Episode Transcript
[00:00:10] Speaker A: Welcome to another edition of Big City Catholics. I'm your host, Bishop Robert Brennan, Bishop of Brooklyn, serving in Brooklyn and in Queens. As promised, we're doing a lot of on location recording this week during the National Eucharistic Congress. Last week, I had the opportunity to meet with Sister Mercedes Torres, who's the vocation director for the Dominican Sisters of Maryland, mother of the Eucharist. I came to know that congregation when I was in Columbus and have great admiration for them. And then I was thrilled to learn that Sister Mercedes is not only a sister of the Dominican Sisters of Mary, mother of the Eucharist, but she's a vocation from the Diocese of Brooklyn. So we're incredibly, incredibly proud of her. Sister Mercedes, welcome.
[00:00:51] Speaker B: Thank you. Thank you, bishop. It's a really big blessing to be able to speak to you today.
[00:00:55] Speaker A: Oh, my pleasure. Why don't we begin asking the intercession of our Blessed Mother? In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Loving Mother of the Redeemer, gate of heaven, star of the sea, assist your people who have fallen, yet strive to rise again to the wonderment of nature. You bore your creator, yet remained a virgin after as before. You who received Gabriel's joyful greeting, have mercy on us. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, amen. So first I have to apologize. One of the great things that is occurring every night, we have these great sessions and they're very enthusiastic. But you may have noticed I'm losing my voice. And so even though this, a week or two later, you're still getting the effects of the days in the conference. So to you who are listening, please excuse me for that, but Sister Mercedes, thank you for joining us.
[00:01:45] Speaker B: Of course, of course. It's a gift. It's truly a gift.
[00:01:48] Speaker A: Maybe we can start talking about the conference itself. So how has the congress been for you?
[00:01:52] Speaker B: It's been absolutely wonderful and a blessing. It's amazing because as a sister and as a vocation director, I have the privilege of getting to attend a lot of these big conferences, just a really beautiful blessing of being a sister. And you see so much beauty and so much fruit coming from these congresses. This is a unique one for many reasons. Obviously, one of the observations that I've had is a lot of these youth conferences usually are obviously like the big thing, and everyone at those conferences, people are there to, they're searching for the Lord, they're encountering the Lord in a particular way, and they're gathering as a community and it's such a beautiful vibrancy and just openness and disposition to God's work. But here everyone, they believe Christ is present in the Eucharist and they've chosen that. So we're actually all here for the Lord president of the Eucharist. And that's a huge difference.
[00:02:41] Speaker A: It really is, yes. Usually we're celebrating one segment of the church or another, the youth or college ministry or a particular movement. Back in Brooklyn last month, we had the neocotecumen away. They had 20,000 pilgrims gathering at the Parkley center. With two weeks notice, they put it all together in two weeks.
[00:02:59] Speaker B: That's impressive.
[00:03:00] Speaker A: It really is. But here it is, the whole church in the United States, the whole church and people of every background and age, you just see that wide variety. But the one thing that ties us together is that love for Jesus. The love for Jesus really present in the Eucharist.
[00:03:17] Speaker B: It's a beautiful witness for each of us. When the congress began the first night, that was one of the big things. He is here and we're here because he is here. And so all of us, like in all these congresses, you choose to be there, but we've chosen to be here for him because he is here. And that's an amazing difference because each person here has had some sort of encounter with the Lord in the Eucharist and that's how we are united. You know, we are actually united with him. So we're all united here. And I just, it's such a beautiful atmosphere within that unity and it's so.
[00:03:48] Speaker A: Encouraging to see people coming to the Lord. So we have all these breakout sessions and activities, but there's a church on the way as you come and people coming in and out, this perpetual adoration day and night, you just see crowds of people coming in and going out, all to be with the Lord. We have prayer together, adoration and then multiple masses. So this morning you and I were at the spanish mass and that was just wonderful and such a vibrant crowd. Yesterday I went to the mass at the stadium. Wow, just such, such powerful experiences of the Eucharist.
