NunEssential

I have been listening to some talks that our Superior Sr. Anne Marie Walsh gave, along with another woman Dr. Clare Ten Eyck, at a retreat for women, on the topic of women. They spoke of many important and profound points but perhaps i could highlight a few of them from time to time. I think you might find them relevant, true and liberating. One of the first things Sr. Anne talked about was the fact that women and men are different ("big deal" you may say). As obvious as this sounds, we live in a world that tries to meld the two sexes together until neither is perceived as too different and the gifts that are unique to each sex are over looked. She mentioned that women especially are damaged by what society sells us. She talks about how contraception, a very deep disturbance in womanhood today, attacks the natural processes of the body that have to do with reproduction, giving life. Aside from the moral implications of contraception, they are also a health hazard. Sterilizati...

The Holy Father has been talking about a possible new venture......

although i don't entirely agree with everything in this article , i thought it was interesting that MSNBC would pick it up. check it out! i haven't posted in a while, things have been busy here. We had Fr. Santan Pinto, one of our awesome SOLT priests, visiting and giving the parish a Lenten Recollection. It was great to have him, if you don't know him, check out his website here. if he is in your area any time soon, go hear him speak, it will amaze and edify you, he is really great. Lent is going by quickly! don't forget to make it to Confession before the end, Jesus gives graces during this time that he doesn't give the rest of the year! so, go! you won't regret it and you'll be amazed at what happens to you interiorly! Ciao! :)

The further we journey into Lent, the more this particular thought has come to me, that we are inherently good. You may think this is nothing earth-shattering or perhaps to you it is obvious but then how come we don't relate to each other or even ourselves by our inherent goodness? It seems that so often we relate to each other either by 1)reaction 2)judgement or 3)according to the faults of one another. Not all the time, mind you, but often. How often have you put someone in a box and said, "oh, that person, she's just......". Or when someone is unkind to you or is upset with you, do you find yourself just reacting and taking a self-defensive stance? I mention this because it is common. It common because we suffer from original sin and are all wounded. I see this within myself. But when I look at Christ, I see that He doesn't behave in this way. One of the reasons why we judge other people is because we can't see into their hearts. All we do is look at someon...

Did you read about this???

Here are some thoughts about Lent from the Holy Father More ire from the Chinese government Support of Perpetual Eucharistic Adoration

How is your Lenten journey so far? What are you finding that is the most difficult? If you have fallen in your resolutions, get up and try again. Don't give up . Remember that Jesus fell three times on the way to Calvary and didn't bemoan His stumble. He got back up and finished the job that the Father had asked. So, you do the same as well. If you fall, no problem, just get up and talk to Jesus about it. Maybe you need to take yourself to Confession. Whatever it is, don't stop along the journey. Keep going. Something has occurred to me lately. So, we know that man is the crowning glory of all creation. Jesus created in ascending order, so He began with day and night, water, stars, trees, animals, etc. and then man. Man is the only creation that was created for God alone. Everything else in creation was created for man to have dominion over and tend. Man is not supposed to live in slavery to creation, he is to master it and have dominion over it. So that means that we wer...

So we were doing our Spiritual Exercise this morning and the topic was "gifts." One of the sentences for mediation (put together by our founder) said this, "Virtue purifies us from the ugliness and disorder of sin, bringing beauty, strength and joy." Hmmmmm.......let's ponder that for a moment. The true ugliness, the worst thing in the world, is sin. Most people think death and suffering is the worst thing the world, but that can actually be the best thing in the world. Sin makes things ugly. I saw this great ad in a magazine that was acutally for a drug for liver disease or something but it showed a close up is this guy with his face all bruised up and scratched, looking like he just had the tar beat out of him, and the caption read something like this 'if liver disease were attacking your face, you'd do something about it.' Good point. If our sin was attacking our face, we'd do something about it... The sneaky thing about sin is that it atta...

Hi! Happy Lent! Here are some interesting articles that i have come across: Embryos Ideas for Lent More ideas for Lent Women in the Church The Truth about Lent Trouble in the Philippines The Holy Father's Prayer Intentions for March Fight the Good Fight! Keep Going!!

I want to post some photos of our kids here at the parish school. They are a great blessing to us all.

here is some recent news on the new Chinese cardinal , the Bishop of Hong Kong.

Here are the Holy Father's words about the theme for the upcoming World Youth Day ! cool!

Wow, talk about some persecution, you should read these links: 1:New Cardinals 2:Chinese Church rejoices 3:They are warned 4:New Hopes 5:And new persecution Wow. talk about a committed faith. Pray for them.

Congratulations to Seattle's own Apolo Anton Ohno who won 2 more medals on his last day of skating in the 2006 Winter Olympics!!!! awesome!

It has recently been sneaking upon me that Lent begins in a week. Hmm.....how did this happen? Weren't we just celebrating Christmas? Anyway, I was talking with the kids here in one of our religion classes about the different Eucharistic prayers and how they have many different prefaces to them that can be used for basically any day of the Liturgical Year. It struck me that one of them for Lent used these words, "Lord, you have given us this joyful season." Now, most people wouldn't put the words "joyful" and "Lent" in the same sentence. Isn't Lent supposed to be about pain and suffering? aren't we supposed to be miserable for 40 days or something like that? I guess that is popular sentiment, that we are supposed to go without and suffer for the 40 days preceeding Easter, but somehow, when I look at the life of Jesus, it doesn't add up. He suffered immensely, was misunderstood, ridiculed, ignored; all the while taking our sin upon him, ...

I thought this was interesting !

Ok, so I am sure you have watched some the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin. Some people say it is boring and find the evening coverage canned and too condensed. Other people are following it avidly and wish there were more hours to watch. I have seen some of it but let me tell you about the turning point for me when it comes to being a fan. Did you see the pairs figure skating final? There was a young Chinese couple that skated last that evening, hoping to skate well enough to win gold. They were going to be the first pair to ever perform some sort of quadruple rotation in the air (okay, so I don't know the correct terminology, but he was going to throw her into the air and she was going to spin around 4 times and land). So, 38 seconds in the program they prepare, and he tosses her (well, I have never seen anyone being tossed like that, the guy literally threw everything he had into this toss) and she spins 4 times.....and comes down.......missing the landing and crashing down with o...

Happy St. Valentine's Day to everyone ! Hope this day is a celebration of true love and that it reminds you of the love that Jesus has for you. So, do something kind for someone today...maybe even for someone you aren't too fond of..... God bless you! :)

So we went to this archdiocesan dinner this evening for all of the sisters in our archdiocese. Every year the Archbishop puts on this dinner in appreciation for the sisters and their contribution to the diocese and world at large. It was a very interesting evening. We arrived a bit late (my fault) and were greeted by several sisters as we walked in, looking for a place to sit among the 150 sisters that were present. We made our way to the far side and took our seats with 4 other sisters from different communites. Now, the age range at our table was from 25 to about, oh.....75 or so. 2 sisters at the table were novices and 2 were retired. As I sat there listening and answering questions, it occurred to me how beautiful dedicated love is. Whenever I walked through the room during the evening, I saw sea of different women. Some wore habits, some wore long skirts, some had bright jackets on. Some of them were animatedly talking with the others at their table, some were silent while tranqui...