Tag: prayer

  • Counsels for Families

    Dear Family, Friends, and Benefactors,

    Pax et Bonum! This past week, we celebrated the feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross. We were blessed with a beautiful sung Mass, where we remembered all of your intentions. How appropriate that this feast is followed tomorrow by that of the Seven Sorrows of the Blessed Virgin Mary, since we cannot reflect upon the Cross without contemplating her standing with unwavering Faith and love at its foot. On Wednesday, we will celebrate the feast of the Stigmata of our Seraphic Father and Founder, St. Francis of Assisi. St. Bonaventure wrote of him that he was adorned with the Sacred Stigmata and bore the image of the Crucified, not carved in wood or stone by the hand of an artist, but engraved upon his flesh by the finger of the living God. These three feasts make for a very beautiful and grace filled week in the Franciscan Order, an Order particularly devoted to the Passion and Death of Our Lord, Jesus Christ.

    We have a few pieces of news to share with you. This past week, we welcomed a young lady from Louisiana who is discerning her vocation to the religious life. Every religious vocation, especially in this time of crisis in the Church, is a miracle and a great grace for holy mother Church. It seems to be almost entirely forgotten that the lives of prayer and sacrifices of the religious are especially necessary to stay the hand of God and draw down from heaven the graces of conversion for our families, our cities, our country, and the entire world. Please keep her in your prayers. Also, we were recently surprised with the gift (on loan) of a tabernacle. It is a very old but very beautiful piece that needs repair. We are now very joyfully working on all that is necessary to make it ready for the Divine Guest. A friend, who is extremely talented at woodworking, has offered to make the repairs, and the Sisters will complete all of the silk, linen and embroidery work. We are praying very fervently for benefactors so that we may construct a little portable chapel here while we continue to implore heaven to help us find a permanent home. We ask your prayers for this intention also, as it is necessary that we have a permanent home in order to continue to accept vocations and grow our Franciscan convent.

    Finally, we wish to share with you some reflections that we hope may be of help, especially to mothers. We often hear from parents regarding their teenage children. The problems, as well as the solutions, are generally the same. What is modeled for the children shapes who they will become. If the Faith is not the center of your home-life, it cannot be expected that it will be the center of your child’s life. The most important duty in the lives of parents is the formation of their children. This is not a personal opinion but, rather, the teaching of the Church. Time wasted is time that can never be returned to you and, in the blink of an eye, the children are grown, and the consequences of a tepid home life have taken deep root. If, then, you are troubled that your children are being swept along in the current of the world, it is necessary to take a look at life in your family home.

    First, does your family pray together, and what place does prayer hold in your home? The family Rosary is so important! In fact, at all six of her apparitions in Fatima, Our Lady asked for the Rosary to be said every day and warned that it, along with devotion to the Immaculate Heart, is the last remedy for the world. Your children need to see mom and dad on their knees with a dedicated time to pray. So often, we hear the term “Rosary ride.” It seems that it has become a trend to pray the Rosary in the car while on the way to some event. While it can readily be understood that this may be necessary from time to time and a very good custom for an extra Rosary, what message does it give when the daily Rosary is specifically set aside for a car ride, so that it can be checked off of the to-do list in order to do things one considers more important or more enjoyable at home? Does it foster a love for prayer and reflection on the mysteries of our Faith? The same could be said for holy Mass when families make it a custom to arrive at the last minute and leave immediately after Mass, without making a preparation for or thanksgiving after Holy Communion. Do you and/or your children miss Mass on Sundays or holy days in order to take part in sporting or other events? This is a violation of a precept of the Church, a grave sin, and yet it seems to be more and more common. We deceive ourselves if we say our Faith is the most important thing in our lives while putting prayer and the holy Mass in the second place. These are good questions by which to examine ourselves.

    A formation in strong moral principles is also extremely important. We frequently hear about teenage girls leaving home as quickly as possible after graduating, “dating” young men of questionable character, and making bad decisions that come with life-altering consequences. It is true that even if parents do everything possible to properly form their children and set a good example in the home, many will still stray from the Faith and make bad decisions. The current of the world is very strong, and swimming against the current requires great fortitude, which can only be attained by prayer and sacrifice, which children should learn from their parents.

