These are copies of our past newsletters. To sign up to receive them, please visit our Contact Us page!
March 4, 2024:
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13 February, 2024:
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January 12, 2023:
| “Have patience with all things, but chiefly have patience with yourself. Do not lose courage in considering your own imperfections but instantly set about remedying them—every day begin the task anew.” – St. Francis de Sales
Merry Christmas and Happy 2023! In January I often reflect on the past year and think about what I’d like to do differently in the new year. Many things come to mind regarding topics such as prayer, relationships and personal growth. When I do this, I recall feedback I’ve received and take that into account as I consider potential changes. One surprising bit of information I’ve gotten from some of you (dear newsletter readers) is that you would like this newsletter to come out more often! As a result, I will send out the newsletter with better regularity in 2023. Please let me know what you think :) The year 2022 saw an increase in engagement in our online activities for women who have been in religious life. It’s been so much fun to get to know more of you! And we have some awesome things planned for 2023. These opportunities for community are private (so we can have a safe space for the women we serve). If you’re a women who has been in religious life (recently or even it’s been awhile) and you would like to connect with others, please send us a message and let us know you’re interested in online and other events. Thank you so much for your care, interest and support. Know that you are in my prayers. Sincerely, Prayer Requests: Thank you for keeping Leonie’s Longing, the Board members, volunteers and special intentions in your prayers. Please keep our anonymous survey takers and the following people from around the world in your prayers: Sofia
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Dear <<First Name>>,
February 28, 2022:
| “…those who are on a rugged, slippery road hold on to one another in order to walk more safely.” St. Francis de Sales  Dear <<First Name>>,Penny here, aka ‘that wacky Elder-Millennial Australian who managed the Leonie’s Longing blog for as long as anyone can remember.’
As of the beginning this year, however, I’ve officially hung up my blogmistress hat (or @!) and stepped into more of a background role with LL. It’s fairly well-known around these parts that I haven’t been in top form for a while – I wrote a post for the blog in 2019 on living with chronic illness, which you can find here – and it was well and truly time to for me to pass on responsibility for the blog to someone who could give this wonderful apostolate the time and energy it deserves. That ‘someone’ is our longtime volunteer Cate! She will introduce herself in this newsletter as well, although many of you will already know her from her involvement in the broader Leonie’s Longing community. Thank you, Cate, for taking on the blogmistress role and getting off to such a great start! I’ll still be pottering around our virtual domain doing admin jobs (and, as Theresa puts it, performing the Vice President’s primary job of ‘keeping the President sane’ – which is an interesting task to assign to me, because I myself am not particularly famous for my sanity!) and helping out in various ways. The official blogcontent@leonieslonging.org email now goes to Cate (although I can still see incoming emails for the time being), so if you ever feel like saying hello to me directly, I can be found at penny@leonieslonging.org. Thank you to everyone I’ve worked with during my time as blogmistress – LL volunteers, blog writers, and all those who have contacted me with feedback, ideas, and friendship from my stumbling early days (when, in one particularly memorable moment, I accidentally deleted most of the photo gallery from the WordPress site, leaving a trail of broken image links that we were still finding years afterwards) up to now. Thank you for entrusting me with your stories; joyful, sorrowful, and glorious, I treasure every one. Love, Penny
I spent my late teens and 20s living and discerning consecrated life. I’ve also served as a missionary in Mexico and Peru. The transition out of my community was challenging, and finding LL has been a wonderful part of the healing journey. I gained some design and technology experience while working in ministry, and God opened doors for me to work as a graphic designer once I re-entered the world. I’ve grown a lot since that first job, and I currently manage the media department for a Catholic mission organization. I got married last year (on the feast of St. Therese), which in itself is a testament to God’s grace and healing power. As I continue to share my time and talents with Leonie’s Longing, I’m excited to post blogs from our wonderful writers regularly with you all, and hopefully write a few of my own. Please pray for me and also reach out if you have a blog or an idea to share. I’d love to hear from you! Sincerely, Prayer Requests: Thank you for keeping Leonie’s Longing, the Board members, volunteers, and special intentions in your prayers. Please keep our anonymous survey takers and the following people from around the world in your prayers: Amanda H Theresa A |
Hi, I’m Cate Broadbent, and I’m excited to be serving as blogmistress for Leonie’s Longing! My experience along the way has prepared me for this role, and I’m grateful for an opportunity to serve a population of women that I can relate to so well.
