Canada's Victoria Day

  

Celebrating 

  

Victoria Day

Victoria Day is a National Canadian holiday celebrated on the Monday before 25 May. It celebrates the birthday of Queen Victoria (1837-1901). Historically a special relationship developed between the Canadian People and Queen Victoria and it was in Victoria’s reign that Canada was created and established its distinct identity. 

Victoria played an active role in Canada’s development. For instance, she chose Ottawa as the new capital – the Westminster of the Wilderness, and named British Columbia, and she personally encouraged Confederation in 1867. But she was also the symbolic focus of Canadian unity. Sir John A. Macdonald, Canada’s Father of Confederation, said that the purpose of Confederation “was to declare in the most solemn and emphatic manner [Canadians'] resolve to be under the sovereignty of [Queen Victoria] and [her] family forever”. Victoria was truly the Mother of Confederation.

Victoria Day also became for Canadians synonymous with summer weather and certain social customs developed around the day. One did not wear white before Victoria Day, gardens were not planted until the Victoria Day weekend and summer cottages were not opened until this weekend. After a long winter, the short Canadian summer is so looked forward to by Canadians that the holiday gained added significance in their lives.

Happy summer this Victoria Day - especially to our two Canadian Cluny Sisters missioned in Port au Prince, Haiti and the Cluny Generalate in Paris, France.

Today we have three Portuguese and American Canadian Sisters living and serving in Hamilton. 

     Maria Rocha,

             Regina Brunelle

                        Maria do Ceu

          Happy Victoria Day!

Celebrating 60 Years of Religious Profession

Cluny Pioneers Celebrate

60 Years of Religious Profession

Sunday, May 15, 2016

“The Lord has done great things for me

  holy is God’s Name”.  LK.1:49

Bottom Left to Right:  Sisters Maria Rocha, Regina Brunelle, Bernadette Lapre, Anne-Marie Liston

                   Top Left to Right:  Sisters Yannick Saieh, Luke Parker, Marie Cooper, Eugenia Brady    

Sister Bernadette Lapré and Sister Regina Brunelle celebrated their 60^th Anniversary of Vows as Sisters of St. Joseph of Cluny.  They are the first American Vocations who entered the Cluny Novitiate on Brenton Road in Newport on the feast of the Sacred Heart, June 11^th, 1953.  Sister Bernadette from Fall River, MA and Sister Regina from Nashua, NH.  Three years later in 1956, they pronounced their first vows. Cluny Sisters, family, friends and parishioners of St. Mary Parish, Newport, RI gathered to celebrate the gift and faithful service of these two pioneer sisters.  Congratulations, Sisters Bernadette and Regina!

Cluny Foundation Day

Congratulations Cluny Sisters 

The congregation of the Sisters of Saint Joseph of Cluny has approximately 2600 sisters in 57 countries, 30 provinces, 418 communities across 5 continents, working in education, health, evangelization and social action.

May 12^th Foundation Day

In the hearts of Cluny Sisters around the world today there is a great joy and deep gratitude for the charism that has been given to the congregation and the mission that has been entrusted to them since the beginning.

• to know and do the Holy Will of God through discernment and total availability
• to sow seeds of hope and compassion reaping a harvest of liberation and justice
• to be a sign for our world through community life... a place of personal growth, spiritual support, conversion and pardon, discernment, shared mission and caring.
• to be grounded in prayer and contemplatives in action... celebrating and nurturing our relationship with God in many different ways. 

The Beginnings

Anne Marie Javouhey, born on November 10, 1779 in a village in Burgundy, heard the Spirit’s call to proclaim God’s love for all persons without distinction of race, religion or social status, throughout the five continents.

In 1804 Pope Pius VII, visited France for the coronation of the emperor Napoleon, and stopped in Chalon-sur-Saône. Anne and her three sisters had an interview with him and he encouraged them in their vocation. As other young women joined them, Anne went to the Bishop of Autun who advised her to draw up a Rule of Life and then apply to have Statutes for the young Society. The Emperor approved these on December 12, 1806.

On May 12, 1807, nine young women pronounced their vows of religion before the Bishop of Autun in St. Peter’s Church, Chalon. "Now we are religious!" wrote Sister Anne Marie who from now on could give free rein to her dynamic spirit. The Congregation of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Cluny was born.

Permission was granted to the newly formed congregation to use the Autun seminary which had become national property. There young girls were educated and trained for manual work. Wounded soldiers from the war in Spain returned to France in large numbers and the Sisters became nurses at their bedside. After three years the congregation and works had grown and another house was needed. Anne Marie’s father, Balthasar Javouhey bought for his daughters the former Recollets Convent in Cluny. Soon the name Cluny, linked to that of the Sisters of St. Joseph, would be known in the five continents.

Today,  May 12^th, Cluny Sisters and their collaborators in mission around the world celebrate their MISSIONARY CALL that began in 1807 with so few and so simply in response to the needs of the time and the urgings of the Holy Spirit – a remarkable Pentecost Moment in the Church and the World.  Today …

Anne Marie’s Charism lives because her daughters,

from every race and nation and tongue, 

have but one heart and one soul and continue in the Church 

the work the Lord entrusted to her. (Rule of Life)

Happy Foundation Day, Sisters!