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Marian Sisters of Santa Rosa
Marian Sisters of Santa Rosa
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Saint Rose of Lima, pray for us!

8/30/2017

 

​On August 30, 1829, the traditional feast of St. Rose of Lima, the founding of Santa Rosa was begun by Padre Juan Amoros. A Franciscan missionary, Padre Amoros baptized the first native Christian of the area on this date, christening her with the name of the day's saint - St. Rose. He gave the same name, Santa Rosa, to the creek in which he administered the Sacrament and the whole area. The baptistry window of the Cathedral of St. Eugene depicts Padre Amoros baptizing the young maid and it is from this joyous event that the Diocese of Santa Rosa received both its name and its primary patron. Later, a small outpost was established consisting of a chapel and residence where the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass was offered when priests from the missions of San Rafael or Sonoma could visit. In time, this small outpost (which was never a full mission) grew into the City of Santa Rosa.
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​Inscription on the stone marking the site of the baptism
Prayer to St. Rose for the Diocese of Santa Rosa
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God, our Father, in all the churches
scattered throughout the world
you show forth the one, holy,
Catholic, and apostolic Church.

Through the Gospel and the 
Eucharist bring your people
of the Church of Santa Rosa
together in the Holy Spirit.
Renew in us your grace
and guide us in your love.

Make us a sign of your love
for all people, and help us
to show forth the living 
presence of Christ in the world,
who lives and reigns with you
and the Holy Spirit, one God,
​forever and ever. Amen.

S. Rosa, Ora Pro Nobis!

8/23/2017

 
The first canonized saint to be born in the Western Hemisphere, Saint Rose of Lima was drawn to a life of deep union with Our Lord, a life of extreme mortification in reparation for the heinous sins of her age. A beautiful young girl, her parents made many attempts to marry her off, but St. Rose remained true to her youthful vow of virginity and became a Dominican tertiary. Confirmed by St. Turibious, St. Rose was also a friend of St. Martin de Porres. These three saintly contemporaries lived lives of personal austerity and intense prayer on behalf of their people, leaving us a testimony of the powerful influence a few saintly lives have on even the most corrupt society. This year marks the 400th anniversary of St. Rose's death, a time for great rejoicing in this diocese under her patronage and an excellent opportunity for fervent prayers of petition to be offered on behalf of our people and society.

​St. Rosa of Lima, pray for us!
​ Intercede for our Diocese!
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O Queen Conceived Without Sin...

8/22/2017

 
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Mother questions the candidates concerning their intention
After a period of candidacy has been completed, the Candidate is received as a postulant and clothed in the distinctive garb of a postulant of the Marian Sisters of Santa Rosa. At this time, she is placed especially under the patronage of our Immaculate Queen through investiture in the Medal of the Immaculate Conception which each Sister wears over her heart as a sign of her consecration to Jesus through Mary.
The blessed Miraculous Medals waiting on the altar
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The period of postulancy (derived from the Latin meaning "to ask") is a time for the postulant to become familiar with and to assimilate as her own the way of life and customs of our community. The young Sister is given the opportunity to learn the life and customs by sharing in the assignments and duties of the community. Under the guidance of those more experienced in the life, she is trained in the work of the sacristy and care of the chapel, the preparation and serving of community meals, the care and maintenance of the convent common spaces and grounds, and is lightly involved in the various external apostolates of the community, learning to do each for Jesus alone in the spirit of a Marian Sister.
 She also joins in the studies common to the house of formation - courses in philosophy, theology, various aspects of religious life and consecration, the spiritual life, prayer, the charism of the community, and St. Louis de Montfort's True Devotion, as well as courses in human formation. These studies combined with the living of the life allow the postulant to integrate the life practically as well as intellectually and to further discern God's will for her life.
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Above all else, the postulant is formed in the spirituality of the community and aided to foster that relationship with God that is the foundation of the consecrated life. The period of postulancy allows the Sister to be more radically converted to Christ, Who is to be her Divine Bridegroom. This period lasts at least six months, at the end of which, if the postulant continues to hear God's call to our way of life, she may be invited to write a letter requesting the community to prayerfully consider receiving her as a novice, at which time she would receive her religious name and be clothed in the habit of a Marian Sister.
The postulants receive the medal of the Immaculate Conception from Mother and the Formation Mistress
We commend our postulant Sisters to the care of our Immaculate Mother, begging her to form in them a perfect image of her Divine Son and to obtain for them the grace of final perseverance in our way of life.
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The Community renewing our Total Consecration
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O Queen conceived without Original Sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee!

