In a recent gathering with religious sisters, Pope Leo XIV spoke of the primacy that God should have in their lives. Quoting St. Augustine, he particularly reminded them that “God is your everything. If you are hungry, God is your bread; if you are thirsty, God is your water; if you are in darkness, God is your light that never fades; if you are naked, God is your everlasting garment.”
Throughout our history as an archdiocese, we have been richly blessed with consecrated women and men who have offered just that kind of witness to the priority that God should always have in the Christian life. In choosing to live out with generosity the evangelical counsels of poverty, chastity and obedience, the consecrated women and men who have served in our archdiocese have indeed illustrated the primacy of the Lord in their lives and have in that way consistently inspired the rest of us to realign our priorities so as to put God and his kingdom first.
The recently published history of the archdiocese, “In Everything Give Thanks,” appropriately documents the extraordinary contribution that has been made by consecrated women and men to the life of this local Church. How could we not be indebted to the early missionary priests, who, with the support of their religious communities, brought the Christian faith to our area? It should be no surprise that it was the firm foundation of consecrated life that supported both Father Louis Hennepin (a Franciscan Recollect) in his 17th-century missionary work in our area, and the Jesuits who later, in 1727, gave the Catholic Church its first foothold in what is now our state of Minnesota (the Chapel of St. Michael at Fort Beauharnois in Goodhue County).
Even though he was formed as a diocesan priest and not as a religious, our first bishop, Bishop Joseph Crétin, clearly recognized the crucial role that women and men in religious life could play in a missionary diocese. One of his first acts as bishop was to write the Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet in St. Louis and invite them to serve in his newly erected diocese. Their generous response was nothing short of heroic, sending four sisters up the Mississippi, arriving in St. Paul on the frigid morning of Nov. 3, 1851. The sisters immediately embraced the work of Catholic education and would soon open the Church’s first hospital.
In these past 175 years, we were blessed that so many other communities of consecrated women and men, each expressing its own charism and way of life, would come to call this archdiocese their home.
It is because of their generosity that we have been blessed not only by thriving apostolic outreach to those in need but also the witness of monastic life (the Benedictine Sisters of St. Paul’s Monastery) and contemplative life (the Carmelite Sisters and Hermits in Lake Elmo). While some of them can trace their foundations back to the great saints of the Middle Ages and Renaissance, we’re also blessed with very new communities (e.g. the Handmaids of the Heart of Jesus, or the Sisters and Brothers of Pro Ecclesia Sancta), as well as renewed expressions of consecrated life that had been dormant for centuries (e.g. the vocation of consecrated virginity lived in the world). They are deeply concerned about our spiritual lives, as reflected not only in the local retreat houses staffed by the Jesuits, Franciscans, Oblates of Mary Immaculate and Benedictines, but also in the excellent pastoral care that they offer in our parishes and pulpits. They minister passionately to the young and the old, and effectively to both those who have called Minnesota home for generations and those from our immigrant and refugee communities who are new to the Twin Cities. While some were called from our neighborhood and families, others have come from traditional mission lands to minister among us. What a blessing!
This issue of The Catholic Spirit highlights the consecrated women and men who have served or are serving in this archdiocese who are celebrating milestone jubilees. Their joyful lives give witness not only to the beauty of their vocations but also to the fruits that the Holy Spirit continues to bring to those who are faithful and persevere. I hope that you will join me in congratulating them, and thanking them, and their sisters and brothers in consecrated life in our archdiocese, for their powerful witness.
In calling for a “Year of Consecrated Life” in 2015, the late Pope Francis, a Jesuit, called upon his consecrated brothers and sisters to “wake up the world.” Our Church needs that as much in 2025 as it did a decade ago. Please join me in praying that the Lord of the Harvest will bless, sustain and reward all of our sisters and brothers in consecrated life and call many more women and men to this vocation.
