The Mexican people rejoiced at the Basilica of Guadalupe, where Mother Maria Inés Teresa of the Most Blessed Sacrament was beatified. The fifth of eight children, she was born in 1904, discerned a call to religious life in 1924, and made her final profession in 1933 at the Ave Maria Monastery. Shortly thereafter, the entire convent had to move to California during the Cristero persecutions. Later she was called to found a new two new groups, the Clarissan Missionaries of the Most Holy Sacrament (1924) and the Missionaries of Christ for the Universal Church (1979).
From the Vatican website:
The Servant of God, Maria Inés Teresa Arias, was born on Ixtlan del Rio (Mexico). She entered religious life in 1929 and lived for a while in California and then in Mexico. In the community she was appointed counseler, secretary and novice mistress. In 1945, the convent she founded in Cuernavaca, Mexico, was approved by the Holy See. The Congregation became missionary by the Pontifical Decree of 1951. Different foundations followed: Cuernavaca, Puebla, Chiapas, Guadalajara, Monterrey, Japan, United States (Texas, California), Costa Rica, Sierra Leone, Indonesia, Italy (Rome), Spain (Pamplona, Madrid), Ireland (Dublin), Nigeria. She died in Rome on July 22, 1981, leaving behind a missionary family of sisters, priests and lay persons, spread through the five continents. She left us a testimony of generous dedication and service to the Church. Her missionary travels took her to visit the convents she founded. She kept in touch with each one of them by correspondence. This correspondence has provided us with an abundant missionary legacy of great spiritual richness as are: letters, advices and reflections, studies and meditations, spiritual exercises.
More information can be found here at their site. A hearty congratulations to her community at this joyful time!
Comments
“People have realized that the complete removal of the feminine element from the Christian message is a shortcoming from an anthropological viewpoint. It is theologically and anthropologically important for woman to be at the center of Christianity."
This is just another of the unintended consequences of the cultural acceptance of contraception and abortion! Men's sexuality has been robbed of its creative essence. It is now viewed as something that imposes a burden on women (when conception happens to occur), something used to control women or something that is purely recreational. Why would men bother?? In taking away their responsibility, we've also robbed them of their significance! In the big picture of humanity, men have been made into nothing more than a nuisance women have to figure out how to control in order to bring about the next generation. Men don't see it as their task to protect the vulnerable because they see themselves as the vulnerable ones. A few well preserved vials of sperm would make men entirely obsolete in the world's ethos today!!
That is astounding Robin, and good for you for standing up. At the heart of that matter, I think, is even worse than a gender mixing message. There is an increased sharper and sharper focus on the "self." Solid Catholic teaching returns our focus away from ourselves to Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The original sin, Eve denied her womanhood when she desired to be like "gods." Since the only god she knew was the Father. Where was Adam? He stood impotent... in other words, they were divorced. There's a young girl at Robin's son's high school who was just told that she is the center of the universe and it's a tragic disservice to her.
Ditto what Mary said! A lot of high schools have very poor math and science depts, for boys and girls. I also am educated as a chemical engineer, but chose to teach the two years before we had children because its hours were more suited to spending time with children. (I was looking ahead). When it came time and I was pregnant with our first, I realized that I did not want to leave him with someone else, and was able to stay home full time. I am not sure it would have been that easy if we were used to another engineering income and not just a private school teacher income. Also some of my first job offers were out on oil rigs - I had no interest in that at all even though I enjoyed my engineering classes and did well in them. No one discouraged me from an engineering job, on the contrary I got a lot of flack for my decision not to pursue an engineering career.
I've been lurking, but this is one that irritates me. Beats the heck out of me what these "barriers" are. I was educated as a chemical engineer, where 1/3 of our class was women. However, in electrical engineering, only 1 or 2 out of 30 were women. Is it possible that women are Just Not Interested in some areas? Nah, it must be The Man keeping us down so we must legislate (and, I agree -- when they say "legistlate", I hear "quota"). And actually, I have a friend that was also a chemical engineer. When she lost her job, she decided not to go back into engineering and started working from home so she could spend more time with her 3 kids. Also, if nothing else, there are all kinds of incentives for women to enter science and engineering -- scholarships not available to men, guaranteed housing on campuses that do not guarantee housing to the general population, etc. I think you hit the nail on the head when you said that schools in general are not preparing students for the hard sciences. It is truly a sad state of affairs, the lack of science education these days.