    Concerning this formation of your children, it is necessary to ask what place the television holds in your home? Even in what are considered “more wholesome” movies or shows, the values of the world are often presented, and your children are being formed by what they see and hear. Most notably are the tendencies to present divorced and remarried couples as acceptable and even the norm, entitled or back-talking children, career women who do not submit to their husbands and husbands who do not honor their wives, immodest fashions, “dating” and company-keeping, even among children, which is an occasion of mortal sin, etc., etc. etc. The show may be considered “clean”, but what are your children learning as they watch these shows day after day? In the sixteenth century, St. Teresa of Avila was shown her place in hell for reading what were called “chivalry books.” Certainly those books were nothing in comparison to what is on television today.

    Are your children exposed to bad companions? St. Teresa of Avila, St. Francis de Sales, St. John Bosco, St. Alphonsus Liguori, and many other saints warned of the dangers to the immortal souls of children by this occasion of sin. It is extremely important that your children, no matter what age, are not permitted to go out with friends without a chaperone. It only takes one brief moment, a glance, a picture, or a suggestion for your child’s curiosity to be aroused and innocence to be lost, even little by little. If you have not yet read it, we highly recommend the books , The Forty Dreams of St. John Bosco. If the dangers were so strong in that period, what would the saint think of the perils we expose our children to today?

    Are your children attending public school? Many parents will argue they have no choice in this matter. It is not our purpose here to debate, so we will focus our attention on those parents who do have a choice and who, for reasons of sports, scholarships, or convenience, place the immortal souls of their children in danger. Not considering only the multitude of dangers your children are exposed to in public schools (the LGBTQ agenda, impurity, indoctrination with anti-Catholic teaching, to name only a few), the Catholic Church (prior to Vatican II) strongly cautioned against sending children to public schools and often explicitly forbade it, primarily viewing them as threats to the Catholic Faith due to their secular or Protestant foundations. The teaching of the Church is that the primary duty of parents is to ensure that their children receive a proper Catholic education and formation. In 1890, Pope Leo XIII identified public schools as hostile to religion and “the stronghold of the powers of darkness.” In 1929, Pope Pius XI reaffirmed that parents have the primary right and duty to educate their children and declared the secular school to be fundamentally flawed. Are sports and scholarships, which are here today and gone tomorrow, worth putting your child’s immortal soul at risk?

    Mothers, how do you dress? Do you make concessions in order to “fit in” or appear more fashionable? Do you consider that Mary-like modesty is only for church, failing to consider that both in and out of Church Almighty God is present, and men are equally tempted by immodesty outside of the church as inside? Our Lady of Fatima warned in 1917 about immodest fashions and that more souls go to hell for sins of the flesh than any other sin. If she was offended by the fashions in 1917, what would she think of leggings, tight pants and jeans, shorts, mini-skirts, low cut tops, bathing suits, girls and boys swimming together half-naked, etc.? The clergy and the sisters are often met with the objection from women that fashions change with the times. The fashions of our world, a world over which Satan is the prince, are rapidly changing to undress the woman and to lead souls to sin and, ultimately, to hell. There are resources for modest clothing and, even if we must be creative, it is our duty to make war against the immodest fashions of our day. Remember that, at your judgment, you will render an account of your own sins of immodesty, as well as all of the sins that were committed as a result of your scandal.

    Parents, do you correct your children, or is your home a democracy? Are your children permitted to tell you what they will and will not eat, what they do and do not want to do, what time they will get up in the morning and go to bed at night, etc? Are they allowed to speak disrespectfully to you or as if they are your equal? Unless a child learns to obey promptly and without question, he or she will become master of the household. You must exercise the necessary firmness with your children at an early age in these and all matters for, if you do not exercise your authority through laziness, poor judgment, or a mistaken notion of kindness and tenderness, you will quickly see that it is too late. These seemingly small things lead to a world of problems for the future of your children. If they are not taught to obey authority and to practice mortification and self-restraint while they are young, evil tendencies will set in, and they will likely have great difficulty controlling their need to gratify themselves, opening wide the door to sensuality and all manners of vice.

