Sr. Eliana and Sr. Therese Marie with some of the Brothers of Hope.
This was taken in 2008, the first year that our sisters began
doing periodic ministry at FSU.

NEWS RELEASE!!
With gratitude for the support of our Bishop Jeffrey Monforton of the Diocese of Steubenville and Bishop Gregory Parkes of the Diocese of Pensacola-Tallahassee, The Franciscan Sisters Third Order Regular of Penance of the Sorrowful Mother joyfully announce that we have been given permission to be present in the Diocese of Pensacola-Tallahassee, Florida and to minister at the Catholic Student Union at FSU, TCC, & FAMU (CSU) of Florida State University alongside the Brotherhood of Hope and the CSU Staff in order to receive training for campus ministry on secular college campuses.

  Our intention is to keep a consistent presence at the CSU for the sake of the ministry there, while rotating sisters through for training purposes. In a few years, we hope to have enough sisters trained and ready to begin a mission house at Ohio University in Athens, Ohio at the request of Bishop Monforton, and at the same time to be ready to begin a full mission house at FSU with a more stable presence there.

We are happy to announce that Sr. Della Marie Doyle and Sr. Eliana Day will be the first sisters assigned there beginning in the fall semester of 2015. We ask for your prayers for our communities as we begin this new adventure!
“What are you giving up for Lent?”  Among Catholics on or around Ash Wednesday, this question could be a typical conversation starter.  Many of us are familiar with the typical answers, such as chocolate or other sweets, our favorite show on TV, smoking, alcoholic beverages, etc.

For those of us in religious life, many of these things are already not a part of our daily life, so it is necessary to go a bit deeper to find either something to give up or something positive to do.  The professed sisters at the motherhouse this year have decided to focus on one aspect of our life each week of Lent and find creative ways to allow that focus to draw us deeper into our way of life and into the heart of this season of grace. 

A couple of sisters created a little box in which they put paper hearts that have one aspect of our life written on each one. We will draw out a heart each week of Lent and discuss ways we could either individually or communally focus on it.
For example, if we drew out the heart that says “Eucharistic life,” we could look for ways to minimize distractions during Mass or personal prayer.  We could make greater efforts to come to chapel early (not just on time) for prayer.  We could read and reflect on paragraphs from our Constitutions that refer to our communal devotion to the Eucharist.  We could also choose to reflect on passages in scripture that refer to the Eucharist, such as chapter 6 of the gospel of John.  These are just some ideas that came up even before Lent started!

Well, this week we drew the heart that said “Contemplation,” so already in this first week of Lent we are challenged to reflect on ways that we can go deeper in our life of contemplation.  Of course, contemplation is a gift from God, but the more we dispose ourselves to receiving that gift, the more fully we will be able to live our call which is a blessing for the whole Church, and even the entire world. 

Our community was founded to renew the contemplative dimension of the Third Order Regular of St. Francis.  What that means is that everything we do in our way of life and ministries flows out of a deep life of prayer.  We cannot give the love of Jesus to college students, the homeless or jobless persons who come into Samaritan House in downtown Steubenville, or even to each other, unless we have first received His love in our contemplative prayer. 

Maybe our focus on our contemplative life this week can be a grateful reply to the Lord’s generous love which we commemorate in a special way during Lent as we contemplate with greater intensity His Passion, Death and Resurrection.

What are you doing for Lent to reply to Love?


Sr. Mary Catherine Kasuboski, TOR
“Sometimes lovely things are lost. Beautiful things God scatters everywhere as Walt Whitman said, ‘God is tossing down love letters on the street and everywhere, If only we would watch out for them.’” -Jessica Powers

It was Valentine’s Day several years ago and it began like any regular day, with Holy Hour at 5:30 am.   I sat there, as a true romantic, waiting for God to woo my heart all over again as we celebrated this day for lovers. 

But I was a little distracted because I was cooking dinner that night and somehow needed to come up with 1 cup of chicken broth for my recipe.  With no chicken or bouillon cubes in the house this was going to be quite a task. 

So, as I prepared for mass that morning, I read the above quote in the Magnificat, refocused and asked the Lord to help me be open to see these “love letters he is tossing on the street and everywhere”. 

And then the chaos began! 

I heard a cry!  Now, normally we keep silence before 9AM because it is a time for us to be quiet with our Beloved.  So when I heard this yell I knew something was askew.  A sister hollered down the stairs, “The water won’t shut off in the bathtub!” 

