 We have all heard the phrase: “You are what you eat”; perhaps it could just as accurately be said: “You are what you read”! The thoughts and images we imbibe from books and media form our minds and hearts. Because of this, daily spiritual reading is an integral part of our religious life. It fills our minds with thoughts of God and provides a storehouse from which we pull ideas to speak to Him in our meditation and throughout the day. The Sisters’ will often choose reading directed toward the themes of particular liturgical seasons. During Lent, the Sisters’ prie-dieus are full of books about Our Lord’s Passion, Our Lady’s Sorrows, the Seven Last Words, the Stations of the Cross, and personal repentance and conversion. As we reach the culmination of the Lenten season, the Sisters shared some choice quotes from their spiritual reading to inspire your Holy Week:
"[St. Augustine] says that God preferred to bring good out of evil rather than to prevent evil. And indeed it is worthy of divine wisdom, love, and power to be able to draw out of those dark depths some magnificent good. Jesus Christ, who came to transform all things, who elevated, sanctified, and divinized them, did not wish to suppress evil, but gave us the divine secret of getting good out of it" (Archbishop Luis Martinez, The Sanctifier). "Sinlessness is not common to our Mother and to us. But sorrow is. It is the one thing we share, the one common thing betwixt us. We will sit with her therefore, and sorrow with her, and grow more full of love, not forgetting her grandeurs but pressing to our hearts with fondest predilection the memory of her exceeding martyrdom" (Father Faber, The Foot of the Cross). "A final dimension of [Mary's] faith is its tenacity. Hers was a faith delicate in its beauty, intricate in its design, but steadfast in its courage and tenacity. Of Mary, to whom much was given, much was expected! ... It is important for us to remember that this faith of Mary must be the model of our own… As in Mary, so also in us, Christ must live by faith. He must inhabit us. We do not have that fullness of receptivity for God's Word that was Mary's. But God has given us in our created reality and uniquely in our Baptism that radical capacity to hear and receive his Word" (James Cardinal Hickey, Mary at the Foot of the Cross: A Retreat Given to John Paul II and the Papal Household).   “Lent is like a long ‘retreat’ during which we can turn back into ourselves and listen to the voice of God, in order to defeat the temptations of the Evil One. It is a period of spiritual ‘combat’ which we must experience alongside Jesus, not with pride and presumption, but using the arms of faith: prayer, listening to the word of God and penance. In this way we will be able to celebrate Easter in truth, ready to renew the promises of our Baptism.”
- Pope Benedict XV  Easter is the feast of feasts, the pinnacle of the liturgical year. We spend forty days in Lent just to prepare for it! But how do we prepare for Lent? Is there something that can help us get ready?
 On the Thursday before Holy Week the Sisters attended the annual Chrism Mass celebrated by our Bishop and over fifty of our diocesan priests. We witnessed these men renew their promises made at their ordinations, and our Bishop blessed the Sacred Oils which will be used throughout the Churches of our diocese to administer the Sacraments in the coming year. The Mass was a beautiful reminder that we need our priests and we need the Sacraments, especially the Eucharist.
 Photo Credit: Fr. Lawrence Lew, O.P. “…I knew God by His pain! And by that sight I saw the light; Thus did my grief For Him beget relief… So learn this rule from me: Pity thou Him and He will pity thee!” It is the agonizing privilege of every Sister Teacher and Sister Catechist, explaining to wide-eyed innocents for the first time about the dolorous passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ, to regard with fresh unction the painful realities of the sorrowful mysteries:
 Pueri Hebraeorum, portantes ramos olivarum, obviaverunt Domino, clamantes et dicentes: Hosanna in excelsis. The Hebrew children bearing olive branches, went forth to meet the Lord, crying out, and saying, Hosanna in the highest. Let us go together to meet Christ on the Mount of Olives. Today he returns from Bethany and proceeds of his own free will toward his holy and blessed passion, to consummate the mystery of our salvation. He who came down from heaven to raise us from the depths of sin, to raise us with himself, we are told in Scripture, above every sovereignty, authority and power, and every other name that can be named, now comes of his own free will to make his journey to Jerusalem. He comes without pomp or ostentation. As the psalmist says: He will not dispute or raise his voice to make it heard in the streets. He will be meek and humble, and he will make his entry in simplicity.
 Photo Credit: Fr. Lawrence Lew, O.P. The solemn announcement, spoken of by the prophet, has been proclaimed in Sion: the solemn fast of Lent, the season of expiation, the approach of the great anniversaries of our Redemption. Let us, then, rouse ourselves, and prepare for the spiritual combat.
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