When someone learns that our daughter is a Sister, he or she typically responds in one of two ways.  Most people, especially other moms, relate to the difficulty of being separated from their daughter.  They say something like, “Wow!  That must be so hard.  I don’t know if I could do that!”  The second response, which I hear less often, goes something like this, “Wow!  That must be such a blessing for your family!”

To be honest, it is both of those:  incredibly painful and difficult at times, but always, even in that loss, an indescribable blessing.   And as such, I have often pondered how my life as the mother of a Sister might draw me closer to the heart of Mother Mary, and how my life might even reflect hers in some ways, if by the grace of God, I can do this well. 

I begin by thinking about the Annunciation (Luke 1: 26-38). Our Lady’s life was completely changed with her fiat when her life as the Mother of her Savior and ours began.  She was already holy, full of grace.  That was not quite true of me, but I was hungering for God in my own way. Newly married and fairly new to the Church, my life truly began with the conception and birth of our first child, Sarah.  I began to fall in love with God as I beheld our tiny child.  As she loved me unconditionally, I felt God’s love as never before.  As I loved and nurtured her, God healed me of many wounds, and I grew in awe of Him.  With her birth came the true birth of my faith.  Wanting to be the best mom I could be, I wanted her to know, love and serve the Lord.  Thus, I grew in the knowledge of my faith as I began to teach her.  God continued to bless us with six more beautiful children, and the journey continued. 

Now to focus on the Finding of Jesus in the Temple (Luke 2: 41-52):  I relate to this story as well.  When Jesus was twelve years old, his parents had lost him on the way back from Jerusalem.  They found him after three days.  He was in the temple teaching, and everyone was amazed by his words.  But he went back to Nazareth, and was obedient to his parents.    Perhaps Jesus was already very capable of beginning his work.  But it wasn’t time.    How difficult it must have been for him to wait to begin his public ministry. And from this time, Mary held all this in her heart. 

Like Jesus, my daughter had to be in her Father’s house.  She loved the Lord from a very young age and began serving him in many ways.  By the time she was eleven, I knew in my heart that our Lord was calling her to a religious vocation.  As soon as she visited the Franciscan Sisters T.O.R. for a young girls’ day, she knew.  She said she felt like she was “home.”  I, like Mother Mary, had to hold all this in my heart.  She didn’t talk about it often, and didn’t tell people outside the family, but she knew.  And as her mother, I knew as well.  Occasionally I thought about what this might mean to me personally, the losses I would have to suffer.  But mostly I was filled with awe that God was calling one of our daughters to this very special and important vocation. I know it was hard for Sarah to wait.  She prayed about when she should apply, and if she should attend Franciscan University for all four years.  After much prayer, she was obedient to what she believed the Father wanted. And as difficult as it was at times, she waited until after her college graduation. 

At the Wedding Feast at Cana (John 2: 1 -11), we see our Blessed Mother’s influence on the beginning of Christ’s public ministry. From my own perspective as a mother, I see this as a mother’s little nudge. To me, it is as if she was saying to him, “It’s time.  I believe in you. You can do this.”  Jesus knows all and didn’t really need that nudge, but perhaps Mother Mary needed to give it.  Perhaps it was a gift from God to Mary to help prepare her heart for what was to come. She had to begin to let go of that life they had been living together, the quiet life of the Holy Family.  It was the beginning of a different way of life for both of them. So it was for us.  Mary told them to do whatever Jesus asks of them.  She tells us the same thing.  Do whatever Jesus asks.  The application process, the appointments, the packing, everything that had to be done in preparation for entering candidacy:  we were preparing our hearts for everything to change.  We were preparing for our daughter to do whatever God was asking of her. 

Like Jesus, our daughter had lived at home.  She had commuted to Franciscan.  This was not always easy for her, but she did it for us because we could not afford for her to live away.  And although she had studied abroad in Austria, and had been away for mission trips and summer work, she had been part of our home, our family life, and was truly leaving for the first time when she entered the Monastery. 

I will always remember the day Sarah entered the Franciscan Sisters T.O.R.  It was one of the happiest and yet most sorrowful days of my life.  If I may compare it to Good Friday, it was truly something like that for me.  I had to let go of my daughter so that she could go fulfill the Father’s will for her life, so that she could go serve him in complete and total abandonment of the world.  Of course, none of us dare compare our sacrifices to what our Lord has done for us, and we never could come close.  But since he called us to take up our cross and follow him daily, I do dare make some analogy here.  I felt like I lost my daughter that day. I felt like I stood with Mother Mary at the foot of the cross.   I truly mourned like never before.  No actual death that I had ever experienced came close to the grief I felt when we returned home that day without our daughter.  I sat at the kitchen table completely lost.  I didn’t know what to do with myself.  I cried easily for days, weeks, even months. I was lost. There is no other word to describe it besides grief. 

