The goodness and the mystery of our God

August 30, 2011:  The responsorial psalm of today’s liturgy challenges us to look for “the  bounty of the Lord in the land of the living.” I found that yesterday when searching the internet about the Sisters of the Sorrowful Mother. I came upon an audio done by the “Voices of Oklahoma,” featuring Sister Theresa Gottschalk, SSM, former CEO of St. John’s Medical Center.  Her story is now available on the Sisters of the Sorrowful Mother Facebook.  It is an incredible story of a sister’s faith journey. Truly, as we read in the liturgy of this day, Sister Theresa is a “child of the light, ” to thousands of people in Oklahoma and beyond.  She truly is one of the “lights” of our religious congregation and the church of today. 

Denville has been experiencing the wrath of Hurricane Irene, as the Rockaway River has overflowed its banks in a myriad of places.  St. Clare’s Hospital literally was hemmed in by the flood waters!  God’s goodness to us here at Our Lady of Sorrows Convent and St. Francis Residential Community could not have burned more brightly, however, as we are safely protected from such fury. O, the greatness  and the mystery of our God, as not far from here a man clung to life yesterday as he fell into the raging waters. All that was found, as of this moment, were his boots and trousers!  We are hoping he surfaces safely somewhere downstream from where he slipped into the river!