communitas et caritas

Photo was taken at the Shrine of Our Lady of Snows in Belleville, IL. So, it seems that this blog is now a monthly event for me...  for right now, that's just how it is. Today is the feast of the Annunciation.  I'm planning the prayer for the evening, so I thought I would share the reading that I've chosen, from Mother Janet Erskine Stuart, on the Immaculate Heart of Mary.     Serving God gratis means with no conditions at all, here or there, in this or that employment, in health or sickness, consolation, uncertainty, repugnances, [in] God’s will and God’s service.  I, His little servant, need nothing else.  That is Our Lady’s spirit, and the word that came out of the depths of her Immaculate Heart at the great moment of her life was, “ ecce ancilla Domini. ”     If she were now in our midst, what would she be like and what would be her “gratis service?”  Willing service of God and of others, untiring, constant and devoted. Wh...

I'm sorry to have neglected the blog!  Life gets crazy sometimes, and you could say that about the last month. Today, my community is doing a day of formation centered on the life and teachings of Mother Janet Erskine Stuart, the fifth Superior General of the Society of the Sacred Heart.  She's most known for her ideas about education, and in fact, you can find her work The Education of Young Girls in its entirety online here .  (Another work, The Life and Letters of Janet Erskine Stuart , by Maud Monahan is also available as an ebook.) One quotation to share, which I find fits with my understanding of a teacher's role: "What do we want to bring up? Not good nonentities, who are only good because they are not bad. There are too many of them already, no trouble to anyone, only disappointing, so good that they ought to be so much better, if only they would. But who can make them be more?… Those who have to educate them to something higher must themselves have ...