Ursuline of the Agonizing Heart of Jesus

Ursuline of the Agonizing Heart of Jesus –  Sister Maria Philothea, Flower of Charity, UrsAHJ                                                       Urszulanski Serca Jezusa Konajacego                                                                                          Grey Ursuline –  An Apostle of the Heart of Jesus                                                                          “Ad Maiorem Dei Gloriam” –  “All for the Greater Glory of God”                               “Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord.  May it be done to me according to Your word.”                “My children, let the sacred fire of love for souls glimmer unceasingly in your heart.”                                                                                                                                               –  Mother Ursula

Foundress:  Saint Ursula Julia Ledóchowska  (affectionately called “Mother”)

Place:  Pniewy, Poland

Year:  1920 A.D.

Her Charism:  This Sister’s special mission in the Church is to proclaim Christ (the love of her heart) and the love of His Heart through radical fidelity to the Gospel and sisterly service to the most needy.  She cheerfully and generously gives witness through her personal and community life and involvement in catechetical education, teaching, running orphanages, and charitable and missionary works of evangelization:  care for the lost and lonely, and victims of war, enslavement, or violence.  Her spirituality is rooted in the mystery of the Agony of Christ.  Attentive to the words Christ cried out from the Cross, “I thirst” (His “sitio”), she seeks to respond to the love of Christ’s Heart by surrendering herself wholly and without reserve as Christ did in the Garden of Gethsemane so that He may extend in and through her His mission of salvation.  Loving Mary as her model of sanctity, devotion to God and His people, clinging to her rosary as a chain to bind their hearts, and seeking her motherly protection as the bright “Star of the Sea”, she fulfills her mission by lovingly bearing the agony of Jesus to save her brothers and sisters.  This Sister is a sunny person – an apostle – for she tells them without words but with a bright smile on her lips and a “Deo gratias” in her heart that it is good to serve God and find peace and happiness the world cannot give.  Grateful for the grace of her vocation, this Ursuline puts her implicit trust in God, the Source of her deep optimism, joy, and serenity – the soul’s happiness.  In this way she proclaims to the world the Good News, guiding souls to Jesus, and allowing them to know the infinite goodness of His Heart.  This is the ideal to which she dedicates herself to the poor.  Her politics is love.