Flowing From His Side

This fall, our Community began a new apostolate which has its goal to share the mission and charism of our Congregation to all we encounter. The new Office of Mission Advancement will be sharing with you the prayer, apostolic work, and life of our Sisters and informing you of the needs of our Province in the United States. We have begun by publishing our first newsletter entitled “Flowing From His Side.” This comes from our charism which is “to make the Merciful Love of Christ visible in our service to Christ and His Church” and from our spirituality which stems from Sacred Scripture, “They will look on Him Whom they have pierced” (John 19:37) We hope you enjoy this first issue and look forward to seeing our future issues posted on our Blog and on our “Happenings” page. This quarterly newsletter will be just the beginning of our work in “advancing the mission” of our Community in our American Province St. Elizabeth. If you would like more information about how to support our Sisters in anyway, please contact Sr. M. Stephania Newell, FSGM by email at oma@altonfranciscans.org or by phone 618-474-6193. May God bless you during this holy season of Advent.

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Journey with Mary: Sacrificial Love of Spiritual Motherhood

Recently, I found a reflection I had written during my first retreat as a postulant. The last conference that had been given was on Spiritual Motherhood. As I approached the 4 th Station where Jesus meets His Sorrowful Mother, this is what struck my heart: What is the sacrificial love of a mother? It is the self-sacrifice made to love her children. Mary’s self-sacrifice to be there with Christ, her Son, in His passion was the selfless love that united her with Him. Her heart was pierced with 7 swords in the agony of watching her beloved Son endure a cross that He did not deserve, but which He embraced for the love of the Father and mankind. Could she not have said to Jesus, “You don’t have to do this, there are other ways. Do you know how much pain You are causing me and those who love you?” She knew He could have chosen any other way t...

Welcome to our Family, Postulants!!!

Today, on the Feast of the Birth of Mary, our new postulants entered the postulancy of our American Province of the Sisters of St. Francis of the Martyr St. George! We thank God for the gift of these vocations. Pictured above - on their very first full day in the convent - are (from left) Ashley Vola, Samantha Goodson, Miranda Edgar, Jennifer Clark and Erin Leis. Welcome, Postulants! We Sisters are grateful that you have accepted Christ's invitation to belong totally to Him in our Franciscan community, and we support you wholeheartedly with our prayers and help! If you would like to send a word of welcome and encouragement to these new postulants, we will pass the greetings along to them. Just leave them as a "comment"!

To Gaze upon Christ

This Lent the Lord has put on my heart the awareness of gazing upon Christ. In our Franciscan congregation, our spirituality flows from John 19:37 “they will look on the one whom they have pierced.” With this spirituality, we gaze upon the pierced side of Christ and receive from His pierced heart His love and mercy. Then we may go forth to give what we have received. Throughout this Lent, this action of gazing has been foremost in both my spiritual reading and in prayer. It also brought to mind a graced trip to Assisi in 2014, by which this “gazing” became so real to me. While in Assisi, there are many things to see and let soak into one’s soul. The first place where I was moved to gaze was in the side chapel in the Basilica of St. Clare in Assisi, where the Crucifix from which Our Lord spoke to St. Francis is now housed. What an awe-filled moment it was to kneel before this Crucifix and to gaze into the e...

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