'Tis the month of our Mother, but it is also a season of retreats, sacraments, presentations, and any number of other apostolic adventures!

Resurrexit sicut dixit! Alleluia! May the grace of the resurrection of our Lord fill your hearts this joyous season! As might be imagined, the Sacred Triduum is a most beautiful and very full time for the Sisters. Living as we do at the service of the Sacred Liturgy, there was scarcely a breather between Palm Sunday and the present moment for side duties (such as blogging), but now that we are basking in the glow of the Easter season, there may be time to share a little about our Holy Week and Easter, beginning with a few highlights.

​Dearest Friends in Christ,

Ave Regina Caelorum! Hail, Queen of Heaven!

This newsletter will reach you and your families just as we are about to celebrate the most sacred and grace-filled days of the Liturgical Year. The days of Holy Week and Easter call each of us to be united to Christ in the Paschal Mystery through the Sacred Liturgy. There
is no better way to do this than to keep company with Mary – to strive to see each of Jesus’ redemptive acts through her eyes while pondering them with her in our hearts.

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.

"Hail, holy Joseph, hail! Chaste spouse of Mary, hail!" begins a well-loved devotional hymn, one of the hymns we sing in honor of St. Joseph on his feasts and on Wednesdays throughout the year. Today is one of great conventual joy. The silence and austerity of Lenten disciplines give way to the celebration of the Solemnity. Even the bright flowers on the altar proclaim the Church's veneration of so great a saint.

St. Joseph, Spouse of the Mother of God and Foster Father of Jesus, is our father in a special way. To him we confide our temporal wants, to him we confide our vocations, to him do we go when in need spiritually or temporally. Each year, we pray a novena leading up to his feastday, thanking him for his care of our Community and entrusting to him our petitions.

A MEMBER of the "24 Club", St. Gabriel of Our Lady of Sorrows is a special inspiration to the young, students, clerics, and novices whose patron he is. In his short life, he rose heroically from an average, even worldly, life to one of great perfection, as is exhibited by the resolutions which guided his brief religious life.

"How poor a life in which there is not thirst. Craving and longing, and the restlessness which goes with them are a sort of consolation in themselves, and a hint of likeness with Him; and it is craving and longing, more than anything else, which makes the difference between one's good and bad days." - from Notes of a Meditation by Mother Janet Stuart

Christ came to do the will of the Father who sent Him, and He did it steadily, becoming a cause of salvation for all who obey. Our lives of consecration are lives of deep identification with the His sacred life; each of our actions proceeds from His will and is carried on by His assistance, redounding for His glory.