First Profession, Cistercian Nun, Ma

[krissylou]

[quote name='regina_coeli' date='21 May 2010 - 04:47 PM' timestamp='1274474838' post='2114835']
h[url="http://www.mtstmarysabbey.org/MSMAbbey/Photos/Pages/Sr._Francescas_1st_Profession.html#11"][color="#284b72"]ttp://www.mtstmarysabbey.org/MSMAbbey/ Photos/Pages/Sr._Francescas_1st_Profession. html#11[/color][/url] is dated May 1, 2010



[url="http://www.mtstmarysabbey.org/MSMAbbey/Photos/Pages/Sr._Sofias_Clothing.html#28"][color="#284b72"]Better_Wrentham[/color][/url] is dated July 2008


Was "Margaret" a postulant all that time? Isn't there a limit? maybe krissylou can help!
[/quote]

Ten posts! Yippee skippee!

(Brilliant idea to chug away on some of the prayer threads. I can type Hail Marys with the best of them.)

Hi everybody.

It's possible that she was an aspirant in July 2008, I don't know.

This past fall the Abbey's Facebook page -- Nuns on Facebook! Enclosure ain't what it used to be -- said something about being excited to welcome Meg back to the monastery after she'd been out for a while on medical leave. So I guess she got sick for a while and then came back once she recovered, which would throw a wrench in the early stages of formation.

I almost feel like I'm gossiping about private information but actually the only nun I've ever talked to is the guest sister (Sister Evelyn, who has the most marvelous Scottish brogue and is simply adorable) so I don't actually know the nuns other than by what they make publicly available, and if they put it on Facebook it can't be too secret ...

Now to get myself an avatar ...

[regina_coeli]

[quote name='krissylou' date='21 May 2010 - 11:10 PM' timestamp='1274494224' post='2115048']
Ten posts! Yippee skippee!

(Brilliant idea to chug away on some of the prayer threads. I can type Hail Marys with the best of them.)

Hi everybody.

It's possible that she was an aspirant in July 2008, I don't know.

This past fall the Abbey's Facebook page -- Nuns on Facebook! Enclosure ain't what it used to be -- said something about being excited to welcome Meg back to the monastery after she'd been out for a while on medical leave. So I guess she got sick for a while and then came back once she recovered, which would throw a wrench in the early stages of formation.

I almost feel like I'm gossiping about private information but actually the only nun I've ever talked to is the guest sister (Sister Evelyn, who has the most marvelous Scottish brogue and is simply adorable) so I don't actually know the nuns other than by what they make publicly available, and if they put it on Facebook it can't be too secret ...

Now to get myself an avatar ...
[/quote]

Thank you! I thought perhaps there was an interruption.

[Sarah147]

[img]http://www.mtstmarysabbey.org/MSMAbbey/Media/transparent.gif[/img][img]http://www.mtstmarysabbey.org/MSMAbbey/Media/transparent.gif[/img]What a beautiful order, I've never seen this one before. I'm learning about so many on this forum.


My eyes just about popped when I saw they start out the day at 3AM!! [img]http://www.phatmass.com/phorum/public/style_emoticons/default/bigshock.gif[/img] [img]http://www.phatmass.com/phorum/public/style_emoticons/default/shock.gif[/img] [img]http://www.phatmass.com/phorum/public/style_emoticons/default/shock.gif[/img] [img]http://www.phatmass.com/phorum/public/style_emoticons/default/covereyes.gif[/img] God bless those sisters.


What is their apostolate and are they cloistered?



[url="http://www.mtstmarysabbey.org/MSMAbbey/Photos/Pages/Sr._Francescas_1st_Profession.html#9"]http://www.mtstmarysabbey.org/MSMAbbey/Photos/Pages/Sr._Francescas_1st_Profession.html#9[/url]
Now that's joy. What a beautiful Sister.

Edited July 28, 2010 by JoyfulLife

[krissylou]

Ooh, this monastery is my retreat spot of choice.

Another one of the novices made her first profession last week.



http://www.mtstmarysabbey.org/MSMAbbey/Photos/Pages/Sr._Eve_Maries_Profession.html

By my math the third is due any time now, and the postulant will likely become a novice in a few months. There was someone who was staying in the guest room at the monastery when I was there in mid-February, and also shows up in the photos for Sr. Francesca's profession on May 1, but doesn't show up in Sr. Eve Marie's profession photos, so I'm guessing she was there as an aspirant (they call it "Observer") and may be entering soon.