Now the house is nearly 100 years old, so all of the shutoffs are in the basement and are not well marked.  She ran downstairs and we began yelling back and forth, “OK, I turned one off.  Did it stop?”  “No, it’s still gushing.”  This continued for several minutes when the doorbell rang. 

It was the priest coming to celebrate mass for us.  He jumped into the pandemonium and became the middle-man relaying our questions and responses.  “Why don’t you call a plumber?” he calmly asks after several minutes.   Yes, a plumber! 

One was called but, alas, there was no answer.  The door bell rang again.  Who could it be this time since the priest is already here?  We weren’t expecting anyone. 

I opened the door and a good friend of our community stood there with a 5-gallon pot half full of…you guessed it… CHICKEN BROTH!!!  Not just a cup of it but several gallons of it!  He explained that he boiled a chicken the day before and just thought we might want to use the broth. 

I took the pot, thanked him profusely, told him how he was an answer to prayer because of my chicken broth woes, and he turned to be on his way.  Then the sister called upstairs, “Who was at the door?”  
When I told her who it was she cried out, “HE’S THE PLUMBER!”

So, in reflecting on the events of the morning I came to understand in a deeper way just how many times His love letters really are “on the street and everywhere”.  They are not just in the whispers He speaks to our hearts in the chapel but in the normal everyday events of life, if only we have the eyes to see His personal love and care for us!  

Two prayers were answered in that one package that God sent to our front door early that Valentine’s morning.


Oh, and yes, I was able to call after our plumber as he walked down our steps and he was able to fix our plumbing issues!  
-Sr. Sophia Grace Huschka
Sr.Mary Gemma as Katie (far left) before
she entered community
I can still taste the café au lait and the crusty bread. I can walk the cobblestones at dusk and hear the friendly “bonsoir”s that sent me home each night. In my mind’s eye, I can sit on my windowsill at Maison Saint-Pierre et Saint-Paul and watch the mist roll off the Pyrenees and hear the morning bells toll from the basilica spire.

The rush of the Gave in springtime, the endless lines of blue wheelchairs, the sea of tiny flames every night in Rosary Square … all impressions of Lourdes that remain with me even now, nearly six years later.

They say that if you’ve been there once, you can always return to the Grotto in your heart.

But how often I forget! How often I let life become burdensome; I grow weary from the daily struggle, from the busyness of it all. How far away Lourdes can seem- an unreachable distance!

But today, the Lord wants me to remember. “Come to Me, all you who labor and are burdened …” I return to this place, a place so blanketed with peace. Yes, there were crowds and shops and plenty of to and fro, but it was all pervaded with a sense of rest, of safety. The Grotto itself is a refuge where the thirsty are literally refreshed.

As I waited in line for the piscines, the baths, women from around the world took turns gently singing Marian hymns. I remember I felt no fear as I walked through the curtains. The women volunteers didn’t speak my language, but we understood one another. They pointed to the little statue of Our Lady at the foot of the bath and somehow communicated that I should say a prayer. I had no power to resist- the tears came and the women embraced me as if I was their own daughter. Immediately my heart was flooded with relief and love.

I plunged in and gasped at the cold of the water. I kissed the little Mary and soon was out of the water and dressed, miraculously dry just as everyone said.

Sometimes all we need is a Mother’s healing love. That day I felt it tangibly, holding me tightly, running like water on my skin. Today I make an act of faith to return to her arms.

“Kindly come,” the Lady said to little Bernadette. Today she says it to me, too. Could it be so easy to go back? One act of trust and all can be made new again. The tears can be wiped away- even sickness can be healed. We have a Mother whose love stretches over every imaginable human fragility and suffering. There she stands in the lonely caves of our hearts, unafraid to be with us in the places no one else will touch. Who would not have the courage to run to her?

the grotto at Lourdes, France where
Mary appeared to St. Bernadette and many
 miraculous healings have taken place
“Go to her, you who are crushed by material misery, defenseless against the hardships of life and the indifference of men. Go to her, you who are assailed by sorrows and moral trials. Go to her, beloved invalids and infirm, you who are sincerely welcomed and honoured at Lourdes as the suffering members of our Lord. Go to her and receive peace of heart, strength for your daily duties, joy for the sacrifice you offer.” 
~Pope Pius XII
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