June 17-24 marks a global week of action to pray for and understand the plight of migrants and refugees around the world, part of the #sharethejourney campaign.

Have mercy on me, God most high. In my fear and loneliness, be my refuge. Far from my homeland, I feel lost.  My heart is stirred by thoughts of the family I left behind. O God, hear their cries and come to their help! Calm the storms of anxiety and doubt raging within me. Go before me and guide my steps among a people I do not know. May their kindness and compassion assure me that You are there to welcome me.

Why is St. Anthony of Padua so popular?  Perhaps because he considered everyone in the world a neighbor. “The devotion to the Saint of the Peoples is truly universal perhaps because he himself desired to consider all the world his as his home,” said Father Oliviero Svanera, director of the Basilica of St. Anthony of Padua.

“… he was a neighbor to all: to the poor, to people in difficulty, to the sick. In this, his being ‘brother of all,’ is perhaps his universality, something that renders him a friend of all the peoples of the world, beyond nationality, culture, and even religions, given that St. Anthony is respected even by those who do not profess the Catholic faith.”

Cindy Wooden, June 11, 2018|Catholic News Service

Pope Francis told Italian schoolchildren that he grew up in Buenos Aires, Argentina, “the most beautiful city in the world,” and that besides playing soccer, he loved to fly kites as a child.

“We would make them with cane and paper, light paper. We made them ourselves,” the pope told about 500 children from schools in the poorer neighborhoods of Rome and of Milan. In the kite championship, he added, there were prizes for “the prettiest one and for the one that went highest.”

With the children seated around him in the atrium of the Vatican audience hall, Francis answered their questions about his childhood, his school, his vocation and the standard question children ask him, “How did you feel when you were chosen pope?” (more…)

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The Sisters of Bon Secours and Bon Secours Ministries stand in solidarity with those who seek the common good and the protection of all persons, particularly those who are marginzalized, by advocating in the following areas:

• Immigration Reform
• A Culture of Non Violence
• Health Care for All
• The Care and Integrity of Creation

Read our Advocacy Priorities for 2018 here:  Bon Secours Ministries Advocacy 2018

It was a happy graduation day at Sisters Academy in Southwest Baltimore. Srs. Nathalie, Alice, Rosie and Elaine celebrated with Leah Johnson as she graduated from 8th grade. The students at Sisters Academy, which is sponsored by Sisters of Bon Secours, are educated in the Catholic tradition. The school does a great job of preparing students for high school, college and their future careers. Congratulations to all the graduates!

Sisters of Bon Secours holds events for everyone who works here several times a year, so we can all get together outside of work and have fun. This time around it was Paint Night at Pinot’s Palette in Ellicott city. Here you see Sr. Nathalie discovering a talent she didn’t know she had. Beautiful colors Sr. Nathalie!

On Sunday, May 27, 2018, flash floods struck Ellicott City, Maryland, just 10 miles away from the Sisters’ Provincial Home in Marriottsville.  This historic mill town was still rebuilding from a similar flood in 2016. 

Bon Secours assisted with the Ellicott City flood disaster recovery efforts in 2016, and will once again support the recovery efforts. Bon Secours will provide a donation to the Ellicott City Partnership, a non-profit organization that was instrumental in administering relief programs in 2016.

A lot of times the Sisters are asked what they do outside of church. One of Sr. Elaine’s answers can be “playing in a band,” the Westminster Community Band that is. This is a picture of her playing the French Horn at the Strawberry Festival Dinner at the Pleasant Valley Firehouse.

“If we approach nature and the environment with openness to awe and wonder… if we feel intimately united with all that exists, then sobriety and care will well up spontaneously.” (Pope Francis, Laudato Si’)

Do you think of the ocean only as a place to vacation? It’s so much more than that! In this month’s Justice, Peace and Integrity of Creation newsletter, read how the ocean is an integral part of our God-given environment.

JPIC-Newsletter-June-2018-1

On this day in 1826, our congregation’s first leader, Josephine Potel, was buried and Mère Angelique Geay became the second Superior General of the Sisters of Bon Secours. We know from one of her letters that she advised, “Be simple.” And to her fellow Sisters: “Love one another.” Angelique Geay saw the Congregation spread through France. The Sisters became known for their dedication to Christ and devotion to the sick and suffering of all classes and religions.