Yes, they do get up crazy early, but they also go to bed at 8 pm. The ones that blow my mind are the ones that get up at midnight, so after you enter you never have an uninterrupted night of sleep again as long as you live. That I don't get.

They support themselves by making candy , but their apostolate is prayer. They are cloistered but not with grilles, etc. Trappists follow the Rule of Benedict, which precedes the stricter rules of cloister. They are restricted to the monastery grounds barring a very good reason but not to the cloistered area. Before each office (well, probably except for the 3:20 am one! The portress told me that the only guests that come to that one are discerners) they have a stack of prayer books ready for guests, with bookmarks in all the right places. They weren't put there by elves! And it's routine that when they see a new guest, a nun will come over to the public area and explain how to use the confusing things. So that's very different from communities where a grille separates the choir from the public chapel.

When I was there in February, a friend and I were there for a few days on retreat. There was another person in the guest house (not the Observer) who seems to come by a LOT and uses it as a waystation, not just a place to go and be especially pious. So she had a class one evening a week that was far from her home, so every Thursday night for a semester she'd stay at the abbey for the night. I think Benedict would highly approve of this.

I like them a lot.

[krissylou]

And the third novice will be making her first profession next Sunday.

Alleluia!

[krissylou]

Novice #3 made her simple profession on August 15.

http://www.mtstmarysabbey.org/MSMAbbey/Photos/Pages/Sr_Sofias_Profession.html


What a blessed summer for this monastery!


[img]http://www.phatmass.com/phorum/public/style_emoticons/default/nun2.gif[/img]

[sistersintigo]

A blessed summer, in a bittersweet year, for Mount St Mary's Trappistine Nuns.
I exchanged letters with Mother Maureen, the Abbess recently. I had written to her regarding the diocesan Vocations Retreat, which I had attended some years earlier, and to which Mother Maureen sent a Trappistine white novice, granting her permission to give a presentation to the women in discernment, regarding contemplative cloistered life. The novice, a native of a faraway country, had moved me deeply with her words and her evident sincerity. Of course to Mother Maureen I spoke of the novice by name, but for privacy's sake I will keep her anonymous in this post. I knew that since that presentation years earlier, she had professed simple vows.
Mother Maureen wrote back that the ceremony of simple profession had changed their novice in a way that was not anticipated. For the ceremony, it was arranged that the sister's blood relatives could come, many of them from the faraway native country. The young sister had not seen many of them in years.
In fact, it was deeply overwhelming for her after the profession ceremony, when she had to say goodbye to her birth-family all over again. And to make a long story short, she was allowed to leave the abbey and the United States, and return to her first home and her people, whom she desperately missed.
Mother Maureen wrote: "Vocations -- like people -- are so mysterious!" It is also a fact that the young woman is missed at Mount Saint Mary's where she was dearly loved.

A possible postscript:
The native country of the sister, is also anonymous here, for reasons of confidentiality. Two things can be directly remarked upon regarding her native land:
Catholicism is well established there and she can easily continue to be observant.
There is an abbey of Trappistine nuns in her country.

[Micah]

Popping in to rep love for the cistercians. They're the coolest. 8] Hope you get lots of postulants and God bless.

Edited August 29, 2010 by Micah

[krissylou]

Ohhh ... I am 99% sure I know who you are talking about. I knew there was a Sister who had made her first profession a couple years ago and left shortly thereafter.

Now I am the absolute first person to say that religious life isn't for everyone and there is nothing wrong with trying for a while and then leaving before solemn profession. I don't even much like Thomas Aquinas's saying that religious life is a higher good -- no, it's just different.

BUT -- that order seemed odd to me. I understood leaving at the end of novitiate and not making first profession. I understand leaving as you are far into your temporary profession and perpetual is looming. But right after first profession? That does not quite compute.

This makes so much more sense.

I'm sure it's very hard for everyone.