    Finally, let us consider the topic company-keeping (“dating”). Company-keeping has for its purpose marriage. Even if the period of dating does not end with marriage because the couple discovers that marriage is out of the question for them, the purpose of testing and of finding out was still kept. When marriage is unlawful, impossible, or entirely out of the question (as is certainly the case with your school-age children), there is no moral justification for dating and exposing oneself to the intrinsic danger of such relationships. Teenagers who are permitted to date are placed in a very strong and dangerous occasion of mortal sin. Parents have the obligation of forming their children and helping them to understand this principle early in life. Your children should never be permitted to be alone in the company of the opposite sex. Parents who encourage or permit their children to date, or who think it is innocent or cute, place the souls of their children in danger and will have to carry that responsibility before God on the day of judgment. We cannot tell you how often we have received the calls from heart-broken parents whose children, after having been permitted to date, have ended up in serious moral troubles that will affect the rest of their lives and the lives of those involved.

    In close, although this may seem overwhelming and discouraging, Almighty God gives us everything we need to perform well our duties of state and, if the difficulties are great, His grace is far greater. Begin now to pray with your children. Frequent the sacraments, recite the Rosary every day, and instruct your children in the catechism and the truths of our holy Catholic Faith. Establish your homes on the foundation of the Catholic Faith and enthrone them to the Sacred Heart. By so doing, your homes will become veritable strongholds of Faith, schools of virtue, abodes of peace and love, which the angels of God will delight to visit and which God Himself will look down upon with pleasure and bless with a foretaste of the joys of Heaven.

    It is well to remember that “Children have not been given to parents as a present, which they may dispose of as they please, but as a trust, for which, if lost through their negligence, they must render an account to God.” St. Alphonsus Liguori

    May God bless you!

    Capuchin Sisters of St. Joseph

    We welcomed an aspirant from Louisiana on the feast of the Stigmata of St. Francis.
    Making habit Rosaries for future Capuchin Sisters.

  • Sanctity is Within the Reach of All…

    Dear Family, Friends, and Benefactors,


    Pax et Bonum!  We pray you are all well and in the peace of Our Lord, Jesus Christ. Our community life here in Burlington continues on peacefully and quietly, as we are at long last able to follow the daily horarium of a Capuchin Sister. We have frequently been asked if life according to a schedule, day in and day out, is monotonous and…well…boring?  We laugh heartily at this idea, as we count ourselves among the most blessed in this world to have all of our daily acts blessed by the virtue and act of religious obedience. With each sound of the bell, we hear the voice of our beloved Spouse reminding us of His presence and calling us to His loving service. We live in the constant peace of knowing that if we simply keep our Rule faithfully, it will keep us unto eternal life.  Our seraphic father, St. Francis, left this testament at the end of the Rule:

    “And whoever observes these things, may he be blessed in heaven with the blessing of the Most High Father, and on earth with the blessing of His Beloved Son with the Most Holy Ghost, the Paraclete, and all the powers of heaven and with all the saints. And, as far as I can, I, little brother Francis, your servant, confirm for you, both within and without, this holy blessing. ” 


    We live each day in the presence of God, ever longing after and aspiring towards that which is the only purpose for the short breath of this life: eternal happiness with God in heaven. It is our fervent prayer that each of you, most of whom must work and live amidst the chaos of a world that falls daily further into apostasy, may find this same joy. It is attainable for each and all, and in every situation. Many of the greatest saints lived in the world. Two excellent examples from the Third Order of St. Francis come to mind. On August 23rd, we celebrated the feast of Queen Blanche. Despite the numerous duties incumbent upon her as the Queen of France, and though she was surrounded by luxury, she practiced a life of prayer, penance, and love for the poor. She reared her son, the future King, St. Louis IX of France, whose feast is celebrated two days after hers, to prefer death rather than to ever commit a deliberate sin. Her example and solicitousness for his eternal salvation gave to the world a great saint, who would become the patron of the Third Order of St. Francis, to which both he and his mother belonged. Truly, in this example, it is made manifest that a form of religious life can be lived even amidst the busy occupations of the world and that sanctity is within the reach of all.


