Washington D.C., Jan 16, 2018 / 02:01 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Walk along in the March for Life and you may see them: a swarm of women – many of them young – dressed in long blue habits, white veils blowing in the breeze.
They are the Sisters of Life and they have a message for women and for the pro-life movement: “You are not alone.”
“We really see ourselves primarily as a spiritual entity that intercedes for and upholds the work of the pro-life movement,” explained Sr. Mary Elizabeth, SV, Vicar General of the Sisters of Life.
She also said she hopes that the pro-life movement knows that they can depend upon the Sisters’ prayers and support: “They are not alone and they have a family of Sisters who love them very much and are praying for them daily.”
Joseph Zwilling, Director of Communications for the Archdiocese of New York, where the Sisters of Life were founded, said he believes the Sisters of Life have already made a tremendous impact on the culture since their founding. “It’s about 25 years later and the Sisters of Life are growing, they’re thriving and they’re everywhere” he told CNA.
“Help Wanted: Sisters of Life”
While it may be impossible to quantify the full impact of the Sisters’ prayers and efforts, Zwilling said, “I truly believe that they have helped through their prayer, through their example, they’ve helped to change people’s minds and hearts about this issue.”
“I think that in the long run that’s going to be their greatest contribution.”
The Sisters’ journey began in 1990 with a newspaper column by then-Cardinal John O’Connor of New York. “This really was the brainchild of Cardinal O’Connor,” Zwilling said.
In the 1990s Cardinal O’Connor was a prominent leader in the pro-life movement in the Church and in the country, and saw the issue of abortion as one of the most pressing need of the time. Before acting, the cardinal reflected on the long history within the Church of the Holy Spirit giving life to religious communities able to meet these these challenges.
Cardinal O’Connor suggested in his column that it was time for another order able to respond to the challenges of abortion. The piece was titled simply: “Help Wanted: Sisters of Life.”
Eight sisters answered the call, formally founding a community on June 1, 1991. During this time, they lived temporarily with the Parish Visitors of Mary Immaculate in the Bronx, praying, fasting, attending Eucharistic adoration, and discerning their vocations.
Sr. Josamarie, SV, was one of these first women to join the Sisters of Life. “None of us had been religious sisters before,” she said of herself and the other seven women who were part of the initial novice class. Moreover, God “called us from various things” – the young women had such backgrounds as scientists, college professors, and librarians.
As the sisters prepared themselves for a life of prayer and ministry to the most vulnerable in society, Cardinal O’Connor also introduced the Sisters of Life to members of the pro-life movement, including Mother Teresa.
Today, the order is thriving, with more than 100 Sisters, whose average age is mid-30s.
Sr. Mary Elizabeth joined the Sisters of Life in 1993 after graduating from the Franciscan University of Steubenville, having heard the cardinal talk on campus during her junior year. Already involved in pro-life activism, Sr. Mary Elizabeth explained that she “wanted to be part of the solution, offering other options to women” who felt like they had no options and turned to abortion out of desperation.
A Life of Prayer
The foundation of the Sisters of Life ministry and daily life is prayer and contemplation, explained Sister Mary Elizabeth. “Our spirituality is Eucharistic-centered and Marian,” she told CNA. In each of their convents, the Sisters participate in Mass and spend a Holy Hour in Eucharistic adoration daily. In addition, the sisters gather together to pray the Liturgy of the Hours throughout the day.
As part of the group’s Marian focus, the Sisters of Life also pray a rosary together “to support the works of the pro-life movement in our country and throughout the world each day.”
The Sisters of Life also draw upon the example of Mary in their spirituality, and from there, the way they engage other aspects of their lives: “A deep part of our spiritual life is living out a spiritual maternity, and so we take Mary as our model.” Sister Mary Elizabeth said the sisters’ goal is to carry Christ’s presence with them and to echo Mary’s “yes” to life and to Christ.
The Sisters of Life from The Sisters of Life on Vimeo.
One of the examples of Mary’s maternity they seek to emulate is her decision to journey forth and visit her cousin, Elizabeth, after the Annunciation. “Just as at the Visitation the presence of Jesus in Mary radiated out” and filled her cousin with joy, Sr. Mary Elizabeth said, “so we can have the same life and power dwelling within us and radiating out from us to touch all those women that we encounter every day who are pregnant and in need and hopefully them with joy and with hope.”
The sisters also seek to bring the example of Mary’s receptivity and welcome into the way they treat people – by recognizing the unique dignity of every person. When sisters encounter someone, Sr. Mary Elizabeth said, “we’re not in a rush, we’re not in a hurry.” This patience and attention, she continued, is “deeply rooted in our belief that every human person is created as a unique manifestation of God.”
“It’s a way we live out our spiritual maternity,” Sr. Mary Elizabeth noted.
As a contemplative and apostolic order, however, their prayer life does not stop at the sanctuary doors, but carries over into their ministry, too. “Our prayer kind of fuels our apostolic efforts, and then our apostolate brings us back to prayer,” Sr. Mary Elizabeth noted. “We can bring all those people we are working with to the Lord throughout the day.”
A Mission to Save Lives
The ministry of the Sisters of Life’s apostolate is focused upon the defense of human life at all stages. Sisters in each of the convents participate in a range of missions, from ministry with women facing crisis pregnancies or regret after an abortion to study of bioethics and theology.
At the center of the Sisters of Life’s apostolate is the Holy Respite Mission, a sanctuary in the Upper West Side of Manhattan for pregnant women in crisis situations to come and live with the sisters, join in the community and prayer life of the sisters, and stay until they are ready to go back into the world after the birth of their child. Women typically stay with the sisters between six months and a year.
Just a few blocks uptown lies the sisters’ Visitation Mission, which offers “practical support and compassion to women who are pregnant and find themselves in a crisis,” Sr. Mary Elizabeth explained. “Most of the women that come to us have been abandoned by everyone and are unsure of what they’re going to do.” The Sisters of Life serve around 1,000 women each year.
The sisters, along with a crew of volunteer lay helpers called the Co-Workers of Life, provide women with the practical support they need. “We provide everything,” Sr. Mary Elizabeth elaborated, from physical needs like diapers, bottles, strollers, cribs, baby clothes, and maternity clothes, to other forms of aid like helping women find safe housing, moving help, navigating challenges with college administrators or employers, writing resumes, and finding jobs.
In addition, some Co-Workers of Life open their homes as a safe space for women in crisis and offer their friendship and support. Even simple gestures like talking or texting with expectant mothers can be an immense help for women with few other sources of support.
“They’re being pressured into having an abortion by their family, by their friends, by the medical community, their employers – it’s really outrageous,” Sr. Mary Elizabeth said. “They just need someone who’s supporting them and encouraging them in their decision to keep their child.”
Another important service the Sisters of Life provide is hope and healing outreach to women who have had abortions. “From the beginning, Cardinal O’Connor was very sensitive to those who had suffered the wounds of abortion,” explained Sr. Josamarie. Many women, she continued, feel pressured into abortion and then are left to suffer through the emotions alone afterwards.
Sisters provide opportunities to “work through” feelings of grief, anger and other emotions by counseling women, as well as offering specialized retreats where women also have access to the sacraments of Reconciliation and the Eucharist, in addition to someone who will listen to them as they process their experience.
“It’s our experience that women hold this secret and don’t speak about it to others,” Sr. Mary Elizabeth added on the experience of post-abortive women. “It’s a tremendous burden that they handle alone.”
Finally, the sisters engage in a range of outreach and evangelization activities through their retreat center in Stamford, Conn., and their presence at pro-life and Catholic events such as World Youth Day, the March for Life in Washington, D.C., and the Walk For Life in San Francisco. These activities compliment the education work the sisters do through their pro-life library, their support of the Respect Life/Family Life Office for the Archdiocese of New York, research in their House of Studies in Maryland, and talks on college campuses and in parishes.
With their lives dedicated to the defense of life every day of the year, the Sisters aim to revitalize a love for life in the world.
Their hope, Sister Mary Elizabeth said, is to be “a spiritual force that generates a new culture of life within the minds of hearts of men and women across the world.”
If the thousands of lives they touch every year are any indication, they are well on their way.
This article was originally published on CNA Jan. 27, 2017.
[…]
“Biden is in trouble with Catholic voters”.
The movie ‘The Way’ one of whose stars is Martin Sheen is being rereleased.
Martin Sheen played a very pro-choice ‘catholic’ president with a degree from Notre Dame in the series ‘The West Wing’.
In a scene toward the end of the series he smoked a cigarette which he snubbed out on the floor of a church during a soliloquy in the course of which he called almighty God a ‘sonofab…h’.
Now he is shilling for fellow ‘catholic’ Joe Biden.
Something doesn’t add up, or – maybe it does.
FYI – I have the original DVD and enjoy it.
Terence, I need to secure a copy of the original “The Way” myself. Last year I viewed the re-release and every change that they made diminished the movie from adding outtakes to changing at least 2 musical score. I love that movie and know it inside and out and the unfortunate changes were glaring.
Not to all: if given the choice between the two, go for the original release! It is a wonderful movie.
He is only a problem for The Faithful, although an unfaithful Catholic who desires to render onto Caesar or His/Her self what belongs to God is an oxymoron.
Interesting
So it would look like so-called catholics dont like either candidate. Well, they had better start to wake up and be truthful with themselves about the immense damage Biden and the democrats have done to the country. Millions for wars when we cant pave our roads, inflation, soaring violent crime in every city, open border issues and tax burden levied on our own poor to support illegals who have no business being here, on and on. Name one thing they have gotten right. Biden wants to give a free pass to the select group of students who took out loans, and in places like California, free college to illegals too. If you are hard pressed to buy gas, or groceries, or are afraid to go into your own city, you have reaped the rewards of voting for Biden and his ilk. Enjoy. My question to Democrat voters is , are you really that ill informed? Or is it that you just cant admit you were wrong to vote for the democrats?
So, it seems that so-called World Trade Center workers didn’t like either being burned alive or jumping from a building. Well, they had better have started to wake up and be truthful with themselves about the immense damage fire would do to their bodies and throw themselves out the windows.
Translation: You have two obvious choices. One of them is very bad. THAT DOES NOT PROVE THE OTHER OBVIOUS CHOICE IS NOT ALSO VERY BAD. What is needed is a GOOD option, not a lesser evil.
Outis;
You are correct in stating that what is needed is a GOOD option. Unfortunately one is not available this time, so – again – this is a hold your nose and cast your vote election.
Do you actually believe that voting for Donald Trump is equivalent to jumping out of the World Trade Center or perishing inside?
You know , there are readers of CWR who either have lost loved ones on 911 or are acquainted with people who have.
I know you don’t intend to cause distress and free speech is important but sometimes hyperbole isn’t the better choice.
There currently are only 2 candidates who have a chance of becoming president. I understand that in a perfect world we’d have a candidate that people of faith could endorse 100%. But these are the 2 choices we have and I know that things will only continue to unravel under 4 more years of a Biden administration. Or whichever Democrat takes his place. I want at least a little bit of our culture left for my grandchildren to inherit. Damage control is better than destruction.
US Constitution notwithstanding, non-religious things are being made to supercede religious; then the FBI and others are (supposedly) unable to resolve the divergence -or, they profess they are able to; later the Supreme Court tries to find ways to incorporate the dichotomies. As if there was any real and true answer to problems and their right resolution, through those approaches.
https://www.catholicworldreport.com/2024/04/19/biden-administration-redefines-sex-discrimination-in-title-ix-to-include-gender-identity-2/
https://www.catholicworldreport.com/2024/04/19/fbi-investigating-threats-against-multiple-faith-communities-in-pennsylvania/
Let’s face it, the general moral decay is causing the unraveling of the democratic form of government and we are heading toward totalitarian governments around the globe. Democracy demands a common morality, which we no longer have. Democracy was the product of the majority holding and practicing Judio Christian values. We no longer are the majority so we can’t expect our views to be upheld. Sadly, to say we are now becoming a persecuted minority. But on the bright side, we know that persecution brings purging and purity to the church : the more the persecution, the stronger we become, and we can expect triumph of Jesus in the end.
We’re still a Republic but it;s not going too well since we’re headed toward socialism. Lincoln remarked in his G address:”Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure.”.. basically an experiment. If the CCP comes though I’m not doing what they tell me.
Outis, I agree. To vote for the lesser of two evils, is to vote for evil. At this point it may may be better not to endorse or vote for either candidate since both pose serious danger to our country and society. Is there enough evidence to convict either candidate of being a Christian? This is not to say that a goojd candidate needs to be a Christian, but I think we can insist on one who promotes and practices the Judio Christian morality which has been the backbone of our democratic society.
Yes, Outis, there is no perfect option.
But see my comment below for a description of the worst of the two voting choices.
And I didn’t even mention the most horrendous Democratic policy ever — abortion, the absolutely worst, most horrific holocaust ever visited upon humanity.
More than a *billion* — yes, that’s Billion with a ‘B’ — children slaughtered around the world over the past 51 years.
And half of Catholics voted for it.
Now, go ahead. Tell me how boorish and loud Trump can be.
Your TDS is getting a little annoying and redundant at this point. There is no “better” option – we have the candidates we have. We have a responsibility to cast a vote that is the better or the two options. If you honestly think that Biden is the better option, you have had your head in the sand for the past several years.
Athanasius, Trump Derangement Syndrome made sense when it was possible to differentiate the issues he would be leading and CHANGING. Now, however, one thing melds into another and Trump demonstrates that he is free to do as he chooses yet always now to be bound to the shuttle.
Did you know TDS also stands for three times a day (in Latin) as well as Time Driven Switching and Total Dissolved Solids – among other unmentionables that look as bad on Trump as on Biden. Or as nice.
Outis: Let me get this straight. You believe that the man, through his concrete actions, his judicial appointments, at all levels, his restructuring of foreign aid and his executive orders that affected the saving of more human lives than the actions of any individual in the entirety of human history is irredeemably evil in your divine assistant judgment? Or is it that you reject the Christian notion that whatever a reprobate past a man might have had, can always be redeemed?
I agree with this! We need to vote for the lesser of two evils and not throw our vote away on a 3rd Party candidate who has no chance of winning.
Of course, abortion is the key issue, along with Pres. Biden’s misguided and unscientific support of IVF, and of gender-transition treatment being made available to children (which many scientists and medical professionals have spoken against). T
But the issue of forgiving student loans–this is awful! Where is the money coming from, and what happens to the financial health of the nation when these loans are simply sent “out to the cornfield?” (See famous Twilight Zone episode “It’s a Good Life.”)?
And what precedent does this set for the “forgiveness” of other financial obligations?
What’s needed is better education of young people about their many options after graduating from high school! An expensive four-year-college is not necessarily the best way for everyone to go! Young people, especially minority young people, as well as teens whose parents did not attend college, don’t get the full information package that they need to make a wise decision about what to do after graduating from high school. E.g., many of the medical professions only require a two-year degree from a junior college–and then the option becomes available to earn the B.S. from a four-year college to move up the professional “ladder”–and sometimes, the hospital will pay for that continuing education! How many young people know about this?! Or know about the skilled trades, which require a trade school or apprenticeship (some of these apprenticeships are paid!) and earn high salaries?
Better career counselling–not LOAN FORGIVENESS, students is needed across the country!
Vote wisely, friends.
The Democratic Party is a death cult.
To Democrats, sterilizing children is even better than aborting them. Because a woman who has an abortion might someday give birth again.
But a child who is sterilized can never procreate.
Legalizing drugs; gay “marriage”; the sexualization of children; the green new poverty; the open border fentanyl conduit; the denial of the biologically determined sexes; the racist, divisive CRT curriculum — everything the Democratic Party advocates is aimed at restricting life and promoting death.
Death is the Democratic Party’s central tenet.
Catholics who vote Democratic, look to your souls.
Perhaps those who vote Republican will be held to the same standard for the accountability of their souls! Just perhaps. 😇
Perhaps you will tell us EXACTLY what it is that Trump did that was so horrific??
Moving the US embassy after decades of promises to Jerusalem? The Abraham Accords? Energy independence? A booming economy? Leadership shown during covid? Yes indeed, horrific. I have asked that question of many people but NEVER get a coherent answer.Likely because there isnt one, just ginned up media emotion based on lies, and a desire to act on pure spite, as have many of our democrat DA’s. The Russia collusion story was proven a hoax by the special counsel, who worked literal YEARS investigating.
As for J6, sorry but we have actually had RIOTS which did much more damage yet nobody was prosecuted. Many. Throwing ill old women in jail because they walked into the Capitol isn’t my idea of justice. In fact its more like McCarthyism. And nobody throws an “insurrection” without military support and arms. There were none there that day. The “insurrection” story is pure propaganda pablum fed to the ill-informed and credulous. So, what else have you got? The country was clearly MUCH better off under Trump. What we have now is crime, chaos, sexual perversion and the general destruction of our culture and civilization. You’d rather keep the country on that track than vote for Trump? I call that an ill-advised and pathetic exercise in self indulgence.
You can have as many wishes as you want about who you’d RATHER have running for office. But the reality is, this is who we HAVE. Throwing a toddler tantrum and staying home instead of voting guarantees that the party which makes lies and cheating a part of their platform, along with supporting a hundred other degenerate issues, will win. Men in little girls locker rooms,abnormal sex taught to grammar school kids, library drag queen performances for kids paid with taxpayer money, our military sitting ducks in the Middle East? Thank the democrats for that. If you support that stuff, vote Biden or Kennedy, or stay home. The moral weight of such a “win” will be entirely on you.You may get some personal satisfaction out of such an outcome but the country as we have known it will be destroyed.
Obviously, which is why we keep reminding ourselves of this all the time, unlike our lib counterparts who presume to appropriate the power of God rather than consider His wrath.
What will end it all for Biden is for a reporter to ask him one simple question: “Could tell us what today’s date is?” He won’t be able to answer correctly.
Either that or “What is the 4th Luminous Mystery?”
Outis has the best comment. You have to come up to it not keep trying to out-match it or trying to find something that can substitute.
The fact that a void persists for the time being even when it can be and has been spotted, is part of the formation of the action.
The first Civil War was relatively simple before the stakes got raised and things got complicated. Lincoln’s original issue was simply whether slavery should be extended into the Western territories, or not?
As for our high-stakes complications of today, one fantasy is to suppose that both presidential candidates get derailed prior to the conventions, and both parties have to scramble. Who would look good running against Harris? Probably anybody?
Another fantasy is for the defense to play the first of the three Trump trials something like this…buying silence from a prostitute (possibly to shield an election, or possibly for personal reasons, or both?); how is this tangled episode any different from Congress itself—on a huge scale and systematically—buying voter-support from client groups—with earmarks and trillion-dollar annual deficits in monopoly money instead of cathouse tokens…and now with a national debt of $34 Trillion or twice what it was only ten years ago?
I think that was actually our second civil war Mr.Peter. I hope we don’t suffer a third.
Good point about the first civil war, which could have been averted if Franklin’s Albany Plan of 1754 had been approved. Proposed was greater unity among the thirteen contiguous colonies, which might then have enabled a “commonwealth of nations.” No need, then for a War of Independence: a “civil war” rather than a total “revolution” of French vintage in 1789 and beyond.
But, as for a third civil war, what is the difference, if any, between thirteen separate but contiguous colonies and a polyhedral Church of contiguous facets but with no consistent and unifying center?
What does any of this really mean since the Catholic reliion is not viewed favorably by a majority of Catholics?
Clearly that was a typo where I misspelled religion in reference to the religion that most Catholics fail to view favorably.
Catholics should wash their hands of politics. Never did Christ tell his followers to go to Rome and write man-made laws. God gave us the Church and the Word of God to change the world. We have an allegiance to God and have no allegiance to a man-made government. Our leaders reside in our Church and not in Washington, DC. Our job on earth is to fill our Churches with Followers of Christ so everyone can hear the powerful Word of God —-that will solve many, many problems.
Render to Caesar what belongs to Caesar. Remember? Most Catholics dont live in a monastery and dont have the luxury of pretending we dont see what is happening in front of us. Politicians who change the laws to allow men in womens locker rooms, support euthanasia, or support the surgical mutilation of children should NEVER get the support of any catholic.In addition, since our tax dollars are used to fund such perversions, it is our responsibility to raise loud objections to that. Opting out of voting is not a real option. In fact it is totally irresponsible.Further, overly generous immigration regulations pushed by liberals means the country is barely christian anymore.( Have you seen those antisemitic demonstrations on the news lately??) Those who are not Christian have little to no interest in our religious and moral point of view. You must work with the tools at hand, even if they are not perfect.
Last year the number of abortions in the USA increased and the number of people attending church decreased—-we need more people in church to fix America. The man-made government in Washington DC is not part of God’s plan.
Very noble sounding, etc.
Cliche time – for every person who, in a fit of high moral dudgeon refuses to vote for Trump – that’s one vote Joe Biden doesn’t have to worry about.
I repeat – hold your nose and cast your vote, but VOTE.
Exactly, Terrence.
If I was a Democrat operative I might consider planting comments in orthodox Christian sites encouraging high minded people to stay home on election day so as not to taint their conscience. Better to watch our nation self destruct as long as we can remain latter day Puritans.
To paraphrase the late, great Johnny Cash,I’d rather be a little less heavenly minded and do some earthly good.
🙂
The homilies aren’t exactly fire and brimstone anymore. Congregants need to walk away from mass shook up a little over guilt and feeling the need to do better, in my opinion.
Im voting for Trump simply because Deep State Washington hates him. That’s the only reason I need.
Principles over personalities! I’m voting for Trump!
I live in Canada and I for the life of me cannot figure out why a person would not vote for trump. There was peace, low gas prices etc under him. Yes he had mean tweets compare that to PF, Trudeau. His wife very lady like unlike past presidents and the ex of Trudeau who is on the trail trying to sell a book about her life with the juvenile. Trump didn’t take a pay check yet past & present president plus current cdn pM have become rich ! Crazy.
I can now see why roads to hell are paved with bishops and clergy. Their silence on these pro killing of babies is deafening.