A Fountain of Heavenly Graces

“In this Mystical Body which is the Church–with each one in his or her own place–you have also chosen to be “the heart.”  You are the love which animates all the members of this Mystical Body. Try, then, to be the heart of the Church, in order to be one with the Heart of Christ…. (cf. Venite Seorsum, III).

“The Church affirms, contrary to all the secularizing tendencies and all the temptations to give primacy to action to the detriment of the interior life, that your solitude, lived in contemplation, cannot be considered idleness, but “an overflowing fountain of heavenly graces” (cf. Perfectae Caritatis, 7).

“What ardent apostolic desires fill your life! What missionary dynamism characterizes each of your days! What pastoral activity is enclosed in your vocation to the cloistered life!” ~Excerpts from Bl. Pope John Paul II’s Message to Cloistered Religious of Latin America, December 12, 1989