Feastivity!

8/22/2017

 
Immaculate Heart of Mary, be my salvation!
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August 22, the octave day of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, marks the Extraordinary Form feast of the Immaculate Heart of Mary. ​Speaking at Fatima in 1982, St. John Paul II makes these profound remarks concerning the love of Mary's Immaculate Heart:
​"When Jesus on the Cross said: "Woman, behold, your son" (Jn 19: 26), in a new way he opened his Mother's Heart, the Immaculate Heart, and revealed to it the new dimensions and extent of the love to which she was called in the Holy Spirit by the power of the sacrifice of the Cross.

"In the words of Fátima we seem to find this dimension of motherly love, whose range covers the whole of man's path towards God; the path that leads through this world and that goes, through Purgatory, beyond this world. The solicitude of the Mother of the Saviour is solicitude for the work of salvation: the work of her Son. It is solicitude for the salvation, the eternal salvation, of all. Now that sixty-five years have passed since that 13 May 1917, it is difficult to fail to notice how the range of this salvific love of the Mother embraces, in a particular way, our century.
​
"In the light of a mother's love we understand the whole message of the Lady of Fátima. The greatest obstacle to man's journey towards God is sin, perseverance in sin, and, finally, denial of God. The deliberate blotting out of God from the world of human thought. The detachment from him of the whole of man's earthly activity. The rejection of God by man....
"Can the Mother who with all the force of the love that she fosters in the Holy Spirit desires everyone's salvation keep silence on what undermines the very bases of their salvation? No, she cannot.

​"And so, while the message of Our Lady of Fátima is a motherly one, it is also strong and decisive. It sounds severe. It sounds like John the Baptist speaking on the banks of the Jordan. It invites to repentance. It gives a warning. It calls to prayer. It recommends the Rosary.

​"The message is addressed to every human being. The love of the Saviour's Mother reaches every place touched by the work of salvation. Her care extends to every individual of our time, and to all the societies nations and peoples. Societies menaced by apostasy, threatened by moral degradation. The collapse of morality involves the collapse of societies."
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In the Ordinary Form, the Queenship of Our Lady is celebrated on this day. Of this privilege of Mary, Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange writes, 
"Mary is the mother of Him Who from the instant of His conception is King of the universe by His hypostatic union and His fullness of grace.... Mary has a radical right to universal queenship by the fact of her Divine motherhood, but the Divine plan was that she should merit it also by her union with her suffering Son, and that she should not exercise it fully before being crowned queen of all creation in Heaven. Her royalty is spiritual and supernatural rather than temporal and natural, though it extends in a secondary way to temporal affairs considered in their relation to salvation and sanctification.... Thus Mary's queenship is truly universal. There is no region to which it does not extend in some way."
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Le Couronnement de la Vierge by Enguerrand Quarton
O Mary, Queen of all hearts, we trust in you.
O Mary, Queen of all hearts, we hope in you.
O Mary, Queen of all hearts, we love you and we honor you!

In Sollemnitate Assumptionis!

8/15/2017

 
"A great sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun..."
~ Revelation 12:1

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Assumption of Mary by Jan Frans Beschey
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​"She mounts up to Heaven,
flowing with delights, leaning upon Her Beloved (Cant. 8:5). Amid the acclamations of the daughters of Sion, who will henceforth never cease to call Her Blessed, She ascends surrounded by choirs of heavenly spirits joyfully praising the Son of God. Never more will shadows veil, as they did on earth, the glory of the most beautiful daughter of Eve. Beyond the immovable Thrones, beyond the dazzling Cherubim, beyond the flaming Seraphim, onward She passes, delighting the heavenly city with Her sweet perfumes. She stays not till She reaches the very confines of the Divinity; close to the throne of honor where Her Son, the King of ages, reigns in justice and in power, there She is proclaimed Queen, there She will reign for evermore in mercy and goodness."
~ Abbot Proper Gueranger
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 Himmelfahrt Mariae by Guido Reni
"Today let the inhabitants of Heaven and earth be united,
let the joy of Angels and men be one, let every tongue exult and sing Hail to the Mother of God."
​ ~ St. Andrew of Crete
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Knocking at the Convent Door

