Sister Augustine Marie Molnar, a member of the Sister Servants of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, died tragically in a car accident on Nov. 18, 2023, while traveling to an event to promote vocations. / Credit: Sister Servants of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus
CNA Staff, Nov 20, 2023 / 14:38 pm (CNA).
A religious sister in Pennsylvania passed away over the weekend after colliding head-on with another vehicle on the road as she was traveling to a reunion of women who participated in an annual discernment retreat known as Fiat.
Sister Augustine Marie Molnar, 43, a member of the Sister Servants of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, was a middle school religion teacher at All Saints Catholic School in Cresson, Pennsylvania.
She sometimes assisted in vocation work and was headed to Reading, Pennsylvania, in the Diocese of Allentown, to share her own vocation story.
“She was traveling there to promote vocations to the religious life. She died promoting vocations, you could say,” Mother Mary Joseph Calore, SSCJ, the order’s provincial superior in the United States, told CNA in a phone interview.
Calore said that Sister Augustine Marie also worked at the community’s personal care home for the elderly, the John Paul II Manor, as a physical therapist.
Calore said Sister Augustine Marie was very talented, especially as a musician, playing the piano, organ, and trumpet. Sister Augustine Marie used that musical talent in her vocation work leading music ministry at Fiat events, Calore said.
Sister Augustine Marie also had a skill for helping young people, Calore said, organizing a team of young girls who helped to serve at John Paul II Manor.
“She was such a hidden soul,” Calore said. “She was hidden in life, but in death, everyone is giving glory to the Sacred Heart for everything she was doing.”
Calore said that Sister Augustine Marie had just finished a private retreat four days before her passing saying that “she was in a very peaceful and good place spiritually.”
“So I think that Our Lord took her at a time in her spiritual life when she was very ready to meet him,” she said.
Calore said that Gregorian Masses are being prayed for the repose of Sister Augustine Marie’s soul. Gregorian Masses are 30 consecutive days of Masses offered for the deceased right after their death.
The two passengers in the other vehicle survived and only had minor injuries, George Holmes, the chief deputy coroner for Berks County, told CNA Monday.
Sister Augustine Marie had taken temporary vows with the community and possibly would have made her perpetual profession of vows as early as March of next year.
“She was a wonderful, sacrificial, and prayerful holy sister, and we’re really going to miss her terribly,” Calore told CNA.
Born in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, on May 12, 1980, Sister Augustine Marie entered the Congregation of the Servants of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus on Sept. 8, 2013.
She made her first profession of vows in 2017 at St. Francis Xavier Church in Cresson, Pennsylvania.
She served in the sisters’ local community of St. Maximilian Kolbe, which is located at the congregation’s provincial house in Cresson.
A public viewing will take place at St. Francis Xavier Church in Cresson on Nov. 26 from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m. and the morning of Nov. 27 from 9:45 a.m. to 10:45 a.m.
A funeral Mass will be held at 11:30 a.m. on Monday, Nov. 27. She will be buried at St. Francis Xavier Parish Cemetery in Cresson.
“It’s just such a heartbreaking loss to lose such a young sister with so much promise and so much joy,” Calore said.
“But she wanted to be the spouse of Christ forever. And so I wrote to our mother general yesterday in Poland: ‘It appears that the heart of Jesus will give the profession ring to Sister himself, since the bishop will not be putting that on her finger here.’”
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Father J.J. Mech, rector of the Cathedral of the Most Blessed Sacrament in Detroit, stands next to the life-sized statues of the apostles that have now been installed in the cathedral’s worship space, along with first-class relics of each apostle. The “Journey with the Saints” pilgrimage, which will be dedicated Feb. 8, 2024, in a special ceremony with Archbishop Allen H. Vigneron, is part of the cathedral’s ongoing transformation into an “apostolic center for the arts and culture.” / Credit: Photo courtesy of the Cathedral of the Most Blessed Sacrament and Detroit Catholic
Detroit, Mich., Jan 29, 2024 / 06:00 am (CNA).
At the Cathedral of the Most Blessed Sacrament in Detroit, the band is getting back together. The band of Christ’s 12 apostles, that is.
On Feb. 8, Detroit’s mother church will publicly unveil its long-awaited “Journey with the Saints” project, a permanent installation of 14 “larger than life” statues accompanied by first-class relics of each apostle, the latest accomplishment in the cathedral’s ongoing mission to turn itself into an apostolic center in the city of Detroit.
Archbishop Allen H. Vigneron will join Father J.J. Mech, rector of the cathedral, to dedicate the new installation during a special event at 7 p.m.
