Third Order Introductions and Helpful Advice
I would like to make better use of this forum when I can for prayers, support and advice. I have read through much of it and it has been helpful. I do not yet have a community here in the Cleveland OH area. If it is God's will one day there will be one. So I would like to connect with my third order brothers and sisters here on this forum. It would be nice, if you like, to share something about yourself and any useful advice, blessings or struggles you may have so far living as a third order member.
Here's mine: I'm a soon to be 45 year stay at home, homeschooling mother of 3. My oldest we just sent off to college to Franciscan University Steubenville. I have been married 19 wonderful years. In the last year or so I have discovered traditional catholicism and it has been an immense blessing in my life allowing me to grow deeper in my faith and then shortly after I believe God led me to the MFM Third Orderas an answer to a prayer, another immense blessing. My favorite saints (and spiritual directors): Our Lady of Sorrows, St Teresa of Avila, Blessed Solanus Casey and Sr Clare SHM (not a saint).
My struggle as a third order novitiate is complacency. I find refocusing my gaze on Christ helpful through prayer, recollection and mental prayer, spiritual reading, relistening to a formation talk or rereading my notes or the rule of the order and making daily resolutions could also be helpful. I am still working on making these practices good habits and second nature. God bless!
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Hello Sr. Clare,
Ave Maria!
I live on the near westside of Cleveland, so you and I should probably figure out how to get together and start our Franciscan community! I haven't been on here very much because I'm recovering from heart surgery, but I've been told I should be pretty much back to normal by the beginning of the new year. If you would like to talk more or make plans to meet, send me an email at toolongtoowordy@protonmail.com and we can exchange phone numbers, etc. if you wish. I'm looking forward to meeting you. :^)
I'm a convert to Catholicism, having converted as soon as I turned 18. My parents were fallen-away Southern Baptists from West Virginia; we believed in God and had love and respect for Jesus, but never went to church and didn't believe we needed to in order to be Christian. However, I grew up in a very Catholic neighborhood in Cleveland (Tremont) with many Catholic friends from very ethnic Catholic families, so even though I wasn't raised Catholic by my own family, I was "raised Catholic" in a way by the various families in my neighborhood. After my conversion, I began reading spiritual books in earnest because I felt I had 2,000 years of Catholic teachings to get caught up on...but that's when I began seeing the huge disconnect between traditional Catholic teachings and spiritual practice, and what I was experiencing and hearing at my local Catholic church. This lead to me homeshooling my three sons through the 1990s while looking for a traditional parish and Latin Mass for us to attend (my husband by this point had separated from me). My sons and I floated from one parish to another over the years, and after they were grown and on their own, I began attending St. Peregrine's in Richfield (SSPX). I've been there ever since (about 8 years now).
I first learned about and tried to join the Third Order back in the early 80s, but for health reasons wasn't able to complete the novitiate. Back then in the diocesan group I tried to join, you were required to attend monthly meetings for 12 months in a row, with no misses. If you were absent from a single meeting for any reason, you had to begin the whole 12 months all over again. So anyway, I didn't make it then, but I'm grateful to God for the delay because without it, I wouldn't have learned about Friar Anthony and the wonderful spiritual formation he is giving us now. :^)
Pax et bonum,
Sr. Rose (Tammy)