Our Province Now “Breathes with Both Lungs”!
Happy Feast of St. John Paul II!
Our Spiritual Father, said: “One cannot breathe as a Christian, or rather, as a Catholic, with only one lung; one must have two lungs, of the East and of the West” (St. John Paul II, OR 08/06/1980).
Today, on his feast day, we rejoice that our Province of the Immaculate Conception now “breathes with her two lungs” (Ut Unum Sint, 54)!
By God’s providence, today our Ukrainian sisters establish the first SSVM Byzantine foundation in the United States – at the Ukrainian Catholic Church of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Perth Amboy, New Jersey.
With immense joy, we welcome our two Ukrainian Servidoras, Mother Veronika vid Isusa (True Icon of Jesus) and Sister Maria vid Khresta (Mary of the Cross), to our province. They will be serving both in the school and the parish of the Ukrainian community at Assumption Church. Appropriately, today they bless and open their new community, taking St. John Paul II as the patron of their convent.
Since 1998 when our first mission in Ukraine opened, our Religious Family has been greatly blessed to include the Catholic Eastern Rite as part of our Institute. At that time, our General Superior recognized the importance of the black habit to conform to the culture, whose liturgy is that of the Greek-Byzantine Rite of the Catholic Church. Religious sisters of this rite traditionally wear black habits. Today in Ukraine and Siberia (and now in New Jersey, USA!), our Eastern Rite sisters wear the black habit, which, except for the color, is the same as the blue and grey habit, including the Cross of Matará.
We ask you to pray with us, through the intercession of St. John Paul II, for the fruits of this new mission and of the Eastern Church in the United States!