And then the joy of the Resurrection:  Christ lives!  My daughter lives.  Yes, she has a new life.  Our little family will never be the same as it was before.  But now I can honestly say, it is not only different but better.  One and a half years after our daughter entered as Sarah Kilonsky, we were waiting for the phone call to hear that she had been accepted as a novice and had been given her new name.  I waited as an expectant mother.  I waited like I had waited the first time: to meet my daughter.  Who would this new person be?  What would God name her?  And we got the call: Sr. Agnes Maria.


 I praise and thank the Almighty God for he has done good things to me. 
-Shirley Kilonsky (mother of Sr. Agnes Maria)

We don’t use hashtags in our daily experience of religious life (unlike many of you, dear readers), but if we did, a lot of our posts these days would probably say #TRANSITION.

It’s just that time of year. In early August, our sisters move to their respective mission houses, our novices make first vows, our postulants become novices, and new postulants come our way. Some sisters have the same assignments they had last year, and others have new, sometimes dramatically new, assignments. We call it #transition.

Another hashtag would be #thegraceforthat. I joked with a sister a few days ago – there’s a grace for that! Wherever the Lord puts us, He gives us the grace to be there – to do that specific thing, to be his light in that specific way. But sometimes it’s hard to see for all the newness. Where is it to be found? Where is the grace?

I am in the midst of #transition too. Sure, I’m still here at the motherhouse, and still working in the heart of the home (a.k.a. the kitchen), but now I have the responsibility of coordinating all of it.

It can be easy to compare. “Last year, I didn’t have to …” “Her assignment is so much more exciting …” It can be easy to be discontent.

But I realized something recently – I don’t have the grace to do anything else right now. I don’t have the grace to serve the poor or to minister to college students, as our mission house sisters do. I don’t have the grace to teach the novices. I definitely don’t have the grace to be the Reverend Mother! =) I am exactly where He wants me – where the grace is. And if I look more closely, I can see it. I can see how He has gifted me and put me right where I can use my gifts for the greater good.

St. Peter writes, "As generous distributors of God's manifold grace, put your gifts at the service of one another, each in the measure he has received" (1 Peter 4:10). The stay-at-home mom who offered to bake and decorate the cakes for our celebrations this summer – she has the grace, the gift, for that. The retired painter who volunteered his time for a couple of weeks to help repaint our dining room and hallways – he has #thegraceforthat. The married couple with children who farm and garden here at our motherhouse property and share the bounty with us – they have #thegraceforthat. And they all put their graces, ultimately God’s gifts, at the service of others. And I can do the same! Why would I want to do anything without His help?

Just because God supplies it doesn’t mean it is easy to share the grace. But it is comforting to know He is ultimately the source. I’m just distributing what He gives.

Where is the grace? It’s right here. I’m already knee-deep in it. I just have to move my feet forward to feel the rush, the wetness, around me. I have to move. When I’m standing still, looking back at where I was, I can’t see the grace I have for today, for tomorrow.

So, in the midst of all the #transition, I know God is the same, and his hands are always open, full of gifts. I want to stay right here – where the grace is.
Sr. Katherine at her First Profession of Vows
 in 1990
 25 years ago on this day, the feast of St. Clare, our own "St. Clare" and one of our foundresses, Sr. Katherine Caldwell, gave over her life by pronouncing her first vows to the Lord and this community. We want to give the Lord due honor and thanks on this silver jubilee of her first "yes" for her and the gift of her faithfulness these past 25 years!

I knew her well over 25 years ago when as fellow Californians we had a common interest in following the example of St. Francis in our lives. I was studying at Franciscan University of Steubenville, from which she had just graduated, and I still remember how warm and welcoming she was as she invited me to learn more about the Secular Franciscan Student Fraternity that existed on campus, of which she was a member. Her passion and zeal to follow Christ by the radical witness of St. Francis inspired me to want to join the Secular Franciscan Fraternity and to make a deeper commitment to embrace the spirituality of St. Francis in my own life.

Like St. Francis, who stripped himself of his fine clothing before the Bishop, proclaimed God as his Father and embraced the lifestyle of a poor beggar, Katherine (Katy) Caldwell also chose to be poor in the world’s eyes, to forsake worldly prestige and the honor of titles and graduate degrees, in order to let Christ be her wealth, her value and reward. She was led by the Spirit of God, though it seemed foolish to some, to help found a new religious community that would live a hidden life of prayer, sacrifice, and humble service.

