Mary Consolatrix Of The Eucharist Sisters

[graciandelamadrededios]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Mary Consolatrix of the Eucharist is indigenous, diocesan, contemplative congregation of autonomous monasteries following the Rule of Saint Benedict.  While carefully preserving their principal or predominant character of contemplation, they practice more extensive forms of hospitality in fidelity to the monastic tradition.

Edited July 31, 2014 by graciandelamadrededios

[graciandelamadrededios]

 

 

 

A holy woman

We buried a holy woman last Monday, Mother Marie Alexis de Jesus, 95 years old, at the monastery she founded in Angin, Naguilian, La Union. The chapel overflowed with people, priests, and nuns from the Ilocos and elsewhere. Despite the crowd and the afternoon heat, the Holy Mass and funeral rite was indeed solemn and consoling to all present, for a lot of people visiting the monastery, including myself, have often experienced it a place of prayer and consolation! 

Mother Marie Alexis belonged to the Pacis, a devout Roman Catholic family of Ilocos Norte. In the early decades of the 1900s, when most Ilocanos in the province have gone over to Aglipayanism, the Pacis family kept their faith. To attend a Catholic Mass, they had to travel far, sometimes hiding under the hay of their carabao-drawn cart to avoid suspicion from passers-by. Mother Alexis joined the Sisters of St. Paul de Chartres, who are known in the country for their school and hospital apostolate. However, in the 1970s, she felt a call to found a community of women devoted to prayer. In the Catholic Church, such communities are known as “contemplative” congregations. Today, the congregation, known as Mary Consolatrix of the Eucharist, has 25 members in two monasteries, Angin and Calbayog, Western Samar. 

One must look at the context of the times to understand the work of Mother Alexis. The 1970s was a decade of intense activism in the Philippines. The socio-political crisis in the country, social injustices, the rise of Communist-inspired insurgency, and the regime of dictatorship embroiled everyone. Not a few priests and religious questioned and even left their vocation, believing that more can be done for the people when one was out in the streets, living in the slums, or up in the mountains with guns, than “simply” offering the Mass, praying in an air-conditioned chapel, and living comfortably in one’s convent. Their idealism was apparently good and attractive, but, I guess, when they started “mocking the Sacred,” it revealed that their premises were altogether wrong. As a young seminarian then, I heard remarks like, “You don’t find your God in the tabernacle, but among the people!” 

In the midst of this situation, Mother Alexis and her community witnessed to a life of prayer and penance. They emphasized the importance of the Holy Mass and love for Jesus in the Eucharist. They also taught that devotion to Mary, the most perfect of Jesus’ disciples, would certainly lead to true discipleship. Some people then considered them irrelevant to the times. But then, people started coming to their monastery for prayer, peace, and consolation. Priests, religious, and laypeople came to pour out their hearts, to seek healing and to find new strength to face life with its vicissitudes and to continue transforming the world according to God’s plan. They taught people to strike a balance between seeking God and serving people. The two can never be contradictory! 

Today, the situation may not be as volatile as the 1970s, but the needs are the same. People need God, they need to capture the “sense of the Sacred” in a secularized society. The disregard of the dignity of man and human rights has its roots in the disregard of the reality of God! Abortion, poverty, social injustice, war, and violence can all be traced from this direction. There are secularized societies who trumpet their riches and progress, but, with the exclusion of the reality of God, everything will soon crumble. It will be a repeat of the story of the Tower of Babel.

Who are those saving our world today? I believe, in the logic of God, they are the holy men and women, like Mother Alexis!

 

 

 

Photo found above the article I posted is not Mother Alexis...

[DominicanHeart]

I love it. They look like Carmelites. 

[graciandelamadrededios]

They have Carmelite spirituality combined with Benedictine-Cistercian as well.  The scapular is Carmelite as noted on their constitutions.

[John Paul]

Do they hav a website or their constitutions online?

[graciandelamadrededios]

They do not have websites and their constitutions are private, I was given a copy due to my research work.

 

Edited April 20, 2016 by graciandelamadrededios

[elijahdonato27]

Abbot Rabang, a holy priest in Christ of the Desert Monastery, was mothered by Mother Alexis when She was still in Rosary College(now St. Paul College of Ilocos Sur). Father Rabang told me many things about Mother. May she intercede for us!

[graciandelamadrededios]

On 7/4/2019 at 2:34 AM, elijahdonato27 said:

Abbot Rabang, a holy priest in Christ of the Desert Monastery, was mothered by Mother Alexis when She was still in Rosary College(now St. Paul College of Ilocos Sur). Father Rabang told me many things about Mother. May she intercede for us!

That's nice to know.  Thanks!