gone and there were no teachers but secular teachers. Now I look at the classes, and there are good teachers teaching them, and at the graduates, and, yes, there are good people graduating, but there has been a huge loss. More than anything else, what hasn't been well preserved has been the Catholic identity. Very often now there is nothing that distinguishes the system of Catholic schools from the Public system. It makes one a little sad...

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While enthusiasm is a good thing

caution is also something that must be considered.

Congregation for healing priest

He comes from an order of Charismatic priests, an order which believes in the gifts of the Holy Spirit and their active use today. He wasn't a member for that long, really, before he now leaves to start his own order so he can be free to do what he believes God wants him to do. I do hope that there's some oversight and control over him. Though this sort of behaviour frightens me a bit, my Order's founder, St. Francis, behaved in a similar manner. Still, we've seen far too many priests go off in wrong directions when left on their own...

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The American Midwest

Capuchins have a new website...

Midwest Capuchins

If you're not a friend of a Franciscan, or a fan of St. Francis or Franciscans in general, it may not interest you, but God has worked mightily through our Orders for centuries...

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A good, and necessary, move

Legion Creates Commission for Maciel's Accusers: Names 2 Members to General Council

I've always been certain that the priest of the Legion would be fine - the fact that their order's founder turned out to be anything but what he portrayed himself as in no way invalidated their vocation, and they could move on in priestly ministry - but I'm most concerned about the lay members, some of whose devotion was so strongly focused on the founder and the order. I hope something comes to take their place for them...

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It's very sad

to see a valuable way of life diminishing like this.

Nun shortage forces religious orders to merge

Nuns, in full habits, rosaries clacking and starched wimples rustling, educated me for a good part of my life, taught me to love God and to serve Him, and to love and serve others. Their lives were anything but meaningless - they were filled with the Holy Spirit. I can only offer all of them my good wishes and continued prayers that God's will comes about in religious orders of women...

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Alas, the time

for a 'slap down' by the Vatican is coming for a Jesuit, it looks like...

Jesuit head of Asian Catholic news agency criticizes transubstantiation

You can't blame Rome for letting it get this far. You've likely heard that the 3 things God doesn't know is 1) What the Dominicans are thinking, 2) What the Jesuits are doing, and 3) How many orders of Franciscans there are.

Now if God didn't know...

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It's not at all surprising

Legion of Christ responds to Vatican statement; awaits next moves

The appointment of an apostolic delegate to supervise the Legionaries seems like a prudent move on the part of Pope Benedict XVI given the situation...

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I believe it

Expert affirms that happiness is possible while living in celibacy

I've met, and know, many priests and religious who are happy within their celebate lives.

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*Sigh* Catholics can be taken in

just as anyone else can.

Money paved way for Maciel's influence in the Vatican

I am astounded that he could keep all this quiet as long as he did, and that his followers could be so taken in by him...

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Brother Andre

is another step closer (see 2nd in list under Miracles).

Decrees of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints

Here is Brother Andre's Biography...

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It's generally known as

'the dark night of the soul rather than 'the long dark night of the soul'...


Church to celebrate feast of saint who wrote about the 'long dark night of the soul'

San Juan de la Cruz has always been one of my favourite saints. His holiness I would aspire to, but I know that I could never reach such heights of union with God I aspire only to a tiny, tiny, microscopic portion of that...

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Good article

Dowd's nun column is proven wrong by flourishing religious orders, commentator says

I know of orders of religious that have waiting lists for entrants. I know of others that are drying up and dying. I think that if an Order loses its focus on the charism of the Order and its founder it no longer is what it was created to do. It has outlived it's service. If we, as Franciscans, lost our focus on St. Francis' charism to rebuild the Church and to serve the most lost of our society with our own spiritual wealth as well as temporal goods, then we are no longer Franciscans. The charism at the founding of the order must be our charism today if we are to be faithful to our founder and our professed promises and vows, no matter what we actually do while being faithful to them...

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Coming home

10 Episcopal nuns in Archdiocese of Baltimore to join Catholic Church

God bless them all. It can't be an easy decision to make...

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You see?

It's a new religious order responding to the desire for a more traditional Catholic response to vocations to the religious life.

Ann Arbor sisters can't build fast enough to house new members

They've grown from 4 members to 99 in just over 12 years, while other orders are dying out. No matter what one's feelings about the whole conservative/liberal issue in the Catholic Church is, no one can deny that there is a work of the Holy Spirit here...

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Religious nuns go

beyond Jesus?


Can nuns go "beyond Jesus"?

A website that looks at the way the media reports religious news has a good article here.

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First the government there

killed priests and religious, now the drug criminals do...

Priest, 2 Seminarians Killed in Mexico

Lord, have mercy on them and bring them swiftly into your love...

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A high-profile

Legionary of Christ leaves the order...

Fr. Berg leaves Legion of Christ to join Archdiocese of New York

"Although the recent revelations about the Legion’s founder, Fr. Marcial Maciel, were profoundly disturbing, my decision has actually been in the making for nearly three years."

But the recent scandal most likely pushed his decision along...

I believe

that this is a very beautiful and important way to serve God and God's people...

The beauty of the contemplative life