Posts by Sr. Mary Valerie Schneider

I belong to a group studying the book Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer. Had I background in botany and love for gardening I might enjoy the book. As it is, I have only a deep appreciation for the author’s style and ability to find deep meaning in cleaning a swamp and gathering sap. Over…

When I played for Mass this morning, I was glad that there’s a hymn mentioning barley loaves and fish, namely, “We Come with Joy,” a parody by Delores Dufner. You remember the story, how Philip wondered how so little could feed so many. My mind went to the 10th National Eucharistic Congress scheduled for July…

On Palm Sunday I witnessed a touching moment as I saw the ritual of palm through the eyes of an eight-year-old. The boy was crying very hard but quietly. He turned to his mom who wondered what the matter was. “The water didn’t touch me or my palm,” he said sadly. What could be worse…

Saint Bonaventure believed that there is a spiritual potency in all creation, and it is already brought to completion in the resurrection of Christ whose “glorified body becomes the perfect expression of this relationship with the cosmos” (Christ in Evolution, Ilia Delio). What Christ experienced we—and all of creation—will experience, too. All will be radically…

Karl Rahner writes that the quintessence of Christianity, according to Saint Paul, is that Christians have turned from the false gods of their past life, to serving a living and true God, who will come again to take them to glory. We have completed Lent, a time when we tried to cast aside our personal…

Do you ever look forward to your favorite Scripture story, waiting for it to be read in church? Well, I do. I anticipate my favorite Gospel story on Wednesday in Easter Week. Remember the story of the two disciples on the road to Emmaus? Every year I sympathize with Cleopas’s dejection over Jesus’ crucifixion and…

Throughout our Sisters of Notre Dame history, our Superior Generals have composed letters at Christmas, Easter, and other times. These letters offer their own spiritual insights, remind us of our founding sisters Sister Maria Aloysia and Sister Maria Ignatia, our spiritual mother Saint Julie Billiart, and keep the Congregation abreast of developments, such as missionary…

Some call today April Fool’s Day. A “holiday” to fool others seems nonsensical to me. Yet this week’s Scripture readings have several accounts of people being fooled at the first Easter. The disciples witnessed the death of Jesus and feared their own deaths by association with Jesus. Joseph of Arimathea assumed he would never be…

On this night of vigil we participate in the interplay of past, present, and future. The new Christ candle is lit to praise the Christ of yesterday, today, and forever. Listening to the story of Jewish Passover we glorify the Lord who passed over from death to life. Like Exodus people ourselves, we go through…

Crucified Savior, our world is fragmented by discord and division. Even in our small personal worlds we feel the violence, the shattering of trust, the brokenness of relationships, the scars of fear. Through your surrender on Calvary—“Into your hands I commend my spirit”—may we surrender ourselves to your healing. Reconcile our world, love us in…