News From Home

August 2026

By Sister M. Anselma

Dear Family and Friends,

Just the other day I sat in a crowded DMV for hours awaiting my turn to renew my driver’s license… better than being outside in the 100+ degree weather, right?! A chatty gentleman sat next to me for most of the time. I contentedly read my book; he made a series of work-related phone calls. As soon as his phone came off his ear, I could feel his attention turn in my direction, ready for a conversation. As I set my book on my lap, he started us off with a common question… “What Order do you belong to?” Hearing that I am Franciscan, he immediately said with an excited voice, “oh, the patron saint of animals!”

I love animals (especially puppies!), and I have a deep reverence for the beauty of the created world! But I always feel a bit annoyed when people only associate St. Francis with animals and ecology… I didn’t give my life to follow an association with animals! But I did give my life to love and follow Christ crucified, in the footsteps of St. Francis!!

Francis loved the created world because he passionately loved the Creator! Francis had fallen deeply in love with God, who had grasped his life, who had forgiven his sins, and who gave him a powerful grace of leading people back to God. He saw that every experience of life was part of his relationship with God. So one day, when he saw a flock of birds and recognized how they, too, honor and glorify God, he said to them:

“My brother birds, you have a great obligation to praise your Creator, who clothed you in feathers and gave you wings to fly with, provided you with pure air, and cares for you without any worry on your part.” – The Life of St. Francis by Thomas of Celano, Ch. XXI, Para. 58

Those birds stayed, listened to him and didn’t fly away until he had blessed them with the sign of the Cross and sent them off.

Throughout the rest of his life, his interactions with the created world had a miraculous nature. A wild wolf became docile in his presence, birds would sit in his hands as if in a nest, etc. The grace of God had so anointed him that all of nature was at peace with him, like in Isaiah’s prophecy about the coming of the Messiah: “The wolf will live with the lamb, the leopard will lie down with the goat, the calf and the lion and the yearling together; and a little child will lead them.” (Is 11:6). St. Francis was so conformed to Jesus in the whole of his person that the reality of original harmony (before sin entered the world) was seen in him. What a grace!!

Someday, when it is not too hot, go for a stroll through our beautiful park behind the Home! You might see a daddy hawk keeping watch while perched on the Blessed Mother statue; you might see baby hawks frolicking in the grass in the morning sun; you might see a fat, lazy groundhog sunning itself near the trees. And you will definitely see beautiful statues of the Sacred Heart and Mother Mary! In all of this, ask St. Francis to help to praise the God who planned all of it for you and who reveals Himself to you through the beauty you see.

May God give you peace!

May God give you peace!

In His Merciful Heart,

Sister M. Anselma
Administrator

By Fr. Nick Muenks

Which of us does not have things we hope for? For every hope which we have seen come true, there is another (maybe a few others) which leave us wondering whether we will live to see our desire. Hope which is not fulfilled easily leads to discouragement. As we can read in Proverbs, “hope deferred makes the heart sick” (Proverbs 13:12). How true! Yet, it does not have to be.

When we are powerless to bring about what we want, we are being given an invitation to change the object of our attention. It is so tempting to long for, fret about, obsess over, or consume ourselves in sorrow for some situation or person. We focus so much on what we hope for, but so little on Him who can give it to us. It can be like looking at the night sky—the more we stare right at the stars, the dimmer they seem to get. The psalmist has good advice for us: “Find your delight in the Lord, who will give you your heart’s desire. Commit your way to the Lord; trust that God will act” (Psalm 37:4-5). Or, in the words of Jeremiah, “My portion is the Lord, says my soul; therefore will I hope in him. Good is the Lord to one who waits for him, to the soul that seeks him” (Lamentations 3:25).

It strikes me how little of what Jesus desired was brought about by his efforts during his earthly ministry. “I have come to set the earth on fire!” he said, “and how I wish it were already blazing” (Luke 12:49). The world was truly set on fire when the Holy Spirit descended in tongues of flame upon the disciples, and those disciples burst from the upper room to carry the Good News of salvation to the ends of the earth. But, as Jesus told the disciples, none of that could happen before Jesus left them—until he went to the cross (see John 16:7). I cannot begin to imagine all the things which Jesus must have thought of, as he prepared for his Passion—all the people he was leaving behind, all the work not yet done, all the dangers which would soon confront this little band of believers who had become his closest friends. Yet, his trust in the Father was such that Jesus was willing to leave everything and everybody, in order to return to him at the hour already appointed. I can’t imagine that that was easy for Jesus, any more than it would be for any of us. It was not only his own life that he offered on the cross, but the lives of every single person he knew and cared about—everything he had to let go of, in order to return to the Father. What he offered up was not only his body, but his heart. And that offering obtained for his disciples every blessing which his earthly ministry had not been able to give them!

From Jesus we learn that committing something to the Lord is not “getting over” it, or forgetting, or moving on. Jesus’s prayer in John 17 shows how much he continued to care for his disciples, as he commended them to the Father over and over again. Yet, in commending them, Jesus was letting go of them, so that the Father could fulfill all of Jesus’s hopes for them. How can we imitate this? For one, we keep praying for people, but we keep our prayers brief. Someone has said, “sometimes, our prayers are long because our faith is short.” It is so easy to move from praying to worrying! So we pray as often the situation or person comes to mind, but we leave it, or them, to God and move ourselves along. That, also, is a prayer; what it says to God is that we believe that he has heard us, and that he has power to do what we ask. Our Mission Partners have heard me say that I often lift my hands toward heaven (when no one is looking, I hope!) as though I were handing God something. Gesture is natural to interpersonal communication, and it is certainly not out of place in prayer. And I often refer people to a prayer I noticed on a friend’s kitchen cabinet: “Lord, I’m putting this back into your hands. I shouldn’t have taken it out.” We will find that the more we pray in this manner, the less our deferred hopes have power to make us sick at heart. We may have to wait a long time for the fulfillment of our hopes, but God has gifts for us in the meantime—most of all, the growth of a trusting relationship with him, which not only eases our heart, but gives greater power to our prayer.

Fr. Nick Muenks

Chaplain

Golf Tournament!

By Sister M. Luka

It’s time to register for our 23rd Annual Golf Tournament!!

Click here to register for or donate to our 23rd Annual Golf Tournament! The tournament will be held on Monday, September 21st at Glen Echo Country Club. Registration opens at 10:00 AM and Shotgun Start is at 12:00 PM. Please contact me or Jennifer Lamons (at jlamons@mogch.org) for more information!

We still have open sponsorships for the Golf Tournament!

Please contact Sister M. Luka (at smluka@mogch.org) if you’re interested in sponsoring a beverage cart or a hole sign!

Sister M. Luka

Mission Support Coordinator