[00:04:25] Speaker B: It's such a blessing. I mean, you figure like Vatican II, it said like the sort and summit, the mess is the source and summon of the church, the faith, you know, and we are experiencing that here. Like this is like the source and summit. We are coming here to be fed and we are going to leave having been fed in a beautiful way with each other, you know, with families, with other young people, with everyone in the whole context of the church, United States. And we need that now. We need to know that this unity comes here and we get reflected within everybody's faith here, within everybody's desire for greater faith and encounter.
[00:04:54] Speaker A: Beautifully said. Beautifully said. Now, your congregation is the dominican sister. So you're part of that great dominican family, but your particular congregation, you are the dominican sisters of Mary, mother of the Eucharist. So you have a real special connection to this week.
[00:05:10] Speaker B: Yes. What a beautiful gift. So we have a very obviously intense and beautiful foundational devotion to the Eucharist. We have a common holy hour every day as we begin our day, just to really be united within that living of community, living of the faith, living of the dominican truth, the contemplative life with the Lord. And so as mother of Eucharist, such a privilege and blessing to be here. And not only will, it's not just me. You're from Congress. What a gift. So we are actually going to be a total of 100 sisters here this witness to our spiritual motherhood within the life of the church as dominican sisters and Mary, mother of Eucharist. It's astounding to me to get to witness with my sisters and live this with my sisters, because we're embracing the church as spiritual mothers here at the congress and living out our cares, and we're a new community. In 1997, we were founded, so it's happening now, live this now. And he's like, that's a beautiful gift of our founding.
[00:06:02] Speaker A: And you have such a great presence. As I mentioned, I got to know the sisters. I've always had dominican connections. From my very earliest days, dominican sisters were a big part of my life and part of my family's life. I got to know you, a particular congregation. While I was in Columbus, you were at school in Columbus. And my sister is the principal on Long island, at St. Mary's in Manhasset, in the elementary school there. And recently the sisters came to Manhasset, and so we have a presence of the sisters here on Long island.
[00:06:33] Speaker B: Yes, it's wonderful and very glad to know that our sisters are, you know, close to Diocese of Brooklyn.
[00:06:39] Speaker A: Yes, indeed, they're very close. Right, right over the border.
[00:06:42] Speaker B: Very, very close.
[00:06:44] Speaker A: And, you know, eukaryotism is largely education. Is it?
[00:06:48] Speaker B: It is, it is. It's such a gift, because as Dominicans, the dominican order was founded 800 years ago by St. Dominic, and it was founded for, like, this study, you know, the teaching, the preaching of the truth for the salvation of souls. And that's been carried out throughout these whole 800 years. And it's been so needed in every, obviously, every stage of the church, because that's why the Lord raises up these communities and these orders in service of the church. So right now, we get to live this dominican charism in a particular way, in a world in which the truth is just truly attacked and torn apart in every way. So getting to be a teacher in this time, we get to form our students daily in the truth for the salvation of their souls. So it's that same caring of the dominican charism as the corporate apostle of teaching, that it's not just teaching, it's that daily formation of the truth. They can walk in the truth, love the truth, encounter the truth every single day.
[00:07:41] Speaker A: That's beautiful. And that's why I think education is such an important mission, because it's the whole of the person and the whole of the person being formed in the context of the truth. One of the things that I find so fascinating, but really so uplifting in the diocese of Brooklyn is that I am constantly running into religious women, young religious women who are from Brooklyn and Queens, living out their vocations. And I talk about that a lot at confirmations. I usually say a little word about I do, I do. I talk about vocations in general, my own, and I point out very specific individuals like yourself, who are serving in different places, but who have their roots in Brooklyn. Please tell us about your vocation story. And you come from the diocese? Yes.
[00:08:26] Speaker B: Thank you. Yes. So I was born and raised in Brooklyn. My family is from the Bushwick area, so I grew up kind of within Bushwick and cypress hills. My parish growing up is St. Martin of Tours, so that's where I was baptized, receive all my sacraments there, which is really a great blessing. And my parents are from the Dominican Republic, so I have the distinction of being double Dominican. There you go. I like to say that I'm double Dominican. Some say Dominican squared.
