NunEssential

Happy Easter to you all! May the joy of Jesus Resurrected be with you. Here is Pope Benedict's Easter Message to the world. Divine Mercy Sunday is coming and it's not too late to begin the Divine Mercy Novena, you can find it by clicking here. Speaking of mercy, I think the world is crying out for it. The world is a tough place, it's a place that demands "perfection", chastises the exceptional or poor, spurns the helpless, worships image and falsehood and in spite of all that, the world seeps into us. It's a place of trouble. Knowing this, Jesus said, "In the world you will have trouble, but take courage, I have overcome of the world." Thank God. God uses the experiences He allows in our life to teach us. He wants us to be truly happy and He knows that as long as we are enslaved to the world and ourselves, we won't be happy. So He sends us help to free us. At first, that freedom feels very painful and we want to go back to our own little Egypt,...

Fr. John Corapi , a member of our community, came to Seattle this weekend to give a retreat. One of our Sisters attended and said that hundreds of people turned out to hear one of his last talks before he takes a sabbatical from a active ministry for a while. One of his main points for the talk was encouraging the praying of the Rosary. He mentioned that the Rosary is our weapon during these trying times. He said to pray, pray and pray. When Our Blessed Mother appears to people, her message is just that. She invites all people to turn back to her Son. She implores her children to repent, turn away from sin, fast, make sacrifices and pray. She gives her protection to those that pray her Rosary. Our Blessed Mother once mentioned that if you have a hard time believing in her messages, make a Rosary Novena. Pray all the mysteries of the Rosary everyday for 9 days, offering those prayers to the Heart of Jesus and to the Holy Spirit for enlightenment. Try it for yourself and see if your hea...

Here is the Lenten Message from Pope Benedict XVI. This really gives you something to ponder.

Check out our post on the Thailand Rebirth Center below, it includes a video as well. Happy Ash Wednesday- This Lent, let the Holy Spirit lead you out into the desert where He will speak to your heart. When you wake up in the morning, ask the Holy Spirit to prepare you and choose for you whatever He would like to bestow upon you for that day. Sometimes we get caught up in our own things for Lent and forget that it is the Holy Spirit who leads us, not us leading the Holy Spirit! God has a great gift to give each one of us this Lent. He wants to remind us of who we really are. So often we let the world distract us and tell us who we are and where we come from. Lent is a time in which we draw away from the world and go to a quiet place with Jesus. Ask Our Lady to come and wrap her mantle around you to quiet your heart and mind. Have a wonderful Lent-

Hello! God bless you. If our website looks a little different, that's because it is. We had to start over on a new site yet again, (4th time is the charm). So please pray that we will have no further technical difficulties!! Thank you! Enjoy!

I know I promised to post the history of our Rebirth Center in Thailand a long time ago. I was so impressed and edified when I went to visit last summer. So, without further adieu, here it is: "The inspiration for starting a work to help drug addicts in Thailand rehabilitate came to our founder, Fr. James Flanagan, during the decade of the 1970's. By Divine Providence Fr. Flanagan met two young Thai women who began this work for our community and later became Sisters-Sr. Raphael and Sr. Rosaline. In 1977, the Sisters went with a group of drug addicts for training in the drug rehabilitation program DARE in Manila, Philippines. After two years of training with DARE, the team came back to Thailand and under the direction of Fr. Flanagan, opened the first Center for drug addiction rehabilitation. This first center, named the Rebirth Center, opened on October 6th, 1979 in an unused building of a former school. After a permanent building was constructed for the center in Chomburg, t...

Here's a nice reminder as we start the new year.

The SOLT Sisters wish you and your family a very happy and holy Christmas. We pray that this New Year will bring you closer to Jesus and Mary and deepen your joy and happiness. Thank you to all who have supported us and emailed us. Let the light of Christ shine out to the world. Be not afraid. God bless you. Merry Christmas!

Sorry folks, I am having some website problems. I hope to have this worked out as soon as possible, please check back with us later. (www.soltsisters.org) thanks, God bless you- Please say a prayer that this is resolved!!!