Sr. Katherine with her parents and sister
after her profession ceremony in 1990
Though she owned nothing, and felt small and ill-equipped for the task, she trusted God and stepped out of her comfort zone and with great faith and humility, helped to found the Franciscan Sisters, Third Order Regular of Penance of the Sorrowful Mother. During that founding year of 1988, I witnessed the great courage of Sr. Katherine and our community’s founding members who impelled me to want to learn more about the community and their charisms of crucified love, mercy, poverty and contemplation. Sr. Katherine generously paved the way for the rest of us who joined later, laying down her life for the sake of the Gospel by embracing the vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience. Empty handed, she offered her ‘all’ to God, to do with as He wished, just like the boy in the Gospel who offered the disciples of Jesus two fish, together with five loaves, to be miraculously multiplied.

From the earliest years until today, Sr. Katherine has always been deeply serious about the pursuit of holiness, while also fun-loving and joyful, willing to do the humblest of tasks, as well as join in the fun and recreation with all the Sisters who have needed relief and balance amidst the intensity of founding a new religious order. She has been a tender sister and a wise reverend Mother for 10 years. I have often experienced her deep wisdom and gained from watching her bear labor pains no less than a mother bears for her child. These pains are, I believe, a true badge of courage.

Sr. Katherine renewing her vows
this past August 1st at a Mass at our
Motherhouse
Ever loyal in saying ‘yes’ to God’s will for the past 25 years, Sr. Katherine continues to be an example of passionate zeal for the Kingdom of God. In the name of all of your Sisters, I thank you, dear Sr. Katherine, for your friendship, spiritual motherhood, and constant example of undying courage and zeal.

We love you!
Sr. Mary Rose Bratlien, TOR and all your TOR Sisters

Sr. Katherine is currently on sabbatical after serving in leadership in our community for 21 years (11 of these years were as Reverend Mother). She was part of the founding of our community in 1988. She developed our formation program and served in formation for 12 years. She was the main author of our Constitutions and Statutes and also spearheaded the designing of our chapel, Father of Mercy. She has two graduate degrees and is currently working on a third in counseling that will assist her in serving the poor in downtown Steubenville. This is only a few of many accomplishments.


As I think about the week I spent advising 40 Franciscan University students who chose to spend their Spring Break serving others right here in Steubenville, the phrase that keeps ringing in my heart is “Christ meeting Christ.” In their scraping, painting, bleaching, listening, counseling, challenging, feeding, visiting, and being present to others, the students certainly showed this city the face of Christ. But the people of Steubenville also showed us His face: He came hungry to the soup kitchen, was bewildered in a teen mom, was lonely in the elderly, zealous in those who work regularly for the betterment of the city, and weary in the job-hunting. The face of Christ that stands out most vividly to me, however, is Christ as I met him in “John.”

John is a man who I met some months ago through a mutual friend at a farmers’ market. He soon started coming to the weekly Bible Study we have at Samaritan House, and I got to know him well. He was sick the whole time I knew him: he had recently been informed that his cancer had come back and he probably did not have very long to live. But his immense zeal for life made it hard to believe that, and I didn’t often think about how sick he was. In the fall, we began to prepare together for consecration to Jesus through Mary, using Fr. Gaitley’s book “33 Days to Morning Glory” and consecrated together at Mass on December 8, the Feast of the Immaculate Conception.

After Christmas, John’s health started to decline more quickly, and he called me from the hospital in February. I visited him a few times there, and he rallied well after surgery and went home. Spring Break week was, for me, the perfect opportunity to have some students over to give John some love as well as practical help in cleaning his house up a bit. It was beautiful to see how he flourished in the light of the students’ love as they talked with him, made him lunch, and cleaned his kitchen. I had, in truth, been somewhat worried about John after my visits to him in the hospital, because he seemed so afraid of God, so afraid of death. But the man I left after our second visit during mission was less angry, more peaceful, and a lot happier than the one I had seen just weeks earlier.

A few days after our mission ended, the hospice nurse called me to let me know that John did not have long to live. Another sister went with me to visit him one last time – and he was a man transformed. The night before, his son and granddaughter came to see him and be reconciled with him after years of estrangement. John, who, burdened with suffering, could be negative and bitter at times, positively glowed as he shared about their time together. When his son came in the door, he embraced him and said, “Son, I have always loved you.” And his son replied, “I have always known that.” The joy in John’s face as he told me about this encounter was stunning. So I asked John, “Are you ready now to meet your Father?” John looked at me sidelong and said, quietly, “Well, you might mean my earthly father, or my spiritual father – or you might mean my Father in Heaven. Anyway, you’re talking about going to the other side.” He stopped to consider, then went on, “You know, I believe that there is a place for me in Heaven.” My heart leaped, and we prayed together one last time, thanking our Father for his love for John, his son.

