It is with such joy that I write this post today. As many of you know on June 2nd, 2024, the Feast of Corpus Christi, I professed my first vows of Poverty, Chastity, and Obedience. Each year for the next 3 to 6 years I will renew those vows and then the next step will be Perpetual Vows, God willing. The day of Profession was such a blessing as I said Yes to Jesus with so much support from all of you in prayer or in person. It is hard to describe this amazing journey that the Lord has been leading me on with my community and with all of you whom have been walking with me in so many different ways. As I leave initial formation I will now be heading to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan on August 1st. I will be joining Sister Linda and Sister Jaqueline to serve as a Pastoral Associate and Service Coordinator at St. Albert the Great University Parish in Houghton Michigan. My new assignment will involve work in campus ministry at Michigan Tech and also serve as a presence at Sacred Heart Catholic School in L'Anse a few times monthly. This is a new position, so much will be discovered as the year unfolds. I will be posting updates on this new chapter in the journey.
Below I would like to share with you the words of Fr. Vander Steeg of Green Bay, who presided over my Profession of First Vows. His words were so beautiful bringing together the Eucharist and the consecrated life and touched the hearts of all present.
-You can watch the homily by clicking on this link - Homily Profession 2024
-If you are interested, here is the Profession Mass -click on this link - Profession Mass 2024
"Sister Catherine Peter, what a joy for all of us to witness this powerful outward expression of your love for the Lord. It booies all of us up in joy and in peace, and it gives us an increase in the gift of faith, hope, and love to witness your generosity. So we are honored and humbled to be with you. You know those who are with us, of course, your Franciscan fathers, Father Placid and Father Jerry, Father Benjamin, who read our Gospel, who's been walking with you in and accompanying you, Father Mark Mleziva, of a family of Sister Teresa Schleis, who prayed for me for, my goodness, 20 years, and prayed for Father Mark and Father Lawrence, who you worked with in [Colorado], who has arrived to be with you. We are deeply honored. I know your family, your mom, is here, too. Where's mom? There she is. Thank you. Beautiful to have you. Honored, honored. And Sisters.
Sister, I could not think of a more beautiful feast day to advance in your relationship with the Lord than the feast of Corpus Christi, right? The great Feast of the body and blood of our Lord. This side of heaven.Sister Schleis, when she would write me, and I'm sure Father Mark, you got these too, she would draw in her cards. She drew pictures, and one she sent me while I was studying was of the Eucharistic Host. She drew the face of Jesus on the host. The cards she would send were long meditations on her love for Jesus, particularly Jesus in the Eucharist. You and I and all of us, many of us here, we share consecrated life. This consecrated life that you're now entering even more deeply into, set aside for the praise and the glory of God.
Seeking to weave Corpus Christi into your response to his love, I was thinking of the different ways the Lord speaks to you, sister, in the Holy Eucharist and how you will continue to over the course of life. Through the Eucharist, our Lord reveals his love for you. Every time you celebrate Mass with the Lord, He will reveal His mercy for you. As His death, His dying on the cross, that pouring out of love comes to you on the altar for you. He sees you, he knows you, he loves you. The other days, He will rejoice in the gift of the eternal life He pours out for you because He desires you to be saved, to live forever, that all that you love, all that you cherish, all that you treasure in this community of life, He reveals that He wants to save it, that it not be lost in death.He knows your tears, He knows your laughter, but He reveals His heart. And over the course of your many years, the gift of life, different pieces of the Holy Mass will speak to you. He will be mercy, He will be forgiveness, He will be love. He will be joy, He will be hope. He will be courage. He will be strength. He reveals himself through the Eucharist. Through the Eucharist, He stays with you. The beautiful gift of consecrated life in community is, of course, the gift of the habitual hours that we live over the course of the days, our morning prayer, our evening prayer, but also the continual gift of the Eucharist. A powerful way that He stays with you in the passage of days, not solely in a memory or a thought of the Lord as the Holy Spirit inspires, but powerfully on the altar. He stays with you, and your vows very much stay with him. This recommitment at every Mass, I am for you and you are for me. This beautiful renewal of your vows. At every Mass, the savior receives all that you bring and He pours himself out again. He stays with you. This spiritual union of a bride with her groom, powerful.He reveals his heart through the Eucharist. He shows that He stays with you through the Eucharist. He helps you through the Eucharist.