    In close, we wish to thank all who continue to help us raise the money needed for a permanent convent. Our first aspirant will arrive sometime in September, and others hope to follow her, so we continue to beg the charity of your prayers that Divine Providence will provide for those who long so ardently to consecrate their lives to Him. Be assured of our continued prayers for all of your intentions, and please pray for us!


    In the Hearts of Jesus and Mary,
    Your Capuchin Sisters of St. Joseph

    NB:  Tax deductible donations can be made by following the donate link on our website. God bless you!

    Sister Seamstress stays very busy these days with sewing and mending tasks.

    Thanks be to God for our sisters, the hens, who provide Sister Cook with an abundance of eggs.

  • The Third Order Secular and an Appeal

    Dear Family, Friends, and Benefactors,

    Pax et Bonum! We pray you are all well and that this update finds you in the midst of a grace-filled month of the Immaculate Heart of Mary! This month is an especially joyful one for the Franciscan Order. In addition to the two great feasts of our Blessed Mother, the Assumption and the Immaculate Heart of Mary, we will also celebrate the feast of our patroness, St. Clare of Assisi, on August 12th. Be assured that we will keep each and every one of you in the heart of our prayers and at holy Mass most especially on that day, asking St. Clare to bless you for your support which has helped make it possible for us to consecrate our lives to God alone.

    Recently, we have happened upon some very beautiful resources for the Third Order Secular. It is our great hope to post these treasures to our website so that our Tertiary Brothers and Sisters will have access to them. Please pray that Lady Poverty, who also embraces “free time” in the convent, will permit us to accomplish this little work. Pope Leo XIII, in his encyclical, Auspicato Concessum, wrote: “…it has been long and specially Our desire that everyone should, to the utmost of his power, aim at imitating St. Francis
    of Assisi…We exhort Christian men not to refuse to enroll themselves in this sacred army of Jesus Christ.” The severe lack of an authentically Catholic spirit, centered around prayer and mortification, is the predominant reality of our age. Our Lord Jesus Christ called St. Francis to help rebuild His Church which was, in that time, falling into ruin. What could be said about the Church today during this state of world-wide apostasy?

    More than ever, the Church needs men and women in all states of life who pray,
    sacrifice, and practice heroic virtue. Franciscan Tertiaries consecrate their secular state and enter a nobler company of the Church Militant. They promise to observe a rule, compatible to their state in life, which helps them to detach from the spirit of the world, renounce vice, and acquire virtue, leading many souls towards salvation by their good example. It is truly a religious life within the reach of all faithful Catholics. If you are not a member of the Third Order and wish to learn more, we would be very happy to
    provide you with more information.

    Finally, we once again appeal to your charity. We are finally settled in our temporary convent in Colorado. While it has been very generously loaned to us indefinitely, it is necessary that we purchase something permanent. God willing, we will have as many as three young ladies visiting us this Fall in order to discern their vocations. Since Franciscans are mendicants, we rely solely upon Divine Providence and the generosity of benefactors for our daily bread and sustenance. At present, our need for a house is pressing. If you or anyone you know may be able to help us with a tax free donation, we will be eternally grateful. Directions for donations may be on our website donate link. Prayers are the most important form of charity, and we continue to beg those in abundance. We trust that Almighty God, Who is never outdone in generosity, may bless you with the promised hundred-fold now and in eternity.


