It is with great joy that we ask you to please pray for two young women as they enter our monastery as dokimoi (postulants) on Sunday, December 15. Here are some very basic facts about them and some quotes from the "theological reflections" section of their applications. They have a good understanding of the purpose of monastic life; now they will find out what it's like to live it! (And therefore will need your prayers!)
Santa Clarita, California
29 years old
Parish: Proto-Cathedral of St. Mary Byzantine Catholic Church; Sherman Oaks, California
M.A. in Clinical Mental Health Counseling; Franciscan University of Steubenville
"[Monastic life] is not primarily for the sanctification of the world, but rather the individual and through their individual holiness, they make healthier the greater body of Christ, the Church. The monastic life is a life of reception and reliance upon Jesus, not of production, but of uselessness in the world's eye."
"I hope to mature in receiving the extent of Jesus' love that He desires to gift to me, to 'let [myself] be drawn' to 'the one whom my soul loves,' allowing Him to, 'penetrate [...] all the fibers of [my] life'" (Blaise Arminjon, The Cantata of Love: A Verse-by-Verse Reading of the Song of Songs, 72; 99; 61).
Rose Tsakanikas
Garner, North Carolina
26 years old
Parish: St. Sophia Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church; Garner, North Carolina
M.A. in International Relations; Jagiellonian University, Krakow, Poland
"It is not simply the place though that the monastic seeks. Christ was not seeking the right location to die with the empty hill of Golgotha the perfect place to raise three crosses. He was fulfilling the Father's will and returning to the Father. 'Father, into your hands, I commit my spirit!' (Lk 23:46) The purpose of the monastic life then is to return to the Father by placing one's life in the hands of the Father. They do this by the same means as Jesus. They embrace the Paschal Mystery. Dying to this world, they are resurrected in the Heavenly Jerusalem."
"When Christ asks, 'Do you love me above all?', I wish to be able to say in all sincerity, 'There is nothing upon earth that I desire besides you'" (Ps 73:25).
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