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St Michael by Rebecca Merry

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As our foundress St. Angela Merici said, "in these perilous and pestilential times, you will find no other recourse than to take refuge at the feet of Jesus Christ" (Counsels).

Hello Sister. Im surprised to find a nun in social media. How you recommend to keep in feith in these days full of violence, unjustice and hate? Thank you.

Hi Mary,

I will read the Bible more, especially the New Testament, and develop a strong and close relationship with Jesus. He is the only one who can give the peace that the world cannot give. By bringing all of our worries, fears and unrest to God in prayer we learn to trust and have courage to face a troubled world. Jesus said, "Believe in God, believe also in me. I have overcome the world!"

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Giving up Tumblr for Lent this year! 💚

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Very grateful for recent time for contemplation in nature 💚

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Please pray for Ukraine and Russia, please pray for Azerbajjan and Armenia, please pray for Palestine and Israel, please pray for Ethiopia, please pray for Sudan, let us pray for peace and justice!

Almighty God and Creator, You are the Father of all people on the earth. Guide, I pray, all the nations and their leaders in the ways of justice and peace. Protect us from the evils of injustice, prejudice, exploitation, conflict and war. Help us to put away mistrust, bitterness and hatred. Teach us to cease the storing and using of implements of war. Lead us to find peace, respect and freedom. Unite us in the making and sharing of tools of peace against ignorance, poverty, disease and oppression. Grant that we may grow in harmony and friendship as brothers and sisters created in Your image, to Your honor and praise. Amen.

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Happy Feast of St. Angela Merici! 

St. Angela created a new way of life for women in her culture, "to whom patriarchy offered only marriage or monastic life. In the Company of St. Ursula, single women consecrated themselves to God while living in their homes and working at their jobs. Her lay spirituality is alive today." 

You can learn more about her life and the Company she founded at

[Image from the Ursuline Sisters of Louisville]

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Always something new to learn! 🤓

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In the Old Testament the two symbols of the power of sin were childlessness and death. These two realities were essentially identical, for what death cut off for the individual, childlessness cut off for the people. Jesus accepted into his life both celibacy and death and abolished their ancient meaning as the victory of sin by transforming them into the victory of eternal life.

Sister Sandra Schneiders, IHM New Wineskins: Reimagining Religious Life Today (pg. 126-7)

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Celibacy in the early Church was considered the strict equivalent of martyrdom. Not to marry, not to found a family, is a choice not to build oneself into the future of the race, not to immortalize the self in the only way known to human wisdom. It is to make one's own death final from the human point of view. Such a choice is total in its intensity and extension because it takes in the whole of one's own life and of one's possible progeny. With terrifying clarity and absolute irreversibility one chooses what can only be seen, from the human point of view, as death.

Sister Sandra Schneiders, IHM New Wineskins: Reimagining Religious Life Today (p 128)

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The first thing about the Ursulines that caught my attention when I was discerning consecrated life was the story of St. Ursula herself: a woman who loved Jesus so much she preferred to face martyrdom than to marry and renounce her faith 💚

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On Saturday, September 23, 2023 I renewed my consecration in the Company of St. Ursula for a period of 3 years! 💚🙏🕊️💚

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Happy Feast of St. Ursula and companions!!

"What will separate us from the love of Christ? Will anguish, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or the sword? As it is written: “For your sake we are being slain all the day; we are looked upon as sheep to be slaughtered.”

No, in all these things we conquer overwhelmingly through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor present things, nor future things, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord."

-- Romans 8:35-38

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The Heart of Compassion

Compassionate God,

your generous presence

is always attuned to hurting ones.

Your listening ear is bent

toward the cries of the wounded.

Your heart of love

fills with tears for the suffering.

-- Joyce Rupp

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May God, who created a world of diversity and vibrancy,

Go with us as we embrace life in all its fullness.

May Jesus, who teaches us to care for strangers and foreigners,

Go with us as we try to be good neighbors in our communities.

May the Holy Spirit, who breaks down barriers and celebrates community,

Go with us as we find courage to create a place of welcome for all.

(Posted on Xavier University’s website)