Mother Frances Streitel: Giving herself wholeheartedly

Amalia Frances Rose Streitel aka Mother Frances Streitel, Foundress of the Sisters of the Sorrowful Mother, and, as a Maria Stern Franciscan, known as Sister Angela.  Yesterday we spoke of Sister Angela encountering opposition when, in her zeal, she wanted the Sisters with whom she lived to be as committed to religious disciplines as she was. Earlier, we spoke of the fact that Sister Angela let up on herself, becoming lukewarm in the practice of the religious disciplines.  She believed that the near fatal illness she experienced at that time was God’s way of waking her up. Following her recovery she again gave herself wholeheartedly to what she believed God was asking of her.  One of her deepest desires was to practice poverty as did St. Francis of Assisi. She longed to see the original austerity of St. Francis of Assisi lived in her congregation and would have welcomed a deep spiritual renewal of religious life of her day. In a sense she hung on the cross with Christ, uttering the words: “I thirst.”  This kind of spiritual thirst is not uncommon. We thirst for justice and honesty. We thirst for an end to the moral decline we see all around us, an end to war, abortions, the death penalty, human trafficking and corruptions in “high places.”  We thirst for the cessation of the rich getting richer at the expense of the poor, and so much more. Yes, we long for an “austerity” of a different nature that will right the wrongs of this world. And no doubt, both St. Francis and Mother Frances would have been thirsting for this same kind of austerity in our day.