Father Philip Scott F.J.
Dear Spiritual Mothers,
A few yrs. ago I met some of you at your annual conference as I was invited to preach. I would like to praise God for your lives offered to Jesus w/ Jesus for me and all priests in a way as silent as the “host” placed on the patten at Mass. I now give many priest retreats all over . They are my favorite retreats . Congratulations on your 10th anniversary. Your lives and offerings have a value that only Jesus knows and heaven rejoices. THANK YOU!!!!!!!! Praise God for you and this mission.
I send my love and many prayers for you and your families!
Again THANK YOU!!!!!!
Fr. Philip Scott F.J.
Director of Incarnate Institute
Mary Kaufmann
Hello Spiritual Mothers,
I write to you on this feast Mary, Model and Mother of the Church. I had the pleasure to present the very first retreat for the Spiritual Mothers of the Archdiocese of Ottawa about ten years ago. What a joy it was for me to meet you and to see the tremendous impact of your lives and ministry within and for the Archdiocese of Ottawa, an effect that has only grown in the last ten years. To grow further, as always, we come back to the essentials, the central example of Mary at the foot of the Cross. Many of us may have been drawn to this life of offering prayer and sacrifice on behalf of our spiritual sons by a heart felt drawn, a concern for our Church at a very personal level. We were drawn and then we wondered how we could live this in a fruitful way. Others may have been invited by friends to join in this and wonder what this entails. Maybe you’ve made this commitment and then find that whole parts of your day have gone by without you considering your spiritual son. Mary shows us how to spiritually support our Church by spiritually empowering her shepherds through simple everyday efforts. She also teaches us what it means to bring others, “into our house.” Today’s Gospel draws us into this central mystery. In doing the most obvious thing, Mary received this call to support the Church.“When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple there whom he love, he said to his mother,”Woman, behold your son.” Then he said to the disciple, “Behold, your Mother.” And from that hour the disciple took her into his home.” John 19:26-27. Mary invites us to reconsider the power of starting our day with an Offering to God for the spiritual uplift of our spiritual sons. As we go about our day, when the Spirit draws them to our minds, we respond with a quick prayer for their needs. We are called to correspond to these promptings and then focus back into the task of our daily life. We want to waste nothing. If we have suffering, in the midst of the moment, we offer it for our family, and our spiritual son. In doing this, we live a very fruitful lives that builds the Church by drawing grace into the lives of others We harvest moments of grace, by our intention and by our choice as we are prompted by the Holy Spirit. We build the Church moment by moment, as spiritual stones, we build the “house of the Church.” We want to celebrate this, our feminine genius, that allows us to carry with us the needs of others in a heart felt way and also by clearly choosing to be generous for others. Mary teaches us this and John gives us confidence that our spiritual sons flourish in this spiritual light. I offer you my prayers for a very fruitful retreat.
Blessings, Mary Gannon Kaufmann
President of Renewal Ministries
Dr. Ralph Martin
Dear Spiritual Mothers,
It was an honor to speak to you last year and it is still another honor to congratulate you on your 10th anniversary. Your work of intercession for priests is more needed than ever. There is an intense spiritual war raging right now and priests are a primary target of the enemy. Your prayers are urgently need to protect them from the “flaming darts of the evil one.” Never stop. Never give up. Know that your prayer, sacrifice, suffering and love will not be in vain even if you can’t see all the good things your sacrificial offerings are causing to be.
Your brother in Christ, Ralph Martin President, Renewal Ministries
Order of Preacher
Fr. Simon Michalski
Dear Spiritual Mothers of Priest,
Joyful, Joyful!
I am writing to extend to you all my deepest appreciation and gratitude for your ministry to priest. Your efforts to spiritually intercede for, nurture, and love for God’s priest is truly moving and powerfully effective. I am positive that you have been a force for good and a sea of light that penetrates the dark fortress of Satan and scatters his plans and machinations against God’s Priest. I am sure that your ministry of prayer deeply pleases our lord, Jesus and that he is covering you with his lovingkindness and His Precious Blood. I am sure that Holy Spirit is equipping, and empowering you with every spiritual gift and blessing, for every good spiritual gift is from above, and every blessing is of God the Father. I also know in my heart of hearts, that our Blessed Mother, Our Lady of Sorrows, is pleased with you and your act of sacrificial love on behalf of the priest of God.
May the angels bless you and keep you safe,
May Catherine of Siena, Conchita, and your other many patrons intercede for you,
May our loving God grant you many years in health and holiness.
Your brother and friend,
Fr. Simon Felix Michalski, O.P.
Chicago IL, USA
Fathers of Mercy Assistant General and EWTN Television and Radio Series Host
Fr. Wade L. J. Menezes, CPM
It is with great joy and a humbled spirit that, through this Letter, I congratulate the Spiritual Motherhood of Priests Organization of Ottawa, Canada on the group’s 10th Anniversary Celebration to be held on June 13th, 2021 with the Holy Mass and Induction Ceremony, following the members’ two-day Formation Weekend for new members on June 11th and 12th, 2021.