    In the Hearts of Jesus and Mary,

    Your Capuchin Sisters of St. Joseph

  • Mental Prayer

    Dear Family, Friends, and Benefactors:

    As we continue in the month of the Precious Blood, we wish to reassure each of you of your continued place in the heart of our prayers. How much we have to be grateful for in our temporary home in Colorado! For the first two years of our community, we were without a chapel except on Sundays. Far from hindering us from the practice of mental prayer and our spiritual exercises, it ignited a longing in our hearts and souls to be in the presence of our Divine Spouse before the tabernacle. During the third year of our foundation, the benefactors who provided our housing built a little chapel on their property. While we still lacked the True Presence, we were one step closer. This little chapel, “Our Lady of the Angels,” will always be very special to us. Here in Burlington, thanks be to God, our longings have been fulfilled above and beyond measure. Although it is only temporary, until our heavenly Father provides a permanent place for us, we count ourselves as the richest of the rich, as we have everything and All here in the tabernacle.

    We have included with this post a short instruction on mental prayer, which has been simplified in order that, God willing, it may be of help to those who have asked for it. St. Teresa of Avila once said that no one who earnestly applies themselves to mental prayer will be lost. It was the practice of the saints, and it is in our Rule here in the convent to begin and end each day with half an hour in mental prayer.

    We continue to beg for your charity in helping us to raise the necessary funds for a permanent home. Information can be found on our “Donate” link. We ask God to bless you with His promised hundredfold now and in eternity.

    In the Hearts of Jesus and Mary,

    Capuchin Sisters of St. Joseph

    MENTAL PRAYER

    All Catholics should make at least a short meditation every day. Mental prayer is a more appropriate and comprehensive term for that spiritual exercise which is so highly praised and commended by the saints and so conducive to holiness and perfection.

    Mental prayer is within the reach of all who earnestly desire their salvation. In mental prayer, meditation, which is the exercise of the intellect, is only a means to the end. This end is the elevation of the soul to God or, if you will, conversation with God. While thinking and reflecting, the soul speaks to and reasons with itself. However, in the prayer that follows, the soul speaks to God.

    “In mental prayer,” says St. Alphonsus, “meditation is the needle, which only passes through that it may draw after it the golden thread, which is composed of affections, resolutions, and petitions.” As soon as you feel an impulse to pray while meditating, give way to it at once in the best way you can by devout acts and petitions; in other words, begin your conversation with God on the subject about which you have been thinking.

    In order to help the mind in this pious exercise, you must have some definite subject of thought upon which it is well to read either a text of Holy Scripture or a few lines out of some other holy book. Any point on the Passion of Our Lord will provide ample material for this practice.

    St. Alphonsus says, “It is good to meditate upon the last things – death, judgment, eternity – but let us above all meditate upon the Passion of Christ.”

    St. Teresa of Avila tells us that in her meditations she helped herself with a book for seventeen years. By reading the points of a meditation from a book, the mind is rendered attentive and is set on a train of thought. Further to help the mind, you can ask yourself some such questions as the following: What does this mean? What lesson does it teach me? What has been my conduct regarding this matter? What have I done, what shall I do, and how shall I do it? What particular virtue must I practice?

    Do not imagine, moreover, that it is necessary to wait for a great fire to flame up in your soul, but cherish even the smallest spark you may have. Above all, never give way to the mistaken notion that you must restrain yourself from prayer in order to go through all of the thoughts suggested by your book, or because your prayer does not appear to have a close connection with the subject of your meditation. This would simply be to turn from God to your own thoughts or to the thoughts of another.

    To meditate means, in general, nothing other than to reflect seriously upon some subject. Meditation, as mental prayer, is a serious reflection on some religious truth or event, with reference and application to ourselves, in order thereby to excite in us certain pious sentiments, such as contrition, humility, faith, hope, charity, etc., and to move our will to form good resolutions conformable to these pious sentiments. Such an exercise has a beneficial influence on our soul and greatly conduces to enlighten our mind and to move our will to practice virtue.

    Meditation is a great means to salvation. It helps us to know ourselves and to discover the means of avoiding and correcting our vices, our faults, and weaknesses; it reveals to us the dangers to which our salvation is exposed and leads us to pray with a contrite and humble heart for the necessary graces to cope with temptations, to control our passions, and to lead a holy life. Mental prayer inflames our hearts with the love of God and strengthens us to do His holy will with zeal and perseverance.

