JUBILEE!

Jubilee is a time set aside for rejoicing in God's grace and giving thanks.

Traditionally, the Sisters of Christian Charity here in our Eastern Province of the United States together celebrate jubilees on August 21st, the anniversary of the congregation's founding, as it is on this date that Pauline v. Mallinckrodt and her three companions received their habits and religious names, beginning their novitiate as Sisters of Christian Charity.

In that tradition, many of our Sisters also were invested in the habit and received into the novitiate. Of recent years, the Sisters have been invested on the evening of August 20th, but August 21st remains the annual Community Founding and Jubilee Day!

As this August 21st approaches, I pause to give thanks in particular for all the Sisters of Christian Charity, past and present, "those who've stayed a little while and those who've remained a lifetime,"for all they have been, are, and continue to be!

In a special way I honor the gift of this year's jubilee groups, those invested in 1931 (75 years!), 1946 (60 years), and 1956 (50 years). I'm privleged to know a number of them quite well, including two in the 60 year group who were my elementary school teachers, and I can tell you they are all amazing women! In total, the Eastern Province's jubilarians have together given over 1,000 years -- over a millennium of service to God, the Church, and the world.

Let us, today in a special way, celebrate them and all who profess the evangelical counsels of poverty, chastity, and obedience in order to be totally and completely at the service of God and God's people!