This year we are commemorating 65 years of our ministry in Southern Florida and our presence in the Archdiocese of Miami. The eight sisters in our Miami community gathered with friