Sisters Celebrate 70 & 60 Years of Profession

On the day of the Feast of the Presentation of the Lord, three of our Sisters celebrated their anniversaries of entrance into religious life. Sr. Ann Nielsen (Sr. Ancilla of the Immaculate) celebrated 70 years of profession (1954), and both Sr. Evelyn Eckhardt ( Sr. Evelyn Gerard of the Immaculate Heart) and Sr. Maureen Hurley (Sr. Maureen of the Cross) celebrated 60 years of profession (1964).

Mass in the chapel of Our Lady of Perpetual Help Convent, Sound Beach, NY, was presided over by Rev. William Considine, SMM, who also gave the Homily. The first reading was Mal 3: 1-4, delivered by Sr. Ann Gray, and the Response was "O Wisdom, Bliss Eternal" (Cantique 126 – St. Louis Marie de Montfort, translated by Sr. Ann Nielsen). The second reading delivered by Sr. Irene Arsenault was Heb. 2: 14-18, followed by the Gospel of Luke, 2: 22 – 40. Delegation Leader, Sr. Catherine Sheehan, Led the Renewal of Vows. After communion and meditation, "I Found the Treasure," by Dan Schutte Mass, concluded with the recessional "Chant De L'Unite."

Rev. William Considine, SMM, graciously shared his Homily below.

There was a time when I used to picture this gospel story of the Presentation, like someone passing through the temple at the right moment and hour to see this tender, poor, loving couple bring their newborn Son to offer him to the Lord. And I could imagine and share the emotions of Joseph and Mary. But, truth to tell, Simeon and Anna seemed like dinosaurs, like ancient relics!! And now, with the passing of the decades, I put a prayer shawl around my shoulders, put a veil on most of your heads, and we could be Simeon and Anna! Their experiences and feelings, their joy and thanksgiving, and their sense of fulfillment could be ours.

Celebrating Ann's 70 years of Profession (Sr. Ann Nielsen), Maureen’s and Evelyn's 60 years (Sr. Maureen Hurley and Sr. Evelyn Eckhardt), and thinking of Agnes with her 70 years (Sr. Agnes McColgan), and Rosemarie with her 60 years (Sr. Rosemarie Greco), we can very much resonate with Simeon. Our Jubilarians can testify how they have seen light and glory over those decades. How they have been blessed to uncover and share God's light and glory in the lives of all God's people they have known and served. 

Like Simeon, they have known of swords piercing hearts, as God's redeeming love was refused and rejected, sometimes by the powerful and sometimes by the little ones who needed it most. Like Anna, the 84-year-old wife, widow, and prophetess, our Jubilarians have spent much time in prayer, in quiet, in God's holy temple, and have been blessed countless times to see the Messiah – indeed, as a little Baby. But also to be with Jesus as teacher and friend, as crucified and risen Lord who intimately still calls out their name: Ann, Maureen, Evelyn. 

Our Montfortian/Wisdom family deeply resonates with the insight of the Letter to the Hebrews today: "Since the children of the earth are people of flesh and blood, Jesus himself had a full share in these, that by his death, he might rob the devil, the prince of death, of his power; and free those who –from fear of death – had been slaves their whole life long.…" In this family that we have belonged to for 50 or 60, 70, or 80 years, we share profoundly in the joys and sorrows, the hopes and fears of all the children of the earth. We strive to bring God's freedom to one and all, God's rich human and divine life to one and all, especially to the neediest, whose cry is most piercing and most tender to their Loving God.

In our religious family, we commit to this, solemnize this by vows, by religious profession, and sometimes measure it in years passed, in Jubilees remembered.

But, in The Love of Eternal Wisdom, Montfort unfolds it, I think, in the loveliest way, he says: 

“Faisons à la Sagesse éternelle et incarnée un don irrévocable de notre cœur, qui est tout ce qu’elle nous demande. (LEW 132)

 "Let us offer Eternal and Incarnate Wisdom an irrevocable gift of our heart, which is all that she asks of us." (LEW 132)

I think that all of this, who Montfort and Marie Louise would have us be, and who our Jubilarians are, is beautifully echoed in this song of Sr. Kathy Sherman, CJS, "Because We Love God."