Vocations News: Coping with COVID-19 and Come and Sees
Yes, 2020 has been quite a year. We managed to get in a couple visits with inquiring women before COVID became a byword and seeming harbinger of all that could go wrong with the year 2020. By lockdown in March it was hoped a few weeks would be sufficient to dispel the plague of 2020. Now, as fall approaches with lifts and more lock downs and Advent promises to arrive quickly, many wouldn’t be blamed for thinking things will never get back to ‘normal’. Even the phrase ‘new normal’ really can’t fit this strange culture of permanent distancing and sanitization. And yet...who really defines normal?
Take the normal process of discerning a vocation to the religious life. Correspondence, a building relationship, an in person visit or visits (Come and See) to experience a little bit of the life, further education and learning, entrance....etc. All the predictable steps that were standard now have a virus template to adapt to. And with our limited capacity to communicate via the internet in our neck of the woods, video meetings over a computer wouldn’t be just another strange hurdle to learn, they would be cost prohibitive given our data caps. You would think with this new COVID-19 ’normal’ that, between social distancing and communications obstacles, we would have to forego welcoming inquirers, candidates, and aspirants. But who really defines normal? God. He can work around EVERYTHING.
So this fall and God willing, into the new year as well, we’ve scheduled women for Come and See experiences, suitably adapted to the precautions of coronavirus. We plan on sharing lots of information and communication in both directions....just not any germs or viruses! It demands creativity, flexibility, and ingenuity. Perhaps we can add the live video stuff someday but for now, God’s providing! #sisterreginacomicstrip ...

Happy Epiphany! Some might say this "ends" Christmas. It is a feast that combines aspects of the great revelations of Christ`s divinity: the veneration by the Magi after his birth, his baptism in the Jordan, and the miracle at the wedding in Cana. In each event, the divine was experienced by witnesses. Your Christmas season may not have felt supernatural. But it was. It may not have felt like rubbing elbows with divinity. But it was. As we have often mentioned, we keep the cribs up until February 2nd and strive to keep the Infant King very much in our hearts year round. Go kneel once more at the crib of the helpless, silent Babe who needs everything, can do nothing, yet, as God, offers us Salvation and Eternal Life with him - starting now. That brings quite some peace amid this world`s chaos and tragedy. And that surely feels like a supernatural epiphany. #sisterreginacomicstrip ...

This week we celebrate the Queenship of the Blessed Virgin Mary. She serves so lovingly because, like her son, the King of Kings, she knows that to rule well is to give herself completely to others in humility. #sisterreginacomicstrip ...

It is our express mission in the Church to sacrifice and pray for priests, especially their sanctification and we do this through Eucharistic adoration. This week you notice there are no nuns in the cartoon. Just a priest kneeling in Chapel with his breviary at a prie-dieu. A little halo pops up and he thanks God for the help he knows he`s receiving from the prayers of those invisible nuns. Only in eternity will each soul see all the prayers, sacrifices, and efforts that sustained it through all the trials of life. We all want to get to Heaven, but we also want to bring others with us. We encourage others to do the same. Pray for your priests. Let them know you are praying for them. And thank them for praying for you! #sisterreginacomicstrip ...

Ever nod off at prayer? Us too! But remain at peace: prayer continues even if our eyes busy themselves with examining the insides of our eyelids.
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xperiencing the beauty of a person transformed by Eucharist can lead them to experience the beauty of the Person of Jesus Christ truly present in the Eucharist. There is a very good argument for the pursuit of Truth by the way of beauty. Because many people, convinced there is no such thing as truth, will nonetheless be drawn to the wonder of beauty and that can lead them closer to God. Not everyone is going to experience a tangible, life-changing encounter the moment they are in the Real Presence of Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament the very first time. Perhaps they have little knowledge or experience of the practice of Eucharistic adoration. Maybe they are distracted by the various elements of Catholic devotion and may feel too uncomfortable. But what if their introduction to this ancient form of prayer was through a person already deeply living in contact with his Real Presence in such a way that its effects were manifest in every other aspect of their lives? The Eucharistic Revival is not limited to processions and holy hours. But it is rooted and grown from there by the very devotees themselves. His love reflected in them will be an attracting force. To "polish" our own mirrors up to reflect Our Lord in our lives means we need to spend time with him in this way, kneeling at his feet, as it were, like Mary who chose the better part. #sisterreginacomicstrip ...