Seven lay women pray for one priest or bishop for one hour each week as part of the Seven Sisters Apostolate. At stake, they say, is the Church itself.
One day a week, Donna Mohr kneels before the tabernacle at St. Dominic Church for an hour to pray for Dominican Father Michael Hurley, pastor. She said she brings a chaplet of prayers for St. Michael the Archangel to keep her “focused” on him.
“I had never in my life said to anyone, ‘I’m going to pray a Holy Hour for you,’” Mohr said. “But I believe my prayers can help strengthen our pastor. When he is fortified by prayer, he can do more for others.”
The longtime parishioner is one of seven laywomen at the parish who pray especially for the intentions of Father Hurley as part of a ministry called the Seven Sisters Apostolate. Each has committed to a full year of prayer before the Blessed Sacrament, praying a Holy Hour of their choice on different days of the week.
Laywomen have enthusiastically responded to the call to pray for priests since the San Francisco parish introduced the apostolate four years ago. St. Dominic formed not just the Seven Sisters ‘team’ that supports its pastor, but four others that support the individual priests of the parish and other members of the Dominican community.
St. Dominic was also the springboard for a Seven Sisters team supporting the ministry of San Francisco Archbishop Salvatore J. Cordileone. Today the archbishop has three separate Seven Sisters teams praying for him throughout the Archdiocese, with several members at Church of the Nativity. The Menlo Park parish offers perpetual adoration.
Kathleen Folan, St. Dominic’s director of family and youth ministries, admits that she thought the Seven Sisters Apostolate sounded “a little new age-y,” when she first heard about it. Still, the more she learned of the apostolate formed just over 10 years ago by a laywoman in the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis, the more she saw a Dominican connection and a future for it at her parish.
Before founding the Order of Preachers friars, St. Dominic first set up a monastery of cloistered nuns in Prouilhe, France. He knew that prayer would be needed for this new order to fulfill its missionary role.
“Convents have declined in number, but laywomen are ready and willing to rise to the occasion and fill in the gap as best we can in the midst of our busy lives,” said Folan.
“Priests are always the first targets of demonic attack,” said Eva Muntean, a parishioner at Star of the Sea Parish in San Francisco, who started a Seven Sisters team for Father Joseph Illo, pastor, and parochial vicar Father Michael Konopik. “We must surround them with the armor of our prayers to protect them.”
Full story at Archdiocese of San Francisco.
This fad is spreading in my diocese too. Why so sexist that only women are asked to pray these holy hours? Why not men? What is a woman anyway?
Why don’t you start a group for men?
Maybe if they ordained priests they’d have more priests. I mean if they ordain women priests, I mean.
Nope! no women Catholic priests. Christ was a male, and a Catholic priest is “in persona Christi”. If the Lord had wanted women to be priests, he would have ordained his own mother, the greatest woman of all. “Women priests” would be Anti-Mary.
A book I highly recommend is “The Anti-Mary Exposed, Rescuing the Culture from Toxic Femininity” by Carrie Gress.
The Catholic Church does not have the authority to ordain women. Christ did not give Her that.
I would stick with more traditional books on Mary rather than something like the book you recommend.
The Imitation of Mary is good. Also, St. Louis de Montfort’s True Devotion to Mary.
I have not read this one but it is a classic The Glories of Mary by St. Alphonsus Liguori.
I highly recommend the books Me mentioned in his/her post yesterday at 11:45 pm, too, but the book I mentioned in my first post is especially good for faithful Catholic women to read, so they do not get caught up in the occult and other anti Christian organizations. A warning, though, that it can get somewhat graphic, though not excessively detailed, as to what is going on with the other side. There are no pictures in the book. Strictly straight stuff.
I don’t trust lay people especially women.
A layperson should not be making things up like that there is an anti-Mary. The anti-Christ is mentioned in the Bible. It is taught by the Church.
I have not read the book. I will not read the book.
I hope that it leads no one astray.
The Virgin Mary followed her Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, perfectly as is stated in the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception. Anti-Mary just means anyone who is Anti-Christ.
We have enough feminie priests as it is,,, butches are not welcomed or needed
How about a Seven Brothers Apostale? We men are always left out?
That’s a very good idea. You can start that and I’m sure you could promote it through your diocesan newspaper/website.
“Maybe if they ordained priests they’d have more priests.
I mean if they ordain women priests, I mean.”
Using that logic,
they’d have more “priests”
if they “ordained” hostess twinkies.
Why only seven? Is that the max?
“In 2010, Janette Howe sensed a nudge to pray more frequently and intentionally for her pastor..”
Beginning from her parish, the Apostolate has grown all over the US and some International locations, too
There website is https://sevensistersapostolate.org/
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Fr. John Zuhlsdorf has written about the Seven Sisters Apostolate many times:
https://wdtprs.com/
“In a nutshell, 7 women and perhaps a couple alternates,
commit for 1 year to 1 hour of prayer for 1 priest each week.
Hence, there is a lady on Monday, one on Tuesday, etc.,
ideally in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament.”
https://wdtprs.com/?s=seven+sisters&apbct__email_id__search_form_34649=
https://wdtprs.com/2021/10/update-on-fr-christensen-als-and-seven-sisters-apostolate-good-news/
https://wdtprs.com/2021/10/action-item-fr-dana-christensen-and-seven-sisters-apostolate/
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I don’t know if it is a centralized Apostolate or whether each parish apostolate is independent
but the /sevensistersapostolate.org/ website has a map of all the participating parishes.
A positive example for all of us laypersons in how we can continue to grow in our love of and support for the Church. Bless you.