I was raised Catholic, but I didn't know the person of Christ right. You know, I didn't really receive that personally, like, it was in a place. Place where I had a beautiful vibrancy of that, like Latin Catholicism, you know, we prayed the rosary regularly, especially with my grandparents. We went to mass every Sunday, but there always was that element of, like, you know, mass just in some way kind of little family reunion. You know, we'd all get together, then we'd go to my aunt's house very close to our apartment and have, like, a rolling lunch throughout the day. So I always had that association of faith and family at least. And I loved my family. I was given a beautiful grace in my life, that I'd be a beautiful family. And I always knew I was loved, always knew that I was loved. I knew that I'd affected others in the way they did affected me, but I had that foundation, so I was able to carry that through in my life. So later on, I actually, I went to boarding school for high school. So that's a fun little fact. So my brother and I both got scholarships to go to boarding school. I went to New Jersey. So I fell away from the practice of my faith at that time, because if I had, you know, faith and family were together, I wasn't with my family anymore. I wasn't particularly well catechized. So I figured, oh, you know, like, I'm not gonna go, you know, but not really knowing, you know, that real connection. So then I went to college, actually, in Los Angeles. I'm at USC. And I kind of had, like, that same ebb and flow, like, not quite really in knowing the faith very well. But I went back to New York to work. I live with my cousin in Queens, over in Glendale, and my aunt and uncle there. And my cousin, she had a beautiful, alive faith. She's always had an extremely beautiful, alive faith, and she had a beautiful encounter with the lord of the Eucharist when she was in middle school, when she was young, and just went on with vibrancy. Since then, she and another cousin of mine, they were very active in the youth ministry in Brooklyn. So they're part of JDV, like, back in, you know, the whatever it is early two thousands or whatever it was, you know. So that was a really beautiful, like, gift that they really gave. So she was like a big sister to me. So over the course of my time living with her and working, I had my dream job out of college. I worked for a nonprofit, and we did medical donations for Cuban Nicaragua. So I would travel back and forth between Havana and Managua, bringing doctor's medicines. So it was really my dream job. You know, I'm just, like, really loving that I get to live with my family again. My cousin is very smart. I love people. So she would just bring her ministry friends over to the house.
[00:11:04] Speaker A: Okay. She drew you right in.
[00:11:06] Speaker B: Yep, exactly. So I just started, like, speaking to them and just enjoying them and the time with them, and I knew that they loved me differently than my other friends, and that's what struck me, just like, you know, people who are just like me. One of them was one of my cousins. It was like a couple other people that became very close friends of mine after that, but they ended up tricking me to go on a retreat not too long after that. And so I ended up going on a retreat, on a JDB retreat at the time. And through that retreat, I just encountered Christ in a beautiful way in the Eucharist. And it was just such a powerful moment for me. It was the realization that I was standing in the way of Christ love for me. That was it. Like, he loved me intensely and beautifully, and I was actually standing in the way of that. I was the only one doing it. So in order to do that, I had to, like, get out of the way. And so I went to, like, confession. And from that point on, I pretty much just started hanging out with her friends, my cousin and her friends. I'd go around different ministry things with them. And also we met the CFR friars in the city. We do a lot of things with them as well. So through that ministry, them in Brooklyn, the city, and then with the CFRs, that was my first time really meeting young religious who were, you know, like me in their twenties, had this, like, a particular joy within them. And the Sisters of life, you know, go to Catholic underground and go to all these different things, you know, like Forsati fellowship, do all those, like, all those wonderful things that, you know, as a young adult in New York is what you do. And I'm grateful for that. But truly, it was such a blessing, because what I saw within them was a joy that corresponded with a joy in my heart I didn't know was there because I did it normally. And, like, you just figure you don't meet the right guy yet, and that's fine. But there was something else. There was a different joy that awoke a joy in my heart. I was like, this is interesting, you know? Okay, so what happened was I figured, well, I'm not a franciscan, and I'm not a sister of life. Obviously, I love babies life movement, but it's not a sister of life, you know? And those are the only two communities that I knew that were young, inhabited, and just beautifully aligned with the church. So I just figured, okay, I don't have a vocation. Check.
Move on. Right.
[00:13:10] Speaker A: That's easy, at least for now.
[00:13:12] Speaker B: Very easy. Yeah, totally fine. So I have started doing the consecration, the Luddom Ophrah consecration to Jesus to Maryland. And I ordered a lot of books online for this. You know, when you order books online, catholic books, you get a lot of mailings from different religious communities.