8/8/2017

 
On Entrance Day, after bidding farewell to their families, the Candidates approach the convent and knock on the door, asking to be admitted as aspirants to our way of life. They have walked a long journey of discernment, first the hearkening in their soul to Christ's call and then the mutual discernment with the community which seeks to determine God's will. The community has seen in the Candidate signs of the communal charism - the gift from God given for the service of the Church to both the Community and to the individual members for His glory and the salvation of souls - and indications of the ability to live the life. The Candidate has in turn seen that the life of the consecrated bride of Christ is beautiful and that our charism and way of life may be the place in which He wishes to fulfill the desires that He has placed in her heart, desires of belonging more fully to Him and of giving her whole self in His service.
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Each Candidate reverences the wounds of Christ Crucified on this day, just as the whole Church does on Good Friday, as an act of honor to the Cross as the means of our redemption and as an act of loving reparation to our Good Redeemer, so injured by the sins of men. 
Entrance marks the end of an often difficult period of discernment in the Candidate's life, but the discernment does not cease with entrance. In a sense, a more intense period of discernment begins. ​
Now is the opportunity to see how the well the aspirant and the life match: does she have the physical stamina necessary to live a life fully given? The intellectual maturity to join our '"pursuit of Truth by learning"? The emotional maturity to flourish in community life? 
The early stages of religious life provide the Candidate with the time and guidance she needs to determine if, in fact, God is calling her to this way of life, in this particular community, living out of this particular charism, serving this particular Church, in this particular manner. It is a time of beautiful opportunities for growth in all the human as well as intellectual and moral virtues, to grow in the spiritual life, and to fall deeply in love with Christ Crucified Who has been whispering to her heart and communicating to her His Loving Presence and plan for her life.
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We pray that each young woman who knocks on our door as an aspirant grows in her love of Christ Jesus and in her ability to perceive and receive His love in all the aspects of her life. We welcome each "little Sister" into our religious family with open hearts and loving prayers, recognizing that she may be our sister for life, according to God's Holy Will.
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Barbecue 2017

8/2/2017

 
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We wish to extend a hearty thank you to all who made our barbecue such a lovely (and successful) afternoon! We are humbled and grateful for your continued support, without which we would not be able to serve this diocese. It was a blessing to see so many of our dear friends together. We pray daily that God will bless each of you for your generosity and we entrust you to the loving care of His Mother.
Photo Gallery here
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All photos by Ginamarie Lopez of Urban Pilgrim Photography

Monthly Devotion: The Immaculate Heart of Mary

8/1/2017

 
O Jesus,it is for love of Thee​ and in reparation for the offenses committed
​ against the Immaculate Heart of Mary and for the conversion of poor sinners!
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Fatima "Sacrifice prayer" 

​O Most Holy Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, I adore Thee profoundly, and I offer Thee the Most Precious Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of Jesus Christ, present in all the tabernacles of the world, in reparation for the outrages, sacrileges, and indifferences by which He is offended. By the infinite merits of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart of Mary, I beg the conversion of poor sinners.
Prayer the Angel taught the children of Fatima
​
​Immaculate Heart of Mary, pray for us!
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A Sister's Duty

8/1/2017

 
"It is the duty of the consecrated life to show that the Incarnate Son of God is the eschatological goal towards which all things tend, the splendor before which every other light pales, and the infinite beauty which alone can fully satisfy the human heart. In the consecrated life, then, it is not only a matter of following Christ with one's whole heart, of loving him "more than father or mother, more than son or daughter" (cf. Mt 10:37) — for this is required of every disciple — but of living and expressing this by conforming one's whole existence to Christ in an all-encompassing commitment which foreshadows the eschatological perfection, to the extent that this is possible in time and in accordance with the different charisms.
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"​By professing the evangelical counsels, consecrated persons not only make Christ the whole meaning of their lives but strive to reproduce in themselves, as far as possible, 'that form of life which he, as the Son of God, accepted in entering this world.'
​

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.
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​"By embracing chastity, they make their own the pure love of Christ and proclaim to the world that he is the Only-Begotten Son who is one with the Father (cf. Jn 10:30, 14:11). By imitating Christ's poverty, they profess that he is the Son who receives everything from the Father, and gives everything back to the Father in love (cf. Jn 17:7, 10). By accepting, through the sacrifice of their own freedom, the mystery of Christ's filial obedience, they profess that he is infinitely beloved and loving, as the One who delights only in the will of the Father (cf. Jn 4:34), to whom he is perfectly united and on whom he depends for everything. 
"By this profound "configuration" to the mystery of Christ, the consecrated life brings about in a special way that confessio Trinitatis which is the mark of all Christian life; it acknowledges with wonder the sublime beauty of God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and bears joyful witness to his
​loving concern for every human being." 
​
~ Vita Consecrata, 16 ​
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