John died two days later, on the Feast of St. Joseph. And as sad as I was to lose a friend, all sorrow was washed in joy: joy that John had come to peace with his son and with his Father, joy that John had died being loved both by students who were strangers to him and the son who had been estranged. He died knowing that he was the beloved son of the best of fathers – our Father in Heaven. And in his agony and in his peace, he showed me the face of Christ.

- Sr. Agnes Thérèse Davis, T.O.R.

** Note the names used in this story have been changed for confidentiality purposes **

 Consider supporting our sisters in who live and minister in downtown Steubenville, Ohio through the Helping Hike for the Poor taking place tomorrow, August 4th. We have almost reached our goal of $13,000, $500 for each of our 26 years of prayer and service in community. Find more information and make a contribution by CLICKING HERE.

 “It is Christ’s fidelity that is most beautiful.” - Fr. Boniface Hicks, O.S.B.

Almost every woman, either as a girl or a young lady, has dreamed about her wedding day and honeymoon.  In the midst of the details of the perfect dress, color schemes and romantic destinations, is a fundamental desire to be romanced and know that she is loved.

I would be remiss if I said I have not had some of these same musings.  My ideal honeymoon included a cabin in the woods in the mountains of Colorado.  Forget about the tourist attractions and being on the “go, go, go”; I wanted a place where I could just “be” with my spouse.

About a week before my pre-vow retreat (a time set aside to prepare for professing final vows) I followed a last-minute inspiration of the Holy Spirit and signed out a hermitage on our property.  Early on in the retreat, I was sitting on the porch of this small cabin that is nestled down in the woods.  As I sat there sipping hot water (Franciscan tea), listening to the birds, and watching the sun rise, Jesus reminded me of my dreams.  The rest of the week he fulfilled my deepest desires. 

As Jesus and I spent time “being” together on strolls
through the woods, watching the fireflies and listening to thunder roll through the hills, he spoke deeply to my heart that he will always be with me and that he is never going to leave.  His words telling me that I would not be alone were a healing balm poured on a wound in my heart.  In the midst of my quirks, mistakes, limitations, brokenness, and sinfulness, Jesus desires to be with me and wishes to espouse himself to me forever. 

“He loved his own in the world and he loved them to the end” (Jn. 13:1).  Throughout the week of retreat, Jesus revealed to me his deeply personal, romantic, passionate love for me.  But what he really showed me was that his love is so much more than just the sweetness of romantic love—he LIVES his passion.  By embracing and carrying the cross, being beaten, mocked and spit upon, nailed to a tree, and finally handing over his spirit in death, he fully expresses his  passionate love for me. He chose to love me beyond consoling feelings that come and go.  By living out his words, “This is my body given up for you,” and dying a death that I deserve, I KNOW, in the deepest part of my heart, that I am loved.

And what is the response that I can give to the totality of his self-gift?  For me, there is only one—my entire life.  Through professing the evangelical counsels of chastity, poverty, and obedience, I freely choose him.

And that is all he desires.  He knows my weaknesses and how easily I turn away from him and yet he longs only for me and my “yes”.  As our retreat director, Fr. Boniface, told us, “It is Christ’s fidelity that is most beautiful.”  I don’t have to have it all together. That’s not what he is asking.  He only wants me to remain with him, as I am able.  And together we will bring about the Kingdom of God.


In our profession ceremony for solemn vows, we receive a ring.  As I wear it, I will recall Jesus’ words to me, “Take this ring as a sign of my love and fidelity” and his vows to me to love me to the end, into eternity.  And I will also recall our Reverend Mother’s words as she places it on my finger, “…keep faith with your Bridegroom so that you may come to the wedding feast of eternal joy.”
-Sr. Sophia Grace Huschka, TOR
I remember receiving the complete works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow for Christmas when I was in my early teen years. I devoured his poetry, and one of my favorite poems at that time was “The Builders”, which includes these stanzas:
Nothing useless is, or low;
Each thing in its place is best;
And what seems but idle show
Strengthens and supports the rest.

For the structure that we raise,
Time is with materials filled;
Our to-days and yesterdays
Are the blocks with which we build.

Truly shape and fashion these;
Leave no yawning gaps between;
Think not, because no man sees,
Such things will remain unseen.

I loved the challenge of these words, the way that they called me out to do whatever it was I was doing to the very best of my ability and how they encouraged me to remember that “nothing useless is or low”.