So I'd moved out at this point. So I was living in Bushwick, so my landlord put mail on my steps, and right before, I'd been joking with Christy and my then best friend, Alvar Elise, who now does a lot of work with the diocese as well.
[00:13:39] Speaker A: Yes, yes. With music. She did our eucharistic gathering revival.
[00:13:43] Speaker B: She's one of my best friends.
[00:13:44] Speaker A: Oh, isn't that something?
[00:13:46] Speaker B: So, also, great gifts. I was with them, and we were joking, like, what if we became sisters? So that's always kind of the funny thing, you know? Like, well, I don't know. It's not gonna happen. It's fine, you know? And so when I got home, I had a mailing on my steps from this community, and they were having a different vocation crisis. And there was postulants dressed in blue on the front of this envelope. And I said, this is so funny. We were just joking about becoming sisters. So I took a picture. I texted to them, oh, this is so funny. And they threw it away. So a few months later, I go to the march for life, and I'm with them, and I see from afar these sisters. Like, wow, look at that. Nice habit. White habit. I hadn't seen that before. So I was thinking, you know what? I'm gonna go. I'm gonna read the banner. I'm not gonna talk the sisters. Can you talk to them? You become a sister.
So I figured I wasn't gonna do that. But I can read the banner. I can stay at that distance, right? And so I read Dominican Sisters of Mary, mother of Eucharist. Okay, so Dominican. I didn't really know what that meant at the time, but I figured I'm dominican.
[00:14:44] Speaker A: There you are.
[00:14:45] Speaker B: That's gotta countenance. And then I saw of Mary, like, our lady mother of the Eucharist. You know, if you don't like this name, you're not Catholic.
[00:14:54] Speaker A: It's got all the elements.
[00:14:55] Speaker B: Exactly. Then I saw Ann Arbor, Michigan. I wasn't gonna leave New York or accidentally. I wasn't gonna do that. So I was done.
I figured, I'm done. I already figured done my discernment. So, okay, moving on. But I couldn't stop thinking about the community the whole way home. And my cousin saw me leaving, reading the banner, and she saw that I had kind of, like, brushed it off. She stopped me, and she said, isn't that the community that you got that mealing from a few months ago?
[00:15:23] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:15:24] Speaker B: She remembered. And she saw my whole reaction, you know, like, the joy. And then, you know, I don't really want to do that. So that then also stayed with me. It's like the Lord actually been kind of working on this a little bit before I even knew it. So I couldn't stop thinking about the community the whole way home. And I went to our website when I got there, and I read the whole website and I just washing. So attracted to the community's just zeal, that zeal for souls. And it was just thinking, you know, there's something there and I don't know what it is. Right. So it was that same kind of question mark that I had when I initially thought of that joy that corresponds to joy. Now it's a correspondence of just like mission. Right. And that's like, that comes together and. Right. And so I figured, I'm not going to go in the February. We have three retreats a year, one in February, 1 in the spring, and one in November, which we still have the February. She was a couple weeks later, you know, because it January, right. And it was too soon. I had to buy a plane ticket, my birthday weekend. So I was like, we're not gonna do that. The one in the spring. I was gonna be in Nicaragua for work. And then we got to November, and I was like, I'll get to November. You know, people say it takes a long time to discern. I know people who are discerning takes. Apparently I'm discerning now. I don't know what that means in November.
[00:16:35] Speaker A: That's a long way off. I don't have to think about it too much right now.
[00:16:38] Speaker B: It's so easy, right? It's so easy for us to think, oh, this is a kind of a real thing, but if I do it later, that'll be fine, too. Right? It's very easy to do that. But again, the Holy Spirit is pulling at me. And I had an exchange with the vocation director then. Vocation director, and I ended up on the Delta website clicking and buying a plane ticket to Detroit for February.
[00:16:58] Speaker A: Isn't that something?
[00:16:59] Speaker B: You know, it's just like, I just felt like I had to go. There was this nudge. The Holy Spirit nudge was just like, I have to go to this. And so I didn't tell anybody where I was going. I canceled my birthday plans in February.
[00:17:12] Speaker A: Yeah. Wow.