November 23, 2021:
| Dear <<First Name>>,
In the United States we are preparing to celebrate Thanksgiving. It’s a wonderful reminder to show gratitude and reflect on the many blessings in our lives. 2021 has been an interesting year for many of us around the world. It has caused us to change how we live and encouraged us to reassess our lives. Even with the challenges we’ve had, God has blessed Leonie’s Longing. For instance, this year we have fresh content and new initiatives You may recall that we had a summer intern (Abbie Anne) who began creating a mental health section of the website. Check it out at https://leonieslonging.org/mental-health/ We’ve also had a few motivated individuals start online video chats as a way to connect with one another. (If you’re a woman who has been in religious life and would like to join us, please send me an email) We are busy planning for 2022 and we look forward to what the new year will bring. Please keep us in your prayers! In the spirit of the season, here are a few things I have in mind for Thanksgiving: First, I am incredibly grateful for YOU for subscribing to our newsletter, keeping up with our apostolate and praying for us. WOW! Next, our volunteers and board members are amazing. This work would come to an immediate halt without their hard work, dedication and prayers. Finally, thank you to our donors. One-time and monthly contributions help pay for recurring expenses and special projects. On that note, please consider donating. Partnering with us during this giving season will help us plan for 2022. Blessed Solaus Casey said, “Thank God ahead of time.” In that spirit, thank you in advance for your generosity. Sincerely, Theresa Jasko Prayer Requests: Thank you for keeping Leonie’s Longing, the Board members, volunteers, and special intentions in your prayers. Please keep our anonymous survey takers and the following people from around the world in your prayers: Mary B |
June 11, 2021:
 “There is in the Sacred Heart the symbol and express image of the infinite love of Jesus Christ which moves us to love in return.”Pope Leo XIIIDear <<First Name>>, Happy Feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus! This feast day is especially touching for myself, as it was the feast of my Novitiate. I have always found comfort being ever so close to the pierced, and merciful Sacred Heart. It is His love and peace that we are invited to share in each and every day. As the summer days go by, I am reminded of His love so frequently in the smallest, most beautiful ways. Whether that be a golden sunset or a small flower, each are gifts from the Lord for his beloved: YOU! It is so important that we recognize these blessings amongst our busy days. Speaking of busy days, how are you doing? It is good to check in with ourselves a few times a week to evaluate how things are going. Have you engaged in some self-care? In order to maintain our physical and mental health, we need to ensure that our needs are being met physically, emotionally, psychologically, and spiritually. However, this does not look the same for everyone. Below are a few ideas to help get you started:
My prayer for you this month is that you allow yourself to experience the comfort and peace that is awaiting you. It doesn’t matter if you pray every day, or you haven’t prayed in years: He is still there, and oh, how he loves you. St. John Neumann and St. Margaret of Castello, pray for us! Many blessings, Abbie Anne Prayer Requests: Thank you for keeping Leonie’s Longing, the Board members, volunteers, and special intentions in your prayers. Please keep our anonymous survey takers and the following people in your prayers: MIT SD |
April 29, 2021:
| “Nothing great is achieved without much enduring.” St. Catherine of Siena  Dear <<First Name>>, Happy Feast of St. Catherine of Siena!
Did you know that our blog officially launched on April 29, 2013? As a result, St. Catherine of Siena is one of our patronesses! Please take a moment and ask her to intercede for our apostolate, our volunteers and the people that we serve. St. Catherine of Siena, pray for us! The Northern Hemisphere is eagerly anticipating Summer and that means I am able to make an exciting announcement: We have the great privilege of having a Summer Intern! Abbie Anne will be helping with a variety of projects, many revolving around mental health. I ask that you please pray for her and for our team as we chart our goals and move forward. You will hear from her soon and have a chance to “get to know” her. In the meantime, please keep Abbie Anne in your prayers :) Finally, I would like to particularly thank our financial supporters. Because of your generosity, we’ve been able to upgrade plugins on the website and purchase some tools which are very helpful to our apostolate. Thank you so much! Thank you again for all of your support and prayers. We could not accomplish anything without you all praying for us. May God bless you! Sincerely, Prayer Requests: Thank you for keeping Leonie’s Longing, the Board members, volunteers, and special intentions in your prayers. Please keep our anonymous survey takers and the following people in your prayers: PM DA |
March 1, 2021:
| I believed, even when I said, “I am greatly afflicted.” Psalm 116:10 
Dear <<First Name>>, You’re invited to an event we are having in two days! Our wonderful volunteer Ryan has organized a “Fireside Chat” to talk about careers and career growth. Wednesday March 3 at 7:00 pm EST In this chat, we’ll cover:
