Girls and moms enjoy tea with consecrated women

Tea cups were filled – and hearts were overflowing – at a Feb. 7 Mother-Daughter Vocations Tea Party at the Pro Sanctity Retreat Center near Elkhorn.

About 160 people participated, including mothers and their 6- to 12-year-old daughters and about 18 women consecrated to God and living as spouses of Jesus.

The mother-daughter tea party was a first – hosted by the Apostolic Oblates, the archdiocese Vocations Office and its Consecrated Life Team, and Fiat, a prayer group of high school girls at St. Patrick Parish in Elkhorn.

The tea party theme: “My Cup Overflows.”

“Jesus wants to fill not just our cups but our hearts, too,” Father Scott Schilmoeller, archdiocese vocations director, said to those in attendance. He asked the girls to look around and notice some of the different colored habits of the sisters in attendance.

Six communities of religious sisters were represented – with one community from as far away as Texas – as well as the Apostolic Oblates, who are members of a secular institute. They are also consecrated to God and make vows of poverty, obedience and celibacy – with an added promise to engage in their Pro Sanctity apostolate.

Serra Club members helped provide food and served as volunteers, along with Fiat members.

After listening to two brief talks by religious sisters, the mothers and daughters sipped tea with the consecrated women, took part in a craft and went to a chapel for Eucharistic Adoration.

Consecrated women were there for all the activities, mingling with the girls and their mothers. That type of encounter sparks a question: “What is God calling you to do?” said Apostolic Oblate Jessi Kary, who lives with her community in Elkhorn but also serves as leader of Apostolic Oblates throughout the United States.

Kelli Ryan, of St. Charles Borromeo Parish in Gretna, took part in the tea with three of her six daughters. Kadence, 10; Madelyn, 8; and Gabriella, who turned 7 this week, loved seeing the visible faith of the consecrated women they met, their mother said.

Kelli Ryan and three of her daughters are pictured with Sister Suelene Gomes de Matos of the Missionary Benedictines of Norfolk.

“The sisters are approachable and have a radiance that emanates from them,” Ryan said. At the tea, the young ladies learned that holiness can be a normal, everyday experience, she said.

Katie Wood would agree. She went to the tea with her three daughters: Margaret, 11; Bernadette, 9, and Juliet, 7.

“We listen to saint stories all the time,” Wood said, but the holiness they saw in the consecrated women was “in the here and now.”

Sister Suelene Gomes de Matos, of the Missionary Benedictines of Norfolk, said the tea made her cup overflow, too.

“Bringing young people to the Church and to Jesus” brought her hope and joy, she said. “The Catholic Church is alive.”