[00:17:13] Speaker B: And I went to the February. I told my cousin Christy. She was the only one that knew, so I told her I was going. And, you know, I got there and I saw the sisters with the retreatants, and I was like, you know what? Yeah, like, I can do that. And I saw them with each other, and I saw that beautiful, just like, love between sisters and friendship between sisters. And that just also, I loved that. I seen them in prayer. And then for me, it's like seeing the totality of that gift of self that they've given was this correspondent for me. And the fact that I just love to love. You know, I just love to love. I love people and love to love. And it was a realization that, like, in giving myself to Christ, like, entirely, then that love to him, he can perfect it, right? He's the one that can perfect that love, and then he can give it to others. And that's how I receive them. And that's that economy of love that I can receive. Right? That's spiritual motherhood. That's what it is. And like I mentioned, that zeal that I saw within the sisters in, like, they're living each of those relationships. That was it. You know, that's what I was made for. Because our community, we have this beautiful spirit of the dominican charism, but also we have, like, this radical, you know, given overness of the Holy Spirit. Because just how we were founded, right? And each community has that in their way. Right? Each community has that within their charisma, foundation of their community. And so when I saw this community, I saw my sisters, my future sisters. You know, I just thought, this zeal is what actually the zeal I've been given already, right? Like, this is the zeal that the Lord has been working in my whole life anyway. And so I just get to live that within this consecration. And I thought, you know what? Yeah, this is the community, actually. And it was fast. I actually entered that August something. Yeah. And obviously, there's lots of prairie and talking to the then vocation director. This is Joseph Andrew, but he works, and I'm the current vocation director for the community.
[00:18:53] Speaker A: That's right.
[00:18:54] Speaker B: And the marvel. You know, I can say a lot about the beauty and the marvel of working vocations, but really, the Lord speaks to every young person the way that they're, like, made to be spoken to. Right?
[00:19:03] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:19:04] Speaker B: And then he drew me along all these steps in the exact way that I could hear it. Right. And so my discernment is not exactly the same as anybody else's, but, like, seeing, like, that path that he brought me on, even if, like, it seems, like, really fast, you know, like, for me, like, that's how. What I needed at the time. Right. That was the openness that I had to have. So just knowing that is so tremendous and so beautiful. But being able to have walked with all the people that I was with in that time, actually, is how I was able just to know and be disposed to know my vocation.
[00:19:31] Speaker A: That's a powerful story. And it is. It's sort of like, I don't know if the hesitates the right word, but hesitate. Hesitate, hesitate. And then all of a sudden, I often use the expression pushing. Bald is sometimes you push something. You push, but once it moves, that's actually really true.
[00:19:48] Speaker B: Yeah. Yes, absolutely. Because if there's any sort of resistance, like, ah, maybe not. Like, maybe not. But then things once that something, the right thing gives right, once there's like, that right push, you can't deny, like, it's gonna go. He's gonna move. It's that same thing with the Holy Spirit. Like, he'll move.
[00:20:02] Speaker A: Yes, absolutely. He will move. I think a word that I get out of this conversation for a young person who we is really just not sure.
[00:20:09] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:20:10] Speaker A: It's very practical, very simple. It doesn't hurt to see and probably to do so sooner rather than later.
[00:20:16] Speaker B: Absolutely.
[00:20:17] Speaker A: Because you can always go on the retreat and say, this isn't for me.
[00:20:21] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:20:22] Speaker A: And actually, I had a weekend with the Lord.
[00:20:25] Speaker B: Yes. And that's the thing. I mean, one of the things I tell everyone, this is a huge thing. Everyone's know this discernment is prayer. There is no, you know, ten step program to discernment. There's nothing that says, this is exactly how you discern. I. The discernment is prayer. Actually, when you think of it that way. That's our vocation for everyone. That's the call, is to develop prayer and friendship with God. Prayerfulness as a virtue is the definition of being able to be silent still and developing that friendship with God. Speak to him as a friend, like St. Thomas and his, like, speak to him as friend. Right. And if we're developing that friendship, that's within prayer.
[00:21:00] Speaker A: That's right.
