THANK GOD FOR SISTER AQUILA
Dear Friends:

Every so often I think of Sister Mary Aquila, SSND. She was my third grade teacher at St. Saviour’s School in the Park Slope section of Brooklyn. Although I was only in her class for several months because we moved to Garden City, Sister Aquila had a lot to do with my life and many of my ideas. She was small, but had a very large heart. She was one of the kindest people I ever met and she was vitally interested in the Catholic Church and spreading devotion to Our Lady. That was a time in the life of the Church when there was a tremendous interest in Fatima and First Saturday Devotions. Sister Aquila had established a group of students and called the group Mobilize For Mary. The members would meet in Sister Aquila’s classroom on Friday afternoons and discuss how to get more students to the First Saturday Mass. In the third grade Sister told me that I would be a captain for Mobilize for Mary. I was delighted!

Soon after that we moved and I never saw Sister again. But her love for the Church and the Blessed Mother were impressed on me and only grew in my own life. There was another thing about her that I really admired: she was a woman of limitless kindness and compassion-and did she love the Catholic Church! Now over fifty years later I still see her in my mind’s eye and remember her as a vibrant apostle for Christ.

The trouble is there are very few Sister Aquilas now. Most Catholic schools have one or two Sisters-if any at all! While the lay teachers do a great job, there is something irreplaceable about a religious man or woman and it is important that the Catholic Church make a genuine effort to look for new consecrated religious. That is why I am so happy that in our Diocese of Rockville Centre there is going to be a special vocation day for woman. The theme of the day is: Listen to His Voice and it will be held at Kellenberg Memo-rial High School in Unioindale. According to the Vocation Office, religious sisters will be available to answer any questions about the religious life and there will be workshops, prayer opportunities, Adora-tion of the Holy Eucharist and Holy Mass.

The day is for women, high school age and older. Those who are interested in attending or simply want more information should contact the Vocation Office, 440 West Neck Road, Huntington, New York 11743. The phone number is 631-424-9888. Of course there is email: vocations@ drvc.org.

Recently, I had a wonderful breakfast with Sister Serafina, the superior of the Missionary Sisters of St. Benedict at Cuba Hill Rd. It was a breakfast to be remembered and I’ll tell you all about it in a future letter. Sister Serafina is an example of the wonderful women in our Church who are doing so much for us. To her and Sister Bernarda and Sister Anthony Therese, OP, this parish owes a tremendous debt of gratitude. They are the new Sister Aquila’s. And, we need a lot more!

In Jesus and Mary,

Monsignor James M. McDonald