From its central perch on Woodward Avenue, the looming gothic cathedral of the Archdiocese of Detroit stands out in its neighborhood. Following Vigneron’s instruction to turn the church into a “cathedral of the arts,” Mech has spent the last several years converting the cathedral into a hub of missionary activity and beauty, drawing people to the faith via “shallow entry points.”
“Our goal is that we are going to be more accessible to people off of Woodward,” Mech told Detroit Catholic. “We want this to be a flexible public space, maybe even a community hub for not only spiritual enrichment but cultural enrichment, and it will be a safe place, and we will have security and all of that.”
St. Simon, St. Thomas, and St. Matthias are pictured in their permanent fixtures atop the pillars inside the Cathedral of the Most Blessed Sacrament. The statues and relics of the apostles will be officially unveiled Feb. 8, 2024, as part of a permanent pilgrimage experience at the cathedral, “Journey with the Saints.” Credit: Photo courtesy of Detroit Catholic
The name “Cathedral of the Arts,” Mech explained, is a reminder that the proof of God is beauty — a principle that guides each of the new initiatives he and his team have undertaken on the cathedral’s campus.
The latest project, the installation of the seven-and-a-half-foot-tall statues and relics encircling the cathedral’s interior worship space, is the crowning jewel of those efforts, transforming the cathedral into a permanent pilgrimage site, guided by the men who knew Christ most intimately during his time on earth.
Complete with first-class relics, the new installation is among the first of its kind in North America bringing together all 12 of Christ’s apostles for veneration, and the only exhibit in the world with the relics accessible in this way.
The 14 statues — including two eight-foot angels — each were carved from a single tree trunk in St. Ulrich Groeden, in modern-day Italy, in 1927. The statues were rescued from St. Benedict Church in Highland Park, which closed in 2014. After undergoing extensive restoration, the statues were installed in the cathedral’s nave in December.
The statue of St. Andrew. Each of the statues were carved from a single tree trunk and rescued from St. Benedict Church in Highland Park, which closed in 2014. After undergoing extensive restoration, the statues were installed in the cathedral’s nave in December 2023. Credit: Photo courtesy of Detroit Catholic
The statues include two angels, 10 of the original 12 apostles, St. Paul, and St. Matthias, the apostle who replaced Judas. Mech discovered that he had relics corresponding to the 12 saints, part of a collection of nearly 200 relics owned by the cathedral, all of which he hopes to be able to one day put on display.
The relics and the signage were installed beneath each statue beginning on Jan. 8, in time for the dedication and blessing of the new reliquary pilgrimage on Feb. 8.
“I am so excited about the transformation that is happening,” Mech said. “When you come in, there will be three main signs that tell you how to go on a pilgrimage, what the goal of a pilgrimage is, and how to interact with these relics. [Pilgrims] are going to walk away transformed, different, and they are going to enter through prayer.”
“Journey with the Saints” is much more than a museum of Church history, Mech said, but a rare opportunity to invoke the help of Catholicism’s greatest saints.
“It’s not just about looking at a pretty statue and touching some bones. [Pilgrims] are going to have a purpose when they walk away,” Mech said. “People can decide what they want intercession for, what they are hoping for when they pray to a particular saint, and when they walk away, they’ll keep praying for that.”
Keith Calleja began installation of relics on Jan. 8, 2024, starting with the relic of St. Philip. Credit: Photo courtesy of Detroit Catholic
Mech said those whose prayers have been answered through the intercession of the saints will be invited to return to the cathedral and contribute a tile to a mosaic art piece that will be installed to show how God is answering prayers through the project.
While the saints and relics are the culmination of a long-sought project, it’s all part of a greater vision for Detroit’s cathedral, Mech said.
Another piece of the puzzle will be dedicated on May 12, when Archbishop Vigneron will unveil a new outdoor grotto at the cathedral in honor of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
During the height of the coronavirus pandemic in 2020, as the archbishop emotionally addressed the faithful during a livestreamed Mass from the cathedral, he entrusted the archdiocese to the protection of Our Lady of Lourdes and pledged to build the grotto “as a perpetual reminder” of her care and in memory of the lives lost to COVID-19.
Under the guidance of the archbishop, the Cathedral of the Most Blessed Sacrament finished a majority of the work on the grotto this fall, including statues of St. Bernadette Soubirous and Our Lady, whose face will reflect the one St. Bernadette saw in Lourdes, France, in 1858.
