From Our Founders and Friends

Easter Season 2016

From centuries ago, the words of our founders still resound, full of wisdom and insight for us today, in this Jubilee Year of Mercy. Our holy ones, Saints Elizabeth Ann Seton, Louise de Marillac, and Vincent de Paul lived deep within the mystery of Christ’s dying and rising. In it they found the power to give their whole selves in love for those most in need, just as Christ did.

ST. ELIZABETH ANN SETON

Imitate the patience of him we adore….Persevere with yet more earnestness, and rejoice to bear your share in the cross which is our passport and seal to the kingdom of our Redeemer.

We are never strong enough to bear our cross, it is the cross which carries us, nor so weak as to be unable to bear it since the weakest become strong by its virtue.

Imagine…all with the devotion of Saints,…singing the hymn of the Resurrection; when they come to the words “Peace be to all here” it seems as if our Lord is again acting over the scene that passed with the assembled disciples.

ST. VINCENT DE PAUL

Is there any risk in loving God? Can we love Him too much? Can there be any excess in something so holy and divine? Can we ever have sufficient love for God, who is infinitely loveable? It’s true that we can never love God enough and can never go to excess in this love if we consider what God deserves from us.

St. LOUISE DE MARILLAC

…To choose the life of Jesus Crucified as the model for our lives so that His Resurrection may be a means for glory for us in eternity.

Offer yourself frequently to Him and ask Him what He wants you to do. Do not worry about your strength. Rest assured that you will receive all that is necessary from the goodness of God.

Charity Wisdom from Our Friends

Psalm 4
Do not be deluded, do not be self-righteous.
Do not think yourself specially entitled to my help.
My desire is to protect all… as yours should be.
Those who stray will not be set right by advice,
but by loving concern.
Do not say the Lord has set apart
the godly for himself.
Share your joy with others,
and you will find that they have joy to share with you.
Share their burdens,
And you will find that they will shoulder yours. (Sr. Rose Agnes MacCauley, SC, adapted from her 1971 book, Vision 20/20)

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Through the ups and downs of life, it is only when I am able to live more humbly and simply with a dedicated effort to those living on the outskirts of society that I find a deep and true experience of the divine. As St. Vincent de Paul declares: “Go to the poor, there you will find God.”… The charism of the Sisters of Charity continues to bring me to a heightened level of understanding, magnified by the real presence of love in human connection, especially with those of us at the margins. (Matt Shields, SCNY Associate, CMSV Dir. of Campus Ministry)

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At the heart of Jesus’ message…is his consciousness that the reign of God, the reign of Love, is already erupting on our earth and requiring our total investment. God is doing a new thing, right now, in 2016, in the midst of an old world with old ways of seeing—and we are urgently-needed pioneers of this transformation. (Sr. Liz Sweeney, SSJ)

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Our role is no longer to merely ease suffering, bind up wounds, and feed the hungry, but through every form of effort to raise the powers of love upward to the next stage of consciousness. (Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, SJ)