My dear sisters in Christ, this “vocation within a vocation” of praying for priests and their varied ministries – whether diocesan priests or religious order priests – is an important work! Through your personal faith and commitment, you offer – daily – your actions, duties, sufferings, prayers, and merits “to Jesus through Mary” for the spiritual benefit of the work of priests, for their own sanctification, for those to whom they minister, and for your own sanctification as spiritual mothers. Our Catholic faith assures us that none of this goes unnoticed in the eyes of our Trinitarian God – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
With a special devotion to the Most Holy Eucharist and Eucharistic Adoration, the 33-day St. Louis de Montfort Consecration to the Blessed Virgin Mary, Our Lady of Sorrows, and certain dedicated prayers, you are an apostolate of Catholic women seeking – through your important spiritual maternity – to sanctify the work of priests throughout the world. Through your organization of Spiritual Motherhood of Priests, you seek to unite yourselves to the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Mother and Helper of the Eternal High Priest, Jesus Christ, in the work of redemption by anonymously and spiritually adopting a priest-son. You are daughters of the Most High God (Cf., 2 Corinthians 6:18). Formed in an authentic feminine spirituality, you intercede for your spiritual priest-sons and for all priests in order to help them with their own self-offering, prayer, and penance in the works they carry out on behalf of the Church for the sanctification of the world.
My dear sisters in Christ, know that through these good and holy spiritual works of yours, you ignite to a greater degree your own personal share in the “common priesthood” of all the baptized (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 784, 1119, 1546) and through that fact, you help strengthen the “ministerial priesthood” of those men who share in the Sacrament of Holy Orders (CCC, 1547). I thank you for this faithful and spiritual commitment of yours. Here’s wishing you all many blessings and congratulations on your 10th Anniversary! + + +
Fr. Wade L. J. Menezes, CPM
Fathers of Mercy Assistant General and
EWTN Television and Radio Series Host
Auburn, Kentucky
Catholic Author — “Our Lady of Good Success”
Matthew Arnold
Dear Spiritual Mothers and friends,
I was pleased to learn of the 10th anniversary of your wonderful apostolate. I fondly recall being given the honor to travel to Ottawa in 2018 to address your annual conference. It was greatly edifying to meet so many faithful – and prayerful – Catholic women.
It was also an especial blessing to break bread with several priests and even a bishop whose ministries have so powerfully benefitted from the prayers and sacrifices of their Spiritual Mothers. I regard their fidelity to the Church and obvious love for their vocation as a genuine sign of hope for the future of the Bride of Christ.
One of my talks at the conference in 2018 was on devotion to the Blessed Virgin under her title, Our Lady of Good Success. In Quito, Ecuador, she is known as La Nuestra Señora del Buen Suceso de la Purificación, literally translated: Our Lady of the Great Event of the Purification.
Mary’s Purification is also known as the Presentation of the Child Jesus in the Temple, whereby Our Lord’s Sacred Humanity was offered to the priestly service of God the Father by the hands of the Blessed Virgin. The offering of her Divine Son was accompanied by the complete offering of herself. Because it foreshadows Christ’s self-offering on the Cross and reveals Mary’s role as Co-Redemptrix, it represents the greatest sacrifice to ever take place in the Temple of Jerusalem.
I believe the ministry of Spiritual Motherhood is an authentic and beneficial participation in the holy legacy of this profound and mysterious event.
It is with heartfelt gratitude for your ministry that I congratulate your new inductees and all the members and friends of this invaluable apostolate. Please be assured of my prayers on the occasion of your 10th anniversary and for the continued “good success” of The Spiritual Motherhood of Priests.
In Domino,
Matthew Arnold
Apostolic Nuncio in Albania
Luigi Bonazzi
Very dear Spiritual Mothers,
With a deep thanks in my heart, I offer each of you – dear Spiritual Mothers – joyful congratulations as your apostolate celebrates 10 years this year.
How do I see a “spiritual mother?”. I see her precisely as “a mother” who – with one hand – holds tightly the hand of Jesus, the High and Eternal Priest, to let herself be led by Him into the bosom of the Trinity, so as to be able to understand – living in the house of the Father, of the Son and the of the Holy Spirit – what is God’s will for her, for the Church and for humanity; and “a mother” who – with the other hand – holds tightly the hand of her “priest-son”, to help and support him with her self-offering , prayer and penance, constantly entrusting him to the intercession and blessing of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Sacred Heart of Mary.
In more concise words, I see a “spiritual mother” as another Mary, the Mother of Jesus, who takes care of her “priest-son”, and in him of all the priests.
For all of this I thank you in the name of the Church, and I bless you.
Bishop Christian Riesbeck
Dear Spiritual Mothers,
What a joyous occasion it is for the Spiritual Motherhood of Priests as you celebrate 10 years of
ministry supporting our priests. Your dedicated and faithful intercession surely helps many priests
stay close to Jesus, and your hidden ministry which is so like our Blessed Mother is a powerful
witness.
Your apostolate is very dear to my heart, as I have had the opportunity to share moments of prayer
and celebrate Mass with you over the years during my time in Ottawa. My beloved mother, whose
faithful intercession has guided me in my own vocation, is also a member of SMOP.
Be assured of my closeness to you and my prayers for you this weekend as you welcome 18 new
women into this beautiful ministry. On behalf of my brother clergy members, I say thank you to
each one of the 188 women who make up SMOP. In these difficult days we are grateful to you,
our spiritual mothers, for holding us in prayer especially before the Blessed Sacrament.
May the Lord bless you richly now and always for all you do to support priests in their union with
the Priestly Heart of Jesus.