    We should endeavor to spend at least fifteen minutes daily in mental prayer. The saints used to spend many hours daily therein. When they had much to do, they would subtract some hours from the time allotted to their sleep in order to devote themselves to this holy exercise. If we cannot spend half an hour every day in this practice, let us at least devote to it a quarter of an hour. The longer and the more fervent our mental prayer, the more we shall enjoy it, and we shall learn by our own experience the truth of the saying of the Royal Prophet, “Taste and see that the Lord is sweet” (Ps. xxxiii. 9).

    As to our petitions and resolutions, in mental prayer it is very profitable, and perhaps more useful than any other act, to address repeated petitions to God, asking with great humility and unbounded confidence for His graces, for virtues and, above all, for the inestimable gift of His holy love. If we feel dry or despondent and unable to meditate or pray well, let us repeat many times as earnestly as possible, “My Jesus, mercy!”, “My God, I love Thee!” or any ejaculatory prayer. This will be very meritorious.

    Let us offer all our petitions for grace in the Name and through the merits of Jesus Christ, and we shall surely obtain all that we ask.

    Before concluding the meditation, we should make some specified good resolution, appropriate as far as possible to the subject of our meditation. This resolution should be directed to rooting out of a particular sin, or of some occasion of sin, to the correction of some defect, or to the practice of some act of virtue during the day.

    The preparation of our meditation consists of (1) an act of faith in the presence of God, and of adoration; (2) an act of humility and of contrition, and (3) an act of petition for light. We should then recommend ourselves to the Blessed Virgin Mary by reciting a Hail Mary, and also to St. Joseph, to our Guardian Angel, and to our holy patrons. These acts should be brief but very fervent.

    The conclusion of our meditation consists of (1) thanksgiving to God for the light He imparted to us; (2) purposing to fulfill our good resolutions at once; and (3) beseeching the eternal Father, for the love of Jesus and Mary, to grant us the grace and strength to put them into practice. Before finishing our meditation, let us never omit to recommend to God the souls in purgatory and poor sinners.

  • The Next Chapter…

    Dear Family, Friends and Benefactors,

    Pax et bonum! At long last, we have arrived to Burlington, Colorado, and the next chapter in our community life begins. We marvel at Divine Providence and the loving care of our Heavenly Father, Who continues to provide for us in ways beyond all human expectation. Like our seraphic father, St. Francis, our beginnings were very meager. In fact, we started out in a small 15′ x 15′ space. From there, a very generous family offered a 450 square foot apartment on their property, which we fondly called our “Rivo Torto”, after the little ruined building where St. Francis and his first followers began their community life and from whence many blessings flowed for the founding of the Order. We were very happy in this little place!

    However, our constant prayer has been that we may be near daily Mass in order to take our longed-for place before the tabernacle and receive our Divine Spouse in Holy Communion daily. Our congregation prays a perpetual novena to St. Joseph and to Our Lady of Prompt Succor. Both have refused us nothing that has been for the good of our congregation. Quite spontaneously, a generous benefactor has offered the use of a home less than two blocks from the Church and our Father Director. Needless to say, words fail to express our heartfelt gratitude towards all of the good souls whose generosity and sacrifice have made our life possible. While words fail us, we confidently look to our loving Father in heaven to repay each of them the promised hundredfold in this life and in eternity.

    We continue to beg the charity of your prayers and for your support, as three young ladies prepare to visit in order to discern their vocations. We continue to work towards the goal of a permanent convent to house the vocations God may send to us. We ask your prayers for our fidelity and perseverance, and we assure you of a constant place in the heart of our prayers. May God bless and keep you!

    Arrival at the house in Burlington. It was our first experience driving a U-Haul truck… Thank you, guardian angels for guiding us safely to port!

    The school children gathered for one last picture before we set off.

    A little rabbit has taken up residence in the flower garden. St. Francis loved God’s little creatures, who always do the will of God, and we take great joy in them too.