Upcoming Events
New Year’s Day – Solemnity of the Blessed Virgin Mary. All are welcome to join us for Mass at 11:30am at our Redeemer Chapel.
Come & See Retreats– Curious to know if religious life is your calling? We offer weekend retreats to share an experience of our life of prayer, community, and service. For more information please contact us to learn when the next retreat will be offered.
Eucharistic Adoration –1st Friday of each month at our Redeemer Chapel. You are welcome between 3 – 5pm on Friday, January 4th.
Urban Plunge – January 6 -10th – we will welcome students from Notre Dame University as they seek to experience and learn more about the reality of poverty in Philadelphia.
Redeemer Associate Gathering – January 10th at 7pm at the Province Center. This month’s theme: Hunger for Righteousness and Prayerfulness. Learn more about Redeemer Associates
Recent Happenings
Our Advent and Christmas Seasons offered many special events:
Sundays of Advent Evening Prayer Services
Christmas pageant featuring the nieces and nephews of some of our Sisters
Christmas Liturgies
A Christmas Retreat in collaboration with a home for children in Honduras
Reflection
From Sr. Anne Marie’s Christmas & New Year message
Joy and peace to each of you at this holy and festive season! As we come to the end of a year that has been both blessed with joyful events and filled with dark and sad times, we enter a season that is for all who believe in God and for those that simply believe in the goodness of humankind- a time of light amid the shortest days and longest nights. It is an opportunity to reflect on all the non-material gifts that have brought light to each of us personally and to consider how we have been and, in the year ahead, may continue to share our light with many persons especially those who are hurting and in need.
The light in the darkness is symbolized by the lights we place on Christmas trees, the candles of the Menorah at Hanukah, or the kinara of Kwanzaa—but the real light is something we possess within. Christians believe that the light was embodied in the person of Jesus Christ, the Redeemer, who came into the world poor, vulnerable and homeless. We believe that a spark of that divine light, which Jesus brought, is in each of us. Belief in the real presence of divine light is found in Jewish, Islamic, Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, and other faith traditions. Blessed Alphonse Maria Eppinger, our Founder, believed that bringing the divine light of a caring and loving heart into the homes of sick and poor persons would not always cure their condition but would always heal, in some way, their physical, emotional or spiritual pain. We know that the world has been wracked with violence and warfare in Jesus’ time and in Blessed Alphonse Maria’s time just as it is today. But each of us, every day, has a choice, as they did, whether to share our inner light or to allow the darkness to dominate.
It is the choice of light, love, a sense of awe regarding our human similarities and the belief that it is possible to live in peace that will outweigh the darkness born of prejudice against ‘the other’. We all enter the world with that first ray of light to greet us: innocent, vulnerable and whole in our oneness with humanity before any awareness of differences skew our perceptions. With the same warmth of that first ray of light that welcomed each of us, may we welcome one another in the new year that is upon us. May we choose to let it envelop us in the unconditional love that God has for each of us proven by the fact that God did not wait until all was right with the world or humanity to send His beloved Son. May we also pray for the unity of all peoples, cultures and religions in the divine light of love…which is God.
This is the true message of Christmas – light and love freely given. There is a “best place” to put a candle in a dark room so that it will enlighten the whole room. Where will you place your own spark of light this holiday season and in the New Year to come?
A Merry Christmas and New Year of light and love to you, your family, friends and loved ones.
Original Artwork by Sister Anastase Dura, CSR