This poem still goes through my head at times, and recently I’ve been thinking about it quite a bit. Not long ago, my Mom said something on the phone that startled me. She was sharing with me about a weekend retreat she and my Dad had made, and said that one of the things that she realized on retreat was that my “yes” to the Lord in my life made her more ready, more available to say “yes” to him in her own life.

 Surprised as I was by this revelation, I took it to prayer. And as I dialogued with the Lord about it, I saw something very beautiful. It was, perhaps, true that my “yes” to my vocation as a religious sister enabled my Mom to say a deeper “yes” to the Lord’s work in her life. But it was also true that I was able to receive a vocation to this life because my Mom had first said “yes” to entering the Catholic Church (a courageous choice for her, given her family’s response to it). Her “yes” to the Lord’s invitation to enter the Church made possible my “yes” a few years later, when, on July 6, 2002, I was received into the Catholic Church and initiated into the sacramental life of the Church.

 But the picture is so much more complex
even than this! My Dad’s “yes” to support my Mom in a decision he did not fully understand certainly figures in to the equation, as does my Grandmother’s deep “yes” to following Jesus in her own life and teaching my Mom to love and serve him. What is really mindboggling about this is that my Grandmother’s fidelity to the Lord supported in a very real way a decision that she would later resist! God used her “yes” to ballast a “yes” she would not have chosen!

 No choice for the Lord is ever wasted in the Divine economy. Our tiny, apparently unseen efforts to be faithful to Christ are bricks and mortar, building materials with which the Lord is building the New Jerusalem. This sounds grandiose, but it’s true. The “yes” you say today to be steadfast to the people and the daily tasks entrusted to you by the Lord are being used in manifold (though often hidden!) ways to build up the Kingdom of God, a kingdom which is built of the interlocking “yeses” of his sons and daughters.

 Rejoice with me as I celebrate 13 years in the Catholic Church – and thank God, too, for the many “yeses” that have brought you to him in the course of your life. 
-Sr. Agnes Thérèse Davis, TOR
I’ve always wondered about why things are the way they are and why people do the things they do. I think that’s what made me study philosophy in college. Unsurprisingly, this penchant for pondering has followed me into the convent. Most recently, I have been asking myself a few “whys”, the heart of which is this set of questions: why do I work in downtown Steubenville? Why do I serve others, “the poor”? Why do I spend my days sorting through used (and often dirty) clothes and shoes, knick-knacks and cookware? Why do I listen to story after heartbreaking story of loss, disappointment, crime, tragedy, abuse, and vice? Why do I risk exposure to bedbugs, lice, and heaven-only-knows what else? Why do I do it? Why am I so happy doing it?

When I bracket out the obvious motive (religious obedience!), I find some motives that are surprising or embarrassing, and others that are certainly the work of grace. Part of my work is tied up in a compulsive need to help people and try to fix their problems (Messiah complex? You bet!). There’s a strain of needing-to-be-needed still active in my heart. This is old news for me – these motives have stained most of the apparently generous actions in my life. I also want to do good, to be good, and I know that doing the works of mercy is a straightforward way of “being good”. Jesus also indicated that we would be judged on our actions to those in need (see Matthew 25), so it seems prudent to help others as I can.

But I am becoming aware of another, more lasting motive for my work and service: the love of Christ compels me! Paul writes about this in 2 Corinthians 5, where he explains the reason for his ministry:

From now on, therefore, we regard no one from a human point of view […]if any one is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has passed away, behold, the new has come. All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. So we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us (2 Cor 5:16-20).

I used to think about this passage only in terms of myself: I am a new creation in Christ. But there’s more to it than that! As Christ makes me new, I come awake to the potential for newness present in everything and everyone else. Everything is colored by Christ, and “the love of Christ controls me” – which doesn’t mean that my love for the Eucharistic Christ or Christ enthroned in heaven enables me to tolerate or put up with my brothers and sisters. No! In the new world I enter by my membership in Christ, each person is a member of Christ’s body, and is loveable.

We walk around in the society of hundreds and thousands of “little Christs” – shouldn’t we be in love with each of them? As Christ’s ambassadors, we really must be! How else will we communicate to others his spousal love for the human race? How can we be a part of his ministry of reconciliation if we do not desperately desire that reconciliation ourselves? The things we do for “service projects”, “volunteering”, and whatnot really must be “the things we do for love.”

Otherwise, we risk doing them, ultimately, for ourselves. Let us allow ourselves to be captivated by the Christs we serve in the daily grind, and extend his love and the offer of reconciliation to all.

-Sr. Agnes Thérèse Davis, TOR

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