I think all of us who have lived consecrated life for many years now, all of us, priests and sisters, this life set apart for the Lord and all the baptized get gathered here. We know He helps us. But particularly in the gift of the Eucharist, a powerful supernatural help as you receive him. His mercy washes and cleanses us from sin, but it also gives us supernatural strength to carry on, to love more deeply, to hope more firmly, to have faith when the shadows of your religious life present themselves. As all of us advance through the spiritual life, God in his great purification of our faith, at times He backs away. So that we might pursue him for who He is, but not for what He gets. You've already tasted that. Not solely for what He gives, but just for who He is, the shadows of life. He will help sustain your faith to go ever deeper, your love to go deeper, your faithfulness to your vows, the chastity of your love, your poverty of spirit as you set aside the worlds good so that the world might actually see you as authentic and real.He reveals his heart. He stays with you in every Mass. He helps you. But particularly, He gives his love to you in Holy Communion. We often think when we receive Holy Communion of what we receive from the Lord, we receive the infinite Lord as we receive Holy Communion. But in a powerful way, the Lord, He gives his heart to you in Holy Communion. All great love stories simply are not spoken only or hugs from the outside. The most intimate is the union, this side of heaven, a spiritual union with God. In every gift of communion, He says to you, Sister, this is my body for you. This is my very self for you. He desires to give himself completely to you, to be received within you. Many Eucharistic meditations you will have over the course of your relationship with Jesus, who is just delighted that you've said yes to him. You've accepted his call to walk more tightly.
Lastly, though, through you, He will repeat those signs to the world, won't He? Through you, through your heart, He will reveal his heart to the world. How you speak, how you touch, how you hold, how you serve, how you forgive, how you look, how you gaze, how you receive people through your eyes, how you listen attentively. You listen in this great month of June with his own sacred heart. You reveal his sacred love to the world. You reveal him. As He does in the Eucharist to you, you carry him into the world. You show that He's still alive and worthy of vows. You show that He's alive and worthy of life, the complete gift of life. You also show that He stays with the world. For better, for worse, for richer, for poor, in sickness and health, through the presence of your sisterhood in the world, your consecrated life, you will show his heart stays with us. Just as He stays with you in the gift of Mass each day, the Eucharist, his very self, He will then go with you to show that He stays with the world. God is Emmanuel, God with us. He will also, through you, help the world, not only in the various service that you all do as sisters, his hands and his feet, but also through the proclamation of the gospel that the Lord forgives. He always welcomes back. He always seeks out the lost and forgotten. You will help the world by being his supernatural voice, calling the sheep back, gathering the sons of Adam, the sons of Eve, and reminding them that they're children of God.
The love that you receive in Holy Communion, you will reveal His love to the world. The goal of all of our consecrated life is to become so united with Jesus that His sacred heart begins to beat in our own hearts. We just become one beat. Often times when I look at the red lamp and the tabernacle I think of the flickering Sacred heart of the Lord. I’m like Lord my heart does not beat with Yours. I tend to get out of step, bring me back to a rhythm with Yours, and what I say, what I do, how I speak, and to go with Him in the spirit of Pope Francis and your Franciscan charity to the highways, the byways, the margins and the forgotten, those who don’t believe they are loved. The gift of celibate chaste love has time and energy for people who don’t believe they are loved anymore. To allow His heart to be so one with yours that you receive them in and cherish Him like a father cherishes his lost son or his lost daughter. Reveal Him to the world, stay with Him as He stays with you. Allow Him to save through you, through the proclamation of the Gospel by all you say and do but especially, give Him your heart. A willing heart that His sacred heart can beat in you. That the world might believe that it was always desired, always wanted, always intended, and I promise you as I say in faith to myself that union with Him will yield eternal life and the fulfillment of all desires that echoes and repeats itself and all our hearts. Sister, Thank you, we are grateful for your courage and your humility and your response of love." As I end this post today I want to wish many Blessings to you all. Please pray for me and the Sisters and all in whom we will serve in the Upper Peninsula. Also continue to pray for all seminarians, religious/consecrated in formation programs, especially in the Green Bay Diocese and Colorado Springs Diocese. Pax et Bonum!
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