The first-class relics are among nearly 200 relics currently housed in the cathedral, which Father Mech hopes to find a way to display. The gold reliquaries are installed beneath each of the apostles’ statues. January 2024. Courtesy of Detroit Catholic
“People are already presently coming to pray [at] the grotto with the Blessed Mother,” Mech said. “We put some beautiful landscaping in this fall so people would feel welcomed, and in fact, we have used the site in a couple of ways for prayer services already.”
The grotto will also connect seamlessly with a garden walk that is being created around the cathedral’s plaza lawn, which will include art, benches, solar charging stations, a dog park, a bird sanctuary and pollination habitat.
Working alongside the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the cathedral’s co-director of family ministries, Christine Broses, is spearheading the transformation of two previously empty lots on the corner of Trowbridge and John R Streets into green space for wildlife to thrive.
“We learned that the city of Detroit is a north, south, east, and west crossing for bird migration,” Broses said. “So a lot of birds fly over the city of Detroit, but they don’t have anywhere to stop and rest because there isn’t a lot of green space. Creating green space is really important for the city and for wildlife in general, and research shows hearing birds and having green space in neighborhoods helps improve people’s mental health.”
Last spring, Broses oversaw the planting of native flowers in the area, and the next step is to let the space grow wild, which will inevitably attract birds and bees over the coming years. Broses said the final step will be to add educational plaques and pathways to make the spot accessible to schools and families.
Mech wants the garden spaces and pathways to be welcoming and intends to build benches — something the neighborhood is currently lacking.
The statues, pictured in their final fixed locations above the cathedral’s pillars, are just one piece of an ever-developing project to turn the cathedral into a true apostolic center in the heart of Detroit, Father J.J. Mech said. Credit: Photo courtesy of Detroit Catholic
“We did a study of our neighborhood and found there is not a single park bench in any of the parks in our area,” Mech said. “We want to have park benches so people can come and rest and enjoy themselves. This will be a place where community can be built, and people will realize that the cathedral is not a fortress; we are actually unleashing the Gospel.”
And there is more.
In June, construction began on the Cathedral Arts Apartments, which will include four stories and 53 two-bedroom housing units for low-income Detroiters. The $19.7 million project is the joint effort of the Archdiocese of Detroit; MHT Housing, Inc.; and the city of Detroit and will include a community space and workforce training center.
At the end of the day, the vision of a “Cathedral of the Arts” — like the cathedrals of old — is about listening to the Holy Spirit and making a difference from the very small to the large scale, so that everyone who steps onto the property is transformed, Mech said.
“When we get people onto the campus, they start to see what we are doing, and they get involved,” he said. “Then, the Holy Spirit does the rest and helps them to get to know Our Lord in new and wonderful ways.”
Chicago, Ill., Apr 19, 2019 / 06:01 am (CNA).- A pro-life group is coordinating ecumenical Good Friday services and Ways of the Cross outside of abortion clinics in more than 30 states, saying it is a fitting time to pray for unborn victims, their mothers, and clinic workers affected by abortion.
“There’s no better day to remember the victims of abortion than Good Friday, when we remember the suffering and execution of Jesus Christ, an innocent man who preached the value of every single human life,” Eric Scheidler, director of the Chicago-based Pro-Life Action League, said April 17.
Pro-life Christians have scheduled Way of the Cross services outside nearly 100 abortion clinics in more than 30 states, according to the Pro-Life Action League. It lists locations of these services on its website.
The league has coordinated the Good Friday prayer services since 2014 and expects thousands to attend this year. The group’s website includes a guide on how to host a Way of the Cross for Victims of Abortion, aiming for a broad Christian audience.
“Though the devotion of the Stations of the Cross has Catholic roots, the service we conduct is completely ecumenical,” the guide says. “People of every denomination join us each year and there is no material in the book that would be offensive to non-Catholics.”
The Pro-Life Action League asks participating groups to report the time, date and location of their services for listing on the league’s website.
“As a society, we’ve become increasingly sensitive to the victims of injustice, and that’s to our credit,” said Scheidler. “But we forget about the victims of abortion, starting with the more than 60 million unborn children who have lost their lives to legal abortion in the United States since 1973.”
The millions of women who regret their abortions are also victimized, he said, as are some abortion clinic staff. He charged that abortion provider Planned Parenthood exploited sincere desires to help women, as with former clinic director Abby Johnson whose story is depicted in the movie “Unplanned.”
The Pro-Life Action League was founded by Joe Scheidler in 1980. Its activities include public protest, sidewalk counseling, and youth outreach.
About 300 sisters and supporters gathered on June 24, 2025, for “Sisters Speak Out” in the nation’s capital in anticipation of the Senate voting on the budget bill this week. / Credit: Julia Morris
Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Jun 25, 2025 / 16:0… […]
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