According to the calendar, today is officially the first day of spring. Be that as it may be, it has felt like spring in Santa Rosa for a while and we have treated it as such.

"When creating us, God loved us so much that He made us to His own image and likeness; when redeeming us, He loved us so much that He made Himself to our image!" Fr. Gabriel of St. Mary Magdalen

Religious life is the joy of total commitment to Christ and bears witness to the striving of the whole Church toward union with the Divine Spouse. St. John Paul II writes, "We should never forget that consecrated life, before being a commitment of men and women, is a gift which comes from on high, an initiative of the Father "who draws his creatures to himself with a special love and for a special mission" (VC 17). This look of special love profoundly touches the heart of the one called, who is urged by the Holy Spirit to place himself or herself in the footsteps of Christ, in a particular way of following him, by means of assuming the evangelical counsels of chastity, poverty, and obedience. A stupendous gift!"

As a follow up to the excellent Sacred Liturgy Conference in June, the conference organizers have shared a gallery of AMAZING photos taken by Mr. Marc Salvatore. To view the photos, click here.

Thanks to our dear friend Gina Marie -- who graciously photographed the Sisters' First Profession of Vows, we have wonderful pictures of the ceremony to share.

First Profession of Vows of Sr. Mary Victoria of Our Sorrowful Mother and Sr. Michelle Marie of Our Lady, Queen of the Angels

Our Lady of Grace Sodality, one of our apostolates, celebrated the Marian consecration of one of its members on First Saturday. The Sodality is a group of young ladies who are committed to growing in personal holiness and serving their parish community through their consecration to Jesus through Mary. The young women of this Sodality have chosen as their secondary patron Venerable Teresita Quevedo, a lively Spanish Sodalist who lived her Sodality consecration to our Lady with heroic virtue. Her Sodality motto was, "May all who see me, see thee, O Mary!" Dying at the young age of twenty, she is recognized as a model of personal holiness and a special friend of Sodalists. During the consecration ceremony, the candidate makes her Marian consecration and receives a blessed garment as an outward sign of her consecration and her association with the Sodality. The Sodality consecration was followed by the newly elected officers making their Sodality pledges.