Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

Blessed Feast of St. Catherine of Siena, a woman Doctor of the Church and mystic that has inspired those with faith to have hope knowing God to be all merciful and that each soul not to mention the entire Body of the Church is in need of God’s infinite Mercy. We know her encouraging words, “If you are what you should be, you will set the world ablaze!” Let us have courage to be love! St. Catherine’s The Dialogue in which she shares what Our Lord Jesus Christ said to her in her prayer is a great work that opens one’s heart to the powerful love of God and surrenders to Him with great consolation in His forgiveness, tenderness and truth. Here’s a beautiful exerpt that I am inspired to share with all of you that has brought me consolation and deeper understanding:

“Then the soul was restless and aflame with tremendous desure because of the speakable love she had conceived in God’s great goodness when she had come to see and know the expanse of his charity. How tenderly he had deigned to answer her petition and give her hope in her bitterness ~ bitterness over God’s being offended and holy Church’s being ravaged, and bitterness over he own wretchedness, which she saw through knowlege of herself! Her bitterness was softened and at the same time grew, for the supreme eternal Father, now that he had shown her the way of perfection, was showing her a new light how he was being offended and souls were being harmed.

As the soul comes to know herself she also knows God better, for she sees how good he has been to her. In the gentle mirror of God she sees her own dignity: that through no merit of hers but by his creation she is the image of God. An in the mirror of God’s goodness she sees as well her own unworthiness, the work of her own sin. For just as you can better see the blemish on your face when you look at your selfe in a mirror, so the soul who is true self-knowledge rises up with desire to look at herself in the gentle mirror of God with the eye of understanding sees all the more clearly her own defects because of the purity she sees in him.” (from The Dialogue, p.48)

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The Dominican Sisters of the Most Holy Rosary of the Philippines are moving here from San Francisco, CA to serve and teach at St. John Bosco Catholic School and St. Benedict Catholic Parish in Ahwatukee (Phoenix)!

Sr. Merced Gumban, O.P. will be the new 5th grade teacher at St. John Bosco School in Phoenix. Sr. Ruth De La Cruz, OP will be the Director of Religious Education at St. Benedict Catholic Parish. Sr. Delia Obenza, OP will do Youth and Young Adult Ministry.

What a beautiful library! It is so inviting and organized. It makes me want to read a great book that will help me grow.

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CONGRATULATIONS, SISTER RAPHAEL QUINN, IBVM!

Saturday, May 20th, 2023, there will be a 4:30 a.m. Mass for Sr. Raphael at Ss. Simon and Jude Cathedral followed by a reception! All our welcome!

Let us celebrate together all the great things that God has done and is doing in our lives!

God bless you.

Yours in Christ,

Sr. Anthony Mary Diago, RSM, Director of the Office of Consecrated Life of Phoenix