Here's an interesting article found in Time magazine about the changing ways of religious life. I find it fascinating that the public is picking up on what is bringing women back to the discernment of a religious vocation.

Well, much like the rain here in Seattle, the hard times that certain people suffer do not seem to end! Just the other day at Mass, we heard the Gospel of Jesus exhorting his disciples that "Whoever wishes to come after Me, must deny himself, take up his cross and follow Me." Why does that still suprise us in our own life? I often ask myself that question. Sometimes it seems like we are jarred at the cost of living as a disciple. But as Jesus goes on to say in the same Gospel, we have to go into discipleship as an all-or-nothing deal. We can't begin this journey only to fall by the wayside half way through. Perhaps one of the reasons why discipleship is so difficult for us is because we are afraid to die to ourselves. We are afraid to give the things that Jesus asks of us. To us, these things seem very big, but they aren't in comparison to what Jesus wants to give us in return. But because we don't see the way that God sees, we hold back a bit. We hesitate. We wei...

We wish you a very happy All Saints Day! We join with the Church in thanking and praising God for all of His saints and we ask them to intercede for us to help us along our journey to eternity. God bless you! :)

Okay, Okay, I know this forum is usually reserved for ideas of a religious nature, but I would like to bring up something that affects us all- manners. Now, I am not refering to the kinds of "manners" we often use to hide the truth or to say things that we don't really mean, I am referring to the day to day way we treat each other in this world. I sometimes hear adults saying,"children these days have really lost their manners, they are so rude." Now perhaps we have all felt that way at times (and many of us have, considering that this topic has been mentioned even in the Old Testament!) and sometimes young people can be rude, but let's look up the river a bit and see where these children learn their manners, their way of treating others. Children learn from adults. They learn from us. And adults don't often give the best examples. The Bible speaks so much about humility, in other words, simply living in the truth. When we are humble, we know ourselves a...

Hello, Just a little news about our website, it's being reconstructed! So please be patient while all the, er, kinks are worked out. I will try to post a brand-new and improved site as soon as I can. Until then, our blog is still up and running. God bless you, thank you for your prayers

I have been wanting to write this for quite some time but I have been, er, suffering from a lack of time to sort out these thoughts and type them (however labored) here. Seriously, though, I don't know about you but it seems to me that so many people I know are really suffering right now. The types of suffering are vast; from a typhoon that greatly affected our community in the Philippines, to health problems, to family strife and on and on. A couple weeks ago it really struck me that a lot of people are suffering. Whenever I see a news headline, it just reminds me all the more that people are truly suffering all over the world. Now, granted that suffering is nothing new (and some of you are thinking, "Sister, I have been suffering for 20 years, tell me something new!") but, somehow it seems that we are all being prepared for something. There isn't a grace that comes from God that is detached from suffering. I am convinced of this truth more and more. Why is that? It...

Congratulations to Sr. Mary Elisabeth of the Coronation Marks, Sr. Mary Aloysius of Jesus Kim and Sr. Maria Giovanni Paulo Orsini who made their 1st Profession on Vows on August 15th.

Our SOLT Mission of the Rebirth Center (care for drug addicts) for women in Thailand: I will post a history of this center soon (which is amazing!) but here are a few pictures of the women chanting the principals of the center, the words to their creed, some of the buiding, and the site of a future dining hall.

Please say a prayer for all of the students and teachers as they head back to school. May God grant them peace of mind, widsom and an eagerness to learn all about His creation and marvels. A blessed new school year to you all!

One of the amazing experiences that I had in Thailand was to visit the Bridge on the River Kwai and travel on the railroad built by the POWs. It was humbling and very sobering to visit the museum dedicated to those who lost their lives building the Thailand-Burma railway. Here are some pictures and video of the journey.

Below is the site of the one of the former POW camps (minus the modern housing). Also the actual living conditions of the people along the river (middle picture) and the river itself, flowing majestically through the lush hills.