Tag: religious orders

Religious life 2013: Profession of vows, entrances and ordinations

Suscipe me secundum eloquium tuum, et vivam, et non confundas me ab exspectatione mea. (Psalm 118)

abbot & monkEach year at about this time I have published a list of those who have risked everything to follow Jesus Christ more closely as a priest, deacon, monk, friars, nun, or sister. I think it is a good thing to keep this information in front of us, especially as it concerns how each of prays, fasts and financially support  vocations in the Church. Our Christian life helps us to see the need for such witnesses and each of us participates through our good example, by inviting others (even ourselves?) to consider serving the Lord and the Church in this “more excellent” way and by assisting by of the good works.

Let us pray with the psalmist, “The just grow tall like palm trees, majestic like the cedars of Lebanon. They flourish in God’s house, green and heavy with fruit” (Ps 92).

“What counts is to be permeated by the love of Christ, to let oneself be led by the Holy Spirit and to graft one’s own life onto the tree of life,” the Lord’s cross, Pope Francis said on July 7.

What follows is an imperfect collection of information; if there are updates, please zap me an email.

PAX!

Monastic life

monks

English Congregation

Swiss-American Congregation
Subiaco Congregation
American Cassinese Congregation
Other monastic foundations

nuns

The active life

men

  • Daylesford Abbey (the Norbertines): 1 professed simple vows, 1 entered the novitiate;
  • Dominican friars, Province of St Joseph: 6 friars ordained priests; 9 friars profess solemn vows; 8 professed simple vows and  18 entered the novitiate
  • Capuchin friars, Province of St Mary: 2 professed final vows, 4 professed simple vows, 4 invested as novices; 1 ordained to the Order of Deacon and 2 ordained for the Order of Priest
  • Opus Dei: ordained 31 to the priesthood
  • Fraternity of St Charles Borromeo: 1 ordained deacon, 8 ordained priests; -in Chile: 3 received the cassock at entrance
  • Conventual Franciscan friars (of several provinces): 7 professed simple vows; 5 entered the novitiate
  • Friars of the Atonement: 1 entered the novitiate
  • Franciscan Missionaries of the Eternal Word: 2 professed simple vows, 1 entered the novitiate.
  • Order of Friars Minor, Immaculate Conception Province: 2 friars profess simple vows; 1 professed solemn vows; 2 ordained priests; 5 postulants entered
  • Franciscans of the Holy Name Province: 4 profess first vows; 1 novice entered; 1 ordained to the priesthood
  • The Society of Jesuit ordained 16 men to the priesthood for service in the whole USA; the NY-NEN-MD provinces professed 5 in simple perpetual vows; 5 men entered the novitiate.
women

Religious orders dying out

This morning the faithful bloggers at Rorate Cæli published an article, “Spain: Religious Orders prepare for the end,” outlining the decline of many religious orders.

There has been several decades of vocational contraception in religious orders not only in Spain, but you can name all the other countries in Western Europe AND in North America. All of the well known religious orders in the USA (the SJ, OFMs, Conventuals, CSC, Capuchins, to name a few) are clearly on the decline and are, in fact, preparing for death. In the last few years and certainly in the near future, some prominent religious orders of men and women are merging and monasteries closing. This past year one Benedictine monastic chapter voted to close their monastery and there are at least 9 others that could close and no one would blink.
No all is hopeless. One sees signs of hope among some provinces and some monasteries. But with new recruits not all is better: life in these communities remain fragile.
I am saddened by these events because there is no reason for the aborting of a charism given by the Holy Spirit for the Church. It is time for serious work in conversion, vocation and mission.

Significant remarks from the Evangelization Synod: faith’s different reality in Northern Europe

Berislav Grgic.jpgAt the Synod of Bishops men and women from all parts of the world gathered in Rome in October to speak on matters pertaining to evangelization. We in the USA, need perspective: the lower Europe and North America is not the only place where the Christian faith is incarnated. The bishop of Tromso since 2009,
Norway, Berislav Grgić, 52, said to the Synod Fathers:


The Catholic Church in the Northern Lands – Denmark, Finland,
Iceland, Norway and Sweden – is a very small minority and therefore has neither
the advantages nor the disadvantages that the Catholic Church often comes
across in traditional and prevalently Catholic regions. Despite its limited
relevance, numeric as well as social, our Church is nonetheless a growing
Church. New churches are built or bought, new parishes are instituted,
non-Latin rites are added, there is a relatively high number of adult
conversions and baptisms, there are vocations to priesthood and to religious
life, the number of baptisms is much higher than the number of deaths and
number of those who abandon the Church, and attendance at Sunday Mass is
relatively high.

Continue reading Significant remarks from the Evangelization Synod: faith’s different reality in Northern Europe

All Saints and All Souls Days in religious orders

benedict and devil.jpgThe Church is not liturgically monolithic: let’s consider the various observances of feasts of All Saints and the Commemoration of the Faithful Departed (All Souls) in various religious orders:

All Saints
  • November 5: the Society of Jesus
  • November 7: the Order of Preachers
  • November 13: the Order of St Benedict; Order of St Augustine; the Trinitarian Order
  • November 29: the Franciscan Families
All Souls
  • October 5: the Capuchin Order
  • November 5: the Franciscan Families
  • November 8: the Order of Preachers
  • November 13: the Carthusians
  • November 14: the Order of St Benedict; the Trinitarian Order
  • November 15: the Order of Carmel
  • November 16: the Servite Order