[00:21:01] Speaker B: So looking back on just, you know, my reversion and all that, like, even in just spending time, you know, seeing other religious in the city and encountering them and working with themselves, what really honestly made I was able to be disposed to even receiving those graces was because I was praying a daily prayer life. I was living a Sacramento life. This is the most essential, everyone, this is the most essential part to just living. Like, particularly just open to discernment, especially young adults. I just want them to know this, like a Sacramento life is essential. So going to daily mass as much as you can. I run during my lunch break, I would run over to Mecca and conception. I run there to go to mass, but daily mass as much as you can, right? Adoration, frequent confession, but also essential. A community of friends that are doing the same. That's what I received within my cousin, all those people within ministry.
[00:21:48] Speaker A: And that is so important. I often find myself saying something similar, that we really need to surround ourselves by good people, not who agree with us on everything, but good people who share our values. And in this case, it is good people who share that sacramental life.
[00:22:02] Speaker B: Absolutely. It's so essential. And, like, once I really gained that. So we need that support. I mean, that's, if we needed more than those things, Christ would have given us more than the sacraments, right?
[00:22:13] Speaker A: Right.
[00:22:14] Speaker B: He would have given us more than the sacraments. So we know that's what we need, like, eternally. And the apostles, they were a community, you know, that's how it all began. And so if we have friends that do that, my friends go to mass together whenever we could. We wouldn't tell each other. If we went to confession and support each other, we would go to adoration. We'd also just hang out, you know, we'd go, you know, watch movie. We'd go see, like, a baseball game. We'd go do all these things. We have to be normal. You have to be balanced. Like, life is truly a balance. And, like, moderation, that's like an essential virtue in our life as humans, as, like, Catholic Christians. Right. But you seek balance when you have all those people, like you mentioned, that are sharing your life with you, because that's what we're made for. And so knowing that, it's like, it can't all just be a swing to one side. It can be the only thing that we do and talk about. But like you said, you don't have to gun everything.
[00:23:01] Speaker A: Discovery that people who believe in Christ are normal.
[00:23:04] Speaker B: Exactly. I had this box, right? This idea that people who believe in Jesus and, you know, went to mass and did all these things that they couldn't have real conversations. Like, they couldn't just, like, go out and do all these, like, talk about other things, right? And even though, like, they were two of my cousins, even though they were my cousins, you know, and that was, like, the one thing that I was just like, wow, I don't understand. Like, christie, she's my older sister, pretty much, right? And everything. We had great sense of, same sense of humor, same everything. And I just could not understand the Jesus thing. I just thought that was so weird, right? She invited me to a youth group over at St. Martin of chores. I'd always said no. Invite me to other, like, young adult youth. I always said no, right? But then once it was just like the Lord got me the way it's going to get me. I said no a lot. But he knew that I. He know my love for people, my love for friends, and he knew exactly what he was going to use, and.
[00:23:53] Speaker A: That'S what we went.
[00:23:56] Speaker B: But then my vocation, I mean. I mean, I've even seen a lot of people from that ministry group here at the congress, right? And we've, like, seen each other. One of them I've only saw the first time since I ventured, which is really wonderful. So 13 years, I hadn't seen her at Katie Marquez. And so that's beautiful. But it's amazing because, like, there's just, like, they never. Okay. I was like, christy's crazy cousin, you pray for, like, I always joke, but I mean, when I was just, you know, Christie's cousin, sitting in the living room chatting, talking, you know, they'll say it and I know it. They never in their lives would have thought I'm. That I really would have come back, you know, to the church, that I would have responded to God's call as a religious sister in a community none of us ever heard of in Ann Arbor, Michigan, you know, coming all this time, like 1314 years later, you know, God has given me the great grace of being a vocation director. Never would anybody think that that could have happened. But that. That bishop is honestly just. I want everyone to know that is what God uses. And just doing a broken vest, because all of them, like, they weren't perfect, you know, they're still not perfect, but they were living a sacramental life. They were supporting each other best they could, as much as they knew, right? You could only do as much as you know. But if you can rely on the sacraments and know that they can be a source for you. They weren't trying to convert me, really. They weren't bashing me over the head with faith. They were hanging out and something as simple as that of loving someone. Like, look at what he did with that. Just in my life. I can't tell you the gratitude I have for them and the simplicity and complexity of just living the human condition, right? And, like, the desire to just try.
