Posts in October, 2008

Vocations Retreat for Religious Sisters of Mercy

October 22nd, 2008

On Sunday, November 9, the Religious Sisters of Mercy will offer a Vocation Retreat Day for women considering a vocation to the religious life.

Where:
St. Patrick’s Convent
18 Sheldon Street
Roslindale, MA
Google Maps

When:
Sunday, November 9

Schedule:

9 AM - Presentations on Discernment & charism
9:45 AM - Liturgy of the Hours & Meditation
11:30 AM - Mass
12:30 PM - Lunch
2-4 PM - Adoration & individual meetings
4 PM - Holy Hour & Reposition

Contact:
Sr. Mary Cora, RSM
(617) 325-3612

You can also visit the official web site for the Religious Sisters at: www.rsmofalma.org

Posted in Links

Altar Server Mass and upcoming events

October 19th, 2008

At our most recent meeting, Father Dan updated club members on recent and upcoming vocations events around the Archdiocese.

Altar Server Mass

The Altar Server Mass was very well attended, and Cardinal Sean was glad to see so many parents and children attend this happy event. About 750 kids from over 60 parishes attended the Mass, and so many servers were nominated that they had to distribute extra awards.

Photos from Cardinal Sean's blog

Seminarians and volunteers were on hand to scoop ice cream after the Mass, with all ice cream generously donated by Hood Ice Cream.

Altar Server 2008 - Ice Cream social

The Boston Pilot and Boston Globe provided coverage of the event:

The recent Pro-Life March and Seminarian night (also covered on Cardinal Sean’s blog) were also successful and well attended.

There are several other events related to vocations coming up in the Archdiocese:

Oct 26 - Priesthood Sunday

This Sunday (in one week!) is Priesthood Sunday, a day to reflect upon and affirm the central role of the priesthood in the life of the Church. This nationwide event is coordinated by Serra US, and is sponsored by the USA Council of Serra International and the Serra International Foundation.

All Serrans are invited to promote Priesthood Sunday in their parish, and to pray for priests on this special day. For more information, please visit the official Priesthood Sunday web site.

Oct 31 - “Night of the Living”

The Vocations Boston office is organizing a Young Adult gathering on All Hallow’s Eve. This event will feature Mass with Cardinal Sean, Eucharistic Adoration and an authentic North End Style Coffee House.

More information can be found at the Vocations Boston page for Night of the Living.

Nov 8 - Ordination for Shawn Carey

Shawn Carey is a hearing impaired seminarian currently studying in California. He will be ordained November 8 with his classmates, and then travel back to Boston to be ordained with the Boston seminarians.

More information on Shawn’s story can be found at the links below:

Apr 3-4, 2009 - Eucharistic Congress for Young Adults

Father Dan recently met with a team of people to begin organizing the second annual Eucharistic Congress for College Students and Young Adults.

Keep checking the web site at www.eucharisticcongress.com for updates on this event.

Serrans are requested to keep these events in their prayers, and to ask the Lord to inspire volunteers to help make these events successful!

Posted in Events, Multimedia

Serra Club of Boston, old and new

October 18th, 2008

On October 18, the Feast of St. Luke, we met for our monthly Mass and meeting. Fr. Dan Hennessey gave an excellent homily, reflecting on the Gospel passage that “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few” (Luke 10:2) and the need to create a culture of vocations to allow young people to respond to their call.

During our meeting, we discussed the following topics:

The Vocations Boston office is researching the possibility of opening Perpetual Adoration chapels in each of the 5 regions of the Archdiocese. The chapels’ mission would be to pray for the sanctification of priests, and to pray for an increase in vocations.
Several Serrans suggested that Saint Patrick’s in Natick already has Perpetual Adoration, and that Tewkesbury had a “rolling retreat” format that allowed each parishioner and family to commit to 1 hour of adoration.

Serrans are asked to pray for this initiative.
We were blessed to have Doug McRoy, President-Elect of Serra US, attend the meeting. Doug shared the excitement that Serra US had about Serra Boston, and encouraged us to reach out to Serra US for any help we needed.
Doug also gave an overview of the Serra US committees (on vocations, membership, programs, and communications) and spoke about Serran activities such as the 31 Club, the parish contact program, and the traveling chalice.

During the meeting we referenced several PDFs available on the Serra US web site, which are available at the links below:
- Serra Club Manuals (links to all PDFs)
- Serra Club Vocations Manual (direct link to 6.4 MB PDF)
- Serra Handbook for Parish Vocation Activity (direct link to 2 MB PDF)
Thanks to Doug for attending our meeting!
We continue to discover more about the previous Serra Club of Boston, which was active in the 1950s. Michelle Dickson has done a great job researching the old Serra Club, though its history seems to disappear around the 1970s.
Michelle discovered an old issue of the Serra Magazine, which had photos and articles of the Serra International conference which was held in Boston on June 25-29, 1955. Several thousand Serrans from around the globe attended the conference, as well as Cardinal Cushing (who was very active in the club) and the mayor of Boston. We passed around two photos from the event - one showing a packed ballroom at the Copley Hotel, and one showing the Serra International shield that appeared in the Boston Public Garden.

The image gallery below shows several of the black and white photos from the magazine (all photos are copyright 1955 Serra International).

Anyone with information about the older Serra Club is encouraged to contact us at information@serraboston.org.
Mary and Francis Jesch shared their experiences attending the last meeting of Serra Colorado. The Colorado club offers a “Serra Salute,” in which over 400 people filled a ballroom to honor priests and religious in their archdiocese.

The next meeting of the Serra Club of Boston will be on Saturday, November 15 at 8:30am at St. Mary’s Parish in Waltham.

We hope to see you there!

Posted in Multimedia, Recap

Article on vocations to monastic life

October 15th, 2008

Slate recently posted an article about how Catholic religious communities are trying to attract young people again:

The Catholic Church has always seen the contemplative life as the “Air Force” in its spiritual struggle, as the Rev. David Toups of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops commented—a conduit of spiritual power.

Though the number of young people entering monasteries, convents, and the priesthood has drastically dropped from the mid-20th century, some new approaches to religious vocations have inspired some young people in America to embrace this idea, replenishing several of the older religious orders and filling new ones.

More at: Slate: A Monastic Kind of Life

You can also view a similar site to the ones referenced in the article at: www.carmelitemonks.org

Thanks to Mr. Dan Kennedy for sending us this article.

Posted in Links

Serra prayer card for iPhone and iPod

October 11th, 2008

Serra Boston has created an “electronic prayer card” for the Serra Prayer of Vocations. The JPG below can be loaded onto an iPhone and iPod, and read aloud at the end of Serra meetings.

Here are the basic steps for loading this image onto an iPhone or iPod touch:

Download the image above
Load the image into iPhoto, in an iPhoto folder which will sync with your iPhone or iPod
Sync with your iPhone or iPod
Browse to the Photos on your iPhone or iPod
Click on the image with the prayer card above
Read the prayer for vocations

Enjoy!

Posted in Multimedia