Clothing

"Let us pray ... to Our Lord Jesus Christ for these His handmaids .... that He may grant them His Holy Spirit, Who will preserve them in holy resolution of religion, protect their hearts from the hindrances of the world and secular desires, so that, as they undergo an exterior transformation, they may be transformed likewise in spirit by the interior workings of the right hand of the Most High, and that just as they are delivered from all spiritual blindness, so may they be completely filled with the light of eternal grace." 
Prayer Before the Investiture of Novices

The month of May is full of feasts and joyous occasions for both Holy Mother Church and for our Marian community, and this final day of the month is no exception. Today, during this particular liturgical year, falls the Feast of Pentecost, but as it is also May 31, the Church celebrates the Visitation (Ordinary Form Calendar) and the Coronation of Mary as Queen and Virgin (Extraordinary Form Calendar). What better day, then, to have the clothing ceremony of our Postulants as they are accepted into the novitiate as Novices of the Marian Sisters of Santa Rosa. ​

At the beginning of each ceremony for a religious taking a new step, our community chants the Veni Creator Spiritus, invoking the Holy Spirit to come - for any good action is an act of the Holy Spirit working in and through us. Through the chant we are brought back to today's feast, that moment in the upper room where the Third Person of the Blessed Trinity came upon the apostles who, together with Mary the Mother of Jesus, devoted themselves to prayer. 

"When the Holy Spirit, her Spouse, finds Mary in a soul, He hastens there and enters fully into it. He gives Himself generously to that soul according to the place it has given to His spouse" (True Devotion #36)." 

Now clothed in the garb of Our Lady, the Spouse of the Holy Spirit, the new novices will be even more of an external witness of the Blessed Mother to the world. And as they seek to follow Jesus more closely in imitation of His Holy Mother, the Holy Spirit will hasten to their side and enter their souls, for now in them, His sees His dearly beloved Spouse, the Virgin Mary. ​​

Under the gentle reign of the Immaculate Heart of Mary as another Mary, alter Maria, they seek to Jesus to all whom they meet and aid others in their sanctification, as Our Lady brought Our Lord to St. Elizabeth, sanctifying St. John the Baptist. Dawning the white veil as a reminder of angelic purity, these new novices imitate our who was crowned in heaven as Queen & Virgin. 

We ask you to join us in praying for our new novices - that they may receive all the graces this day of feasts holds for them and that they may persevere in their religious vocation. 

The New Novices (from left to right):
Sr. Maria Josefa of Our Lady of the Annunciation
Sr. Maria Consolata of Our Lady, Spouse of the Holy Ghost
Sr. John Paul Maria of Our Lady of the Most Holy Trinity

Clothing Slideshow