Julia’s Weekly Shrine Round-up: April 24

By Julia Rose
jrose@Marian.org

With Eastertide upon us, Eden Hill has had a refreshing reset. Here’s a glimpse at our amazing Maintenance crew putting away all of the Divine Mercy Weekend signs and cones over the past week. This encourages me to do my own spring cleaning at home!

And signs of spring are everywhere: Daffodils are sprouting up outside the Marian Helpers Center and the Divine Mercy Gift Shop. I just read online that another term for these gorgeous flowers is “Mary’s Star," for the stars in Mary’s crown, representing purity and grace. How beautiful! 

Another sign: Outdoor Stations of the Cross resume every Friday at 10:50 a.m., starting next Friday, May 1, the feast of St. Joseph the Worker! Here's the invitation from our Marian Superior General, the Most Rev. Joe Roesch, MIC:

Join us online only for a new talk by Fr. Chris Alar, MIC, tomorrow at 11 a.m. ET on "The Hidden Life of the Holy Family, Part 1." Watch on YouTube at our channel Divine Mercy (Official), and on our Facebook page Divine Mercy (Official). 

Or join us at the National Shrine tomorrow at 11 a.m. ET for an in-person talk by Fr. Daniel Klimek on "Loving Mother Mary."

Father Klimek will also celebrate our monthly Healing Mass next Thursday, April 30, at 7 p.m. All are welcome; details here.

Calling all healthcare professionals!
There's still time to register, in person or online, for the 21^st Annual Divine Mercy Medicine, Bioethics, and Spirituality Conference, held here at the National Shrine April 29-May 1. This year's theme is "Exploring Compassion and Mercy in Healthcare."

“We will cover a range of topics addressing current challenges for healthcare professionals, while how to integrate compassion and spirituality will be presented by experts across disciplines," says conference organizer Marie Romagnano, MSN, RN, CCM-R, head of the Marian Father's apostolate Healthcare Professionals for Divine Mercy. “Presentations are designed to give the health professionals unique opportunities to integrate their faith in their practice to enhance care outcomes.”

Conference attendees can expect to hear from Marian speakers including the Most Rev. Joseph Roesch, Very Rev. Chris Alar, Fr. Anthony Gramlich, and Fr. Kazimierz Chwalek, along with physicians, nurses, social workers, and administers of pastoral care. 

Continuing education credits are available. For more information and to register, click here.

A Bishop visits!
We had a special visitor to Eden Hill a few days after Divine Mercy Sunday: The Most Rev. Alfred A. Schlert of the Diocese of Allentown, Pennsylvania! To celebrate his diocese’s 65^th Anniversary, Bishop Schlert led a pilgrimage of 106 faithful on two buses (above), making the 4-hour trip to Stockbridge. Once here, he celebrated the 2 p.m. Mass.

“Here we are today in this beautiful church, so much of it crafted by local artisans, dedicated in 1960," the Bishop said in his homily. "It took 40 years for the devotion to spread throughout the whole world in [a] big way, and we’re the recipients of that."

"In the Divine Mercy Image, we realize how blessed we are," he continued, "to have such a loving God who sent His Son to suffer, to die, and to rise for us so that we can inherit the joys of eternal life. Sometimes we kind of put that in the back of our minds because we hear it so often. But that’s the Paschal Mystery: the Passion, death, and Resurrection of our Lord, which is mercy itself. So we thank God that we’re able, through the beauty of the Sacrament of Penance, to receive mercy. Pilgrimages such as this one allow us to have opportunities to step away from our daily routine to focus on these mysteries, to focus on these acts of love that we receive."

Beautiful words, Bishop. Please come back and see us again!

Friends bonded by Mercy
Sixteen years ago, Judy and Sr. Mary Jane Florence met at Lourdes Hospital in Binghamton, New York. While their friendship initially formed out of a necessity for a prayer partner as part of the "40 Days for Life" campaign, they now consider each other family.

Judy's first encounter with the message of Divine Mercy was at 25 years old. “I was struggling with God’s mercy,” she explains. “I went off on a weekend retreat and I came across this small Divine Mercy booklet. From that moment on, I started praying the Chaplet every day at 3 o’clock.” 

Her love for St. Faustina continued to grow, and since then she has read the Diary four times! “I just couldn’t put it down," she said. "I just kept reading it and reading it.” So much so that Judy's family made sure she attended St. Faustina's canonization in 2000. Wow!

Little did Judy know, but her future friend, Sr. Mary Jane Florence, was actually in the congregation, too!  Raised in Uganda, at just 8 years old, Sr. Mary Jane Florence knew she was called to religious life. She fondly remembers telling her pastor, “Father, please take me to the nunnery. I just want to be there.” Ten years later, after attending Catholic boarding school with her seven siblings, she did just that and joined the Little Sisters of St. Francis. 

Eventually she was called to the U.S., where she received multiple degrees and began working in pastoral care. In honor of her silver jubilee in 2011, she wanted to return back in Uganda — this time with Judy!  This trip had such a profound impact on Judy that she formed a mission: St. Gabriel’s Angels Nursery School.

“There is so much poverty there, more than you can imagine,” Judy explains. “When I got back and was in Eucharistic Adoration, I just felt like God was calling me to help the orphans that we met. I was like, ‘Lord, how can I help? It’s just me.’” Thanks to the fundraising efforts that she has led with Sr. Mary Jane Florence, a third school is just about to be finished. She credits it all to God’s mercy.

Save the Date: Judy and Sr. Mary Jane Florence are helping to organize the Syracuse Catholic Women’s Conference in Syracuse, New York, on Oct. 24, and Fr. Chris Alar, MIC, is one of the speakers. Learn more here.
 
Happy Spring, everyone, and have a wonderful weekend!

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