For the Sisters of Bon Secours, whom brighten and enrich my life, I am thankful.  For my Mother and my family, I am thankful.  For the women in discernment, I am thankful.  For my coworkers and fellow religious, I am thankful.  For each day that awakens the Earth, I am thankful.  For all living creatures on this planet, I am thankful.  For the fresh, life-sustaining air that we breathe each day, I am thankful.  For the individuality so creatively engineered within each of us by God, I am thankful.  For YOU, I am thankful. 

May you find Peace, Love, and Happiness this Thanksgiving Holiday!

Sister Pat
Tomorrow is Thanksgiving Day in the United States. Thanksgiving in North America originated from a mix of European and Native traditions. Typically in Europe, festivals were held before and after the harvest cycles to give thanks for a good harvest. Native Americans also celebrated the end of a harvest season. When Europeans first arrived in the Americas, they brought with them their own harvest festival traditions from Europe, celebrating their … continue reading…

“] MARRIOTTSVILLE, Md. Sr. Katherine Ann Durney, CBS, celebrates 65 years with the Sisters of Bon Secours. Born in Wilmington, Del., she attended St. ThomasLore & Bayard Grade School and Wilmington High School. Sr. Katherine Ann graduated from St. Francis School of Nursing in Wilmington and received her nursing home administrator license in 1977. In 1987, Sr. Katherine Ann became a certified pastoral care chaplain and ministered to patients and residents in Bon Secours
health facilities. She is now retired and volunteers at Bon Secours Assisted Living facility in Norfolk, Va.

The Congregation of the Sisters of Bon Secours, a religious congregation of Roman Catholic women founded in Paris in 1824, brings compassion, healing and liberation to those it serves, especially those who are sick, suffering, poor or dying. Whether in health care, education or social services, in hospitals, senior care facilities, clinics or parishes, in towns and cities or isolated villages, Bon Secours responds to … continue reading…

Sr. Fran Gorsuch meets God in the faces of those she helps. “My spirituality is at the moment of encounter— to bee there, to hear their nee ds. As sisters, we’re called to universal love. Some people may not appear lovable, but you get to know them. We’re all so much more alike than wee are different,” she says. Sr. Fran sees our similarities in an unlikely place: among immigrants from Haiti, Latin America, Russia, India, Pakistan, and the Middle East, now living in Rockland County, outside of New York City. As director of Community Initiatives with Bon Secours Charity Health System’s Good Samaritan Hospital in Suffern, NY, Sr. Fran advocates for disadvantaged people in communities that have some of the fastest growing immigrant populations. She helps people who need medical care by connecting them with appropriate caregivers, including Good Samaritan. Sr. Fran is part of the Rockland County Immigration Coalition, an organization that helps defend and protect their rights and human dignity of all who seek to … continue reading…

This summer the Sisters of Bon Secours will be hosting a short-term service project for young, single women, ages 18 to 35, who have a willingness to serve those in need. Project Good Help will be held in July. Volunteers will need to arrive in the evening on Thursday, the 21st and will finish up in the morning on Tuesday the 26th. The women will stay at the Sister’s headquarters in Marriottsville, MD and work in nearby Baltimore city at a community garden, a drop-in center for women, a family support/learning center and a senior housing center.  This will be an excellent opportunity to serve the less fortunate and make a difference in the community.  

During this service opportunity, the volunteers will be able to share their experience with sisters and apply it to their own lives.  Each day will also be bathed in prayer and reflection. 

Interested in learning more?  Click Here for more information about Project Good Help and to access our online PDF application.

 We are happy to share this news of our sisters in Peru.  Amabilia Arriaga Garcia, Joana Castillo Segura, and Yovani Martinez Carbajal took their temporary profession of vows on March 19 in Lima, Peru.  This step in the formation process was approved in January when Sisters Pat Eck and Rose Marie Jasinski, USA country leader, joined other leaders from Peru, France, and Ireland for congregation team meetings at the Sisters of Bon Secours Formation House in Peru.  After accepting the request for the three novices to take their temporary vows, the leaders were able to share the happy news with them in person. 

The three sisters started the formation process as candidates before becoming novices.  The candidacy phase involved the women living with a group of Sisters of Bon Secours while learning about the methods of prayer and discovering their talents and gifts.  After requesting to move to the novitiate phase, they spent two years studying the principles of … continue reading…

The Catholic Church celebrates today as World Day of Consecrated Life.  Pope Benedict in his homily today entitled: “A Life Dedicated to Listening and to Proclaiming His Word”  said: (Permalink: http://www.zenit.org/article-31648?l=english

Dear brothers and sisters, be assiduous listeners of the Word, because every wisdom of life is born of the Word of the Lord! Be scrutinizers of the Word, through Lectio Divina, because consecrated life “is born from listening to the Word of God and accepting the Gospel as its norm of life. To live following the chaste, poor and obedient Christ is in this way a living “exegesis” of the Word of God. The Holy Spirit, in the strength of which the Bible was written, is the same who illumines the Word of God to men and women founders with new light. From it flows every charism and every rule is an expression of it, giving origin to itineraries of Christian life marked by evangelical radicalism” (post sydinol   apostolic exhortation “Verbum Domini,” No. 83). 

In … continue reading…

“Simple Truths We Learn In Life”
by Sister Mary Magdalen Condry, CBS

Truth #10:

Give without expecting recompense.  Give without expecting anything.  You do a good deed to somebody; you don’t expect a person to be forever grateful to you.  They may be extra nice to you at first, but you should not anticipate any sort of return.  Give and move on.

“Simple Truths We Learn In Life”
by Sister Mary Magdalen Condry, CBS
Truth #9:

Sacrifice is born from Love.  If you truly love someone or something, they become more important than your own self.  Parents sacrifice themselves for the love of their children, families sacrifice of themselves to aid other family members and strangers sacrifice their skills/lives for the love of community…the same way Jesus sacrificed his self for the love of us all.

“Simple Truths We Learn In Life”
by Sister Mary Magdalen Condry, CBS
Truth #8:

Healing takes time.  Even a small cut has to form a scar and takes days to heal completely.  Physical and emotional healing takes time.  There is no immediate fix, because healing is actually the process of creating something new.  In nature, God uses time to heal: buds which take time to bloom from the bare trees of winter, rainbows take time to materialize from harsh rains, butterflies take time to emerge from their darkness.

“Simple Truths We Learn In Life”
by Sister Mary Magdalen, CBS
Truth #7

Suffering has value, both physical and emotional.  People don’t understand what suffering means.  They don’t understand that it is important to growth and life.  It has value.  The value is endurance and eventual reward.  The suffering Jesus endured for us has great value, and the suffering we endure does as well.