Lenten Labors of Love

"In the holy season of Lent, the Church sets out once again on the path leading to Easter. With Jesus as her guide, and walking in his footsteps, she invites us to cross the desert."
~ St. John Paul II

As an aid in our Lenten journey, the Sisters made a simple shrine honoring our Sorrowful Mother outside of the Chapel. This shrine is also our Stational Church shrine, enabling us to enter each day into the pilgrimage of the Church in Rome. Each time we come to or go from prayer, we are reminded that we are pilgrims on our way to the eternal Easter.

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​Our Lenten liturgical prayer is marked by a certain simplicity. The Chapel, while retaining the beauty appropriate to the worship of God, is stripped of those things that speak to us too strongly of what is yet to come. Lent is a season of entering the desert with Christ so as to come to the glories of the resurrection with Christ. Over the convent grounds comes a deepened silence. We strive to imitate in this holy season the silence of our Eucharistic Spouse. We take His silence in the Host as our model in working to foster an atmosphere conducive to constant adoration and prayer. 

This increased conventual (and personal) stillness is not a separation from our mission of evangelization. Far from it! This Lent has been a particularly beautiful Lent of apostolic endeavors. The Sisters sang with the choir for the Rite of Election, visited the SSU Newman Center, facilitated the Sodality Consecration, sang a Requiem High Mass, spoke to the young people on the Pan de Vida retreat, spent time the students of Kolbe/Trinity School, and our Lord has planned many more apostolic adventures for Lent, in addition to the gift of our daily duties. It is the conventual silence and recollection with our Spouse that enables us to serve Him in the service of other souls.