Then we’ll open it up for discussion. If you aren’t currently seeking a job, I am sure you know someone who has been in religious life and is seeking assistance. Please forward this information along to that person! In the meantime, you can get to know a little more about Ryan by reading this blog https://leonieslonging.org/2018/09/14/introducing-career-coaching/ I hope you see you in two days! Sincerely, |
October 1, 2020:
| “I haven’t been forbidden to come to you, and even though I should die of it, I want to console you.” St. Therese to Sr. Marie of the Trinity Last Conversations page 265 Dear <<First Name>>, Happy Feast of Saint Thérèse! Several weeks ago, Theresa emailed me to ask whether I’d be interested in writing something for the newsletter on the Feast of Saint Thérèse. Sure, I said cheerfully. I can do that, no worries! Multiple discarded drafts and one looming deadline later, I figured out why I was having so much trouble getting anything down on paper: because there’s virtually nothing left to say at this point that’s not a cliché. Challenging times. Economic uncertainty. Social isolation. Face masks. Zoom meetings. New normal. Thoughts and prayers. And my least favourite of all time: We’re all in this together! Actually, forget clichés: they’ve all taken the next evolutionary step (remember when going outdoors to catch Pokémon and get them to evolve was a thing?) and become memes. Thousands upon thousands upon thousands of memes. Well, what else do you get when self-deprecating Millennial humour meets existential dread and despair? Pretty much anything I can think of to say has already been said by Bad Luck Brian, Conspiracy Keanu, Distracted Boyfriend and Socially Awkward Penguin, and the underlying truth is that we’re all just tired to our bones and longing for the crisis to be over. If you’re reading this, though, the most important thing I have to say is thank you for sticking with us! We’ve had a hard year at Leonie’s Longing with volunteers falling seriously ill, WordPress updates playing havoc with our posts, and… yeah, all of that other ten-plagues-of-Egypt stuff that’s happened so far in 2020. We’ve had some wonderful highlights – most notably, I was interviewed about our apostolate by by Simcha Fisher for America magazine, and Sister Rose Pacatte FSP brought a tidal wave of new readers to our website in August with her beautiful post about seeing other women leave the convent – but mostly things have been pretty slow around these parts. I’m speaking for myself here by and large, but I’m sure Theresa and Rob will agree: you, the women who write to us and for us, who lurk on our social media and recommend us to your friends, and who donate money and respond to our calls for assistance, are the reason we’ve kept stumbling onward with this apostolate throughout a difficult year, and your support and prayers have been the greatest encouragement we could have asked for. And to those who have just joined us: welcome to LL! Whatever you’re looking for, from practical advice to spiritual and emotional support, we hope you’ll find it here. … Does this sound like the kind of letter I’d normally write at the end of December to farewell the old year and ring in the new? Actually, it probably does. And I’ve decided I don’t care: we’re all in a weird vortex where normal time doesn’t exist, and that means now is as good an opportunity as any to thank you, wish you all the very best over the next few months, and assure your of our continued prayers for your safety and happiness! With love, Penny. PS: The blog’s pretty quiet at the moment. This can be fixed! Please feel free to write to me on blogcontent@leonieslonging.org with any ideas or drafts for posts, and I’ll be delighted to hear from you! Prayer Requests: Thank you for keeping Leonie’s Longing, the Board members, volunteers, and special intentions in your prayers. Please keep our anonymous survey takers and the following people in your prayers: CD LG |
September 2020:
 Dear <<First Name>>, Happy Memorial of Our Lady of Sorrows!
Perhaps you are wondering, should we actually celebrate Our Lady of Sorrows? I say yes. When I experience sorrow, I always appreciate feeling that someone else understands. And no one understands like Mary. Moreover, meditating upon Our Lady’s suffering draws us closer to Her Beloved Son and conforms our heart to Christ, which is our ultimate goal. You can pray the Litany of the Seven Sorrows here. Also, many of the titles for the Mater Dolorosa are especially appropriate during these times. I especially love Medicine of the Sick, Refuge of the Abandoned and Comfort of Widows. On a related note, even before the COVID-19 lock downs started, researchers noted an epidemic of loneliness, particularly in the Western world. This has now exploded because of all of the forced isolation and other factors. I wrote a blog earlier this year encouraging everyone to reach out to anyone they know who may be lonely and vulnerable. Please take a moment (even right now!) and reach out to a friend or family member who comes to mind as you read this. Christians are called to community and it is incredibly difficult for those who are single and/or live alone to have community during these times. Let’s pray for each other and seek opportunities to love others better. Thank you again for all of your support and prayers. We could not accomplish anything without you all praying for us. May God bless you! Sincerely, Prayer Requests: Thank you for keeping Leonie’s Longing, the Board members, volunteers, and special intentions in your prayers. Please keep our anonymous survey takers and the following people in your prayers: MG MP |
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