NOVEMBER ~ All Souls and High School Reunions

What do All Souls and high school reunions have to do with each other?

Well, having recently gone to my 50^th at Holy Trinity Diocesan High School on Long Island, I found it a wonderful experience.  Being a Nun was an oddity among the 150 or so souls who attended the reunion.    While we were in school the Dominicans and Mercy teachers, many of whom have gone to heaven, commented among themselves that our class had the most spirit!  By the turn out, it appears to be still today.

I spoke with and embraced people I haven’t seen in 50 years, or had never had the occasion to speak to while in high school, so large was our class.

At the reunion Mass each classmate who had died was remembered by name, all 51 of them. Soul- friends in heaven.

We laughed and cried remembering our young lives.  My, how we’ve changed. My, how we stayed the same.  It was so heartening to meet and                                                        meet again so many good people.

Now about those Souls: 
Enraptured, our foundress Blessed Maria Celeste Crostarosa, once exclaimed: “How lovable and precious you are, my Jesus.   This view (of You) is so full of love it keeps me in a purgatory at once of love and of pain, because in the true light of faith the difference separating Your Most Pure Being from my being becomes clear.”   

Someone at the reunion remarked that in Freshman year both the boys and girls were scared of each other.  But after 4 years lifelong friendships had developed.  Oh, the loves and pains of growing up.

It is the same with Jesus.  At first, we are scared of a relationship with God, but during our lifetime we mature and grow in our relationship with the God of unconditional love and mercy and become who we really are meant to be:  images of God to one another.

Jesus spoke to the heart of Celeste: “Embrace in my heart all my creatures; and that through my kiss of love to you, you might give to those souls the kiss of love in my heart to them.”

It pleases the Lord when on All Souls Day we offer the Prayers of Petition for the souls of our dearly departed loved ones.  Celeste’s words console us: “Death is a dream of peace for just souls because they live in love and it is this love which brings them rest in their dying and they die of this love in a peaceful, sweet and gentle death.”    When we die, our union is not quite complete yet. Our loves and pains have still to be purified.   

First Corinthians reassures us about this purification: “Behold, I tell you a mystery. We shall not all fall asleep, but we will all be changed: in an instant, in the blink of an eye…and we shall be changed.  For that which is corruptible must clothe itself with incorruptibility, and that which is mortal must clothe itself with immortality.”

                Then all our SOULS will have quite a REUNION in heaven!

LIKE SUNFLOWERS

 A joyful noise was raised to the heavens when four women renewed the commitment as Redemptoristine Associates on September 10, 2023.   This happened at the celebration of the Eucharist presided over by Fr. Provincial John Collins, C.Ss.R.

The chapel in the Beacon Carmelite Monastery of the Incarnation, where the ‘Red Nuns’ reside, was festooned with sunflowers. Prioress, Sr. Moira Quinn, gave a welcome before Mass started and said, “Just as sunflowers turn their faces to follow the sun throughout the day, so our Associates follow the Beloved Son. 

At this Mass Jeannie, Marguerite, Carole and Angela will renew their commitment to follow the Redeemer, faithfully and generously as they strive, like sunflowers, to follow Christ in their daily lives, who is the light of their faith, the strength of their charity and the source of their hope.  May God bless them and the other Associates who were unable to attend today’s Mass.  May God bless you all.”    And the assembly responded, “Amen.”

During the Mass, each Associate participated in either proclaiming a reading, singing the Responsorial Psalm or leading the Prayer of the Faithful.  After Fr. John’s right-on-point homily about forgiveness and talking through our concerns with one another, the Associates renewed their commitment for another year. 

After Mass, we went to the community room for refreshments and chatted with Fr. John and the ladies over coffee and cakes.   Before they left, each Associate received a sunflower as a remembrance of the day.

We thank our Associates for their faithfulness, friendship and the inspiration they are to us, their families, their local communities and the church.  May they always be like sunflowers following, adoringly, the Beloved Son.