Parents & Families
“I address you, Christian families... Parents, give thanks to the Lord if he has called one of your children to the consecrated life. It is to be considered a great honor—as it always has been—that the Lord should look upon a family and choose to invite one of its members to set out on the path of the evangelical counsels! Cherish the desire to give the Lord one of your children so that God’s love can spread in the world. What fruit of conjugal love could be more beautiful than this?”–Pope St. John Paul II, Vita consecrata, 107
Dear Parents and Families,
Praised be Jesus Christ! When a young woman is discerning a vocation to the cloister, parents and family members may understandably find it difficult. But no one is called to sanctity in isolation: if a young woman has a religious vocation, then her family has a special calling to be the family of a religious. As she sacrifices herself and her life in the service of God and His Church, her parents are invited to offer her to God in the same spirit of loving sacrifice. The cloister may limit her contact with her family, but her very separation from the world serves to open her heart more fully to it, and through her union with Christ, familial bonds of love and affection only become stronger, deeper, and more tender.
The Lord promises a hundredfold reward in this life to those who give up family and homeland for his sake, and this reward is surely not for herself alone. He showers His graces upon the families of our Sisters, who participate in a very special way in our life of hidden prayer and sacrifice. More and more over time He fills our families with the peace and joy which come from a generous spirit of giving to Him Who cannot be outdone in generosity. They also begin to find that not only have they not lost their daughter or sister, but indeed they have gained many more daughters or sisters! All the Sisters truly take one another's families into our hearts, so that a Sister's life as a member of the community and her life as a part of her family are not two separate lives, but become one and the same. May Our Lord bless you abundantly as you look to welcome Him in a new way into your family, and know that you are in our prayers.
In Christ and Our Lady,
Mother Mary Oda, O. Praem., and the Sisters
“A certain separation...speaks powerfully of the absoluteness of God. At the same time, it is the beginning of a new and deeper bond in Christ with the family one has left....”(cf Essential Elements in the Church's Teaching on Religious Life, 5)
Words from our Families:
“Enrich with heavenly gifts the parents of your servant for the gift they have offered to You.”
– Invocation from the Litany of Saints during the Mass of Solemn Profession, as the sister to be professed lies prostrate before the altar