And that's all it takes, is that desire to try and to love as best as you can. Because look at that. Like, they weren't saying, we're going to convert her she's become a sister. She's going to do all of these things like, no, they just. I was Christy's cousin, and they were going to hang out with me and just be with me and love me.
[00:25:43] Speaker A: Beautiful sister. If somebody wanted to know more about the dominican sisters of Mary, mother of the Eucharist, I know these days of search engines, you just type it in and you find it out. But is there a better way to check?
[00:25:54] Speaker B: Absolutely. Well, our website is sistersofmary.org, and very simple, sistersofmary.org. and so you can find out about community, our charism, our founding, and all of that there. And also our vocations page just a little bit about, like, you know, our sisters. So vocation stories, you know, and our retreats. So I mentioned earlier, we have three retreats a year. So February, in April and in November. And so those are open. Our retreats, actually, they're not comedies, which is a very, like, unique thing when it comes to discernment retreats with the community. They're actually overnight retreats or if you fly in two nights. And basically we have, like, a dominican priest come and, like, be a chaplain for the weekend and give some spiritual talks. Our sisters give talks. You know, we're teachers and preachers, so we have just a window into our spiritual lives, into our life and with the Lord and community. And, you know, we'll have a little praise and worship, but then the heart of it is all night adoration, because for us, what we know, what we know, the certainty is if we put you before the Lord, he's going to speak to you, and you know what? Like, I don't know what he's gonna say. We don't know what he's gonna say. Right. But if you give the Lord an inch, he gives you everything. Like, if you're generous, like, being generous in the Lord, nothing is wasted. Right.
[00:27:05] Speaker A: And that's true in any vocation.
[00:27:06] Speaker B: Yes, absolutely.
[00:27:08] Speaker A: Be generous with the Lord, and he'll respond.
[00:27:10] Speaker B: Absolutely. So if you give him this weekend with him, like, he's gonna use that. That's why I always say discernment is prayer. This weekend is an opportunity to pray with our sisters. Right. And we'll pray for you. And we only have about 50, 60, 70 young women that come on the ritual from all over the United States. Right. And, like, even within that, like, you were searching, you know, for communities and just going to see them. I. Please do. But also, like, don't get overwhelmed.
[00:27:33] Speaker A: Right.
[00:27:33] Speaker B: Like, when you go, you're like, you know what don't go look at 20 communities. Just like start with like ones that you may know or heard of and maybe like actually go visit, like two, three, maybe even four. And that can refine what you like. Maybe. Or can, you can just figure out, okay, that's not for me, like you mentioned. Right. But that's healthy and I. That's good. See what we want. So, yes, be wonderful. We have our website and we have retreats. It'd be wonderful to welcome.
[00:27:56] Speaker A: Terrific. And there's nothing like personal encounter. And I know we've talked about this, and now I'm going to be held accountable because I'm saying this very publicly. We're going to make a point of making some connections, having you in Brooklyn and Queens, coming back home and sharing your story and inviting others to live that story.
[00:28:14] Speaker B: Yes, I love that. I always love getting to go visit, so getting to visit and to get to, to work within vocations and just, it, just seeing really, it's such a difference just to encounter religious, you know, and someone who, like, comes from where you are is always the thing.
[00:28:29] Speaker A: That's the thing. You know, I think of it a confirmation. People who sat where you sat, people who sat where you're sitting now.
[00:28:35] Speaker B: Yes, it's tremendous. You know, it's. Yeah.
[00:28:37] Speaker A: And maybe thought the way you're thinking.
[00:28:39] Speaker B: Yes, absolutely. Yeah. The thing is, like, it's not unique. You know, those moments of fear, moments of hesitation, of confusion are not unique, you know, to one person. We all share that in a particular way, but the love he has is universal.
[00:28:54] Speaker A: Absolutely. Thank you for sharing your vocation story, but also the joy of the dominican sisters. We're so, so blessed with the presence of the dominican sisters in this nation. And I'm so glad that I've gotten to know you a little bit and a little bit more. Thank you for joining us for this week's edition of Big City Catholic. Let's keep each other together in prayer and may God bless you. Have a wonderful week. The Lord be with you. May the blessing of Almighty God, the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit come upon you and remain with you forever and ever. Amen.
[00:29:27] Speaker B: Thank you.
[00:29:27] Speaker A: Thank you.