[sistersintigo]

Just came from looking at updates on the website (plenty of links on previous posts on this thread) of Mount St Mary's Abbey of Trappistine/Cistercian nuns in Wrentham, Massachusetts.
I pulled up this thread, because I remembered people getting all confused about a photograph of the youngest vocations in Wrentham, all grouped together. Of course all of them were women. One was noticeably taller than the others; at the time, her dress was secular, not a habit.
Well, there has been a first profession of another of these young women at the Abbey, one of the shorter ones. As usual, the Abbey's website has multiple color photographs, which may be viewed as a sideshow if you know how to work that mouse clicker.
The tall one is still there. And still taller than all the others.
The dress is what has changed. Now the tall one is dressed as a white novice. She is the only one of the four young women, in the most recent photos, who has not made some form of profession. The other three all have their white robes topped by those black -- what do you call 'em -- scapulars? And the one who just made profession, wears a gorgeous corsage at her collarbone.

[homeschoolmom]

Lots of reports on this thread. I'm going to close it until I (or another mod) can read through it.

[sistersintigo]

[quote name='sistersintigo' timestamp='1283103212' post='2164985']
A blessed summer, in a bittersweet year, for Mount St Mary's Trappistine Nuns.
I exchanged letters with Mother Maureen, the Abbess recently. I had written to her regarding the diocesan Vocations Retreat, which I had attended some years earlier, and to which Mother Maureen sent a Trappistine white novice, granting her permission to give a presentation to the women in discernment, regarding contemplative cloistered life. Of course to Mother Maureen I spoke of the novice by name, but for privacy's sake I will keep her anonymous in this post. I knew that since that presentation years earlier, she had professed simple vows.
Mother Maureen wrote back that the ceremony of simple profession had changed their novice in a way that was not anticipated.

And to make a long story short, she was allowed to leave the abbey and the United States, and return to her first home and her people, whom she desperately missed.
Mother Maureen wrote: "Vocations -- like people -- are so mysterious!" It is also a fact that the young woman is missed at Mount Saint Mary's where she was dearly loved.
[/quote]
Time to take my medicine.
The above post has both fact and ... something other than fact ... in it.
A suggestion has been put to me that I say so, with all due discretion.
The part that is factual, is that letters were exchanged between me and the superior.
It is also a fact, that the vowed religious of whom I wrote, the one I kept anonymous, who was sent by her superior to aid the diocesan facilitator of the above-mentioned retreat, did not interact with the discerners, including me; the young woman is not acquainted with me at all; and I have never been introduced to her, and it would be entirely false to presume that I know her or her situation.
I am not at liberty to reveal what has been disclosed to me, nor by whom. But I am satisfied with the communication I have received, that the story of the young woman's departure, as reported to me and as repeated above, is misleading at best, and largely inaccurate.
It was not my intention to break the commandment which reads, Thou Shalt Not Bear False Witness Against Thy Neighbor. What was in my earlier post, was communicated from me in good faith and with no malice of intent.
Nevertheless, I have broken the commandment in this case, and it is a lesson to me that sin can be committed without premeditation or understanding. I don't know if my confessor will see it that way, but that is how I see it.
I apologize to the young woman involved, and more practically, to the readers and moderators of this thread.

[franciscanheart]

[quote name='sistersintigo' timestamp='1297356077' post='2210974']
Time to take my medicine.
The above post has both fact and ... something other than fact ... in it.
A suggestion has been put to me that I say so, with all due discretion.
The part that is factual, is that letters were exchanged between me and the superior.
It is also a fact, that the vowed religious of whom I wrote, the one I kept anonymous, who was sent by her superior to aid the diocesan facilitator of the above-mentioned retreat, did not interact with the discerners, including me; the young woman is not acquainted with me at all; and I have never been introduced to her, and it would be entirely false to presume that I know her or her situation.
I am not at liberty to reveal what has been disclosed to me, nor by whom. But I am satisfied with the communication I have received, that the story of the young woman's departure, as reported to me and as repeated above, is misleading at best, and largely inaccurate.
It was not my intention to break the commandment which reads, Thou Shalt Not Bear False Witness Against Thy Neighbor. What was in my earlier post, was communicated from me in good faith and with no malice of intent.
Nevertheless, I have broken the commandment in this case, and it is a lesson to me that sin can be committed without premeditation or understanding. I don't know if my confessor will see it that way, but that is how I see it.
I apologize to the young woman involved, and more practically, to the readers and moderators of this thread.
[/quote]
I believe it is completely understood that no malice was intended and there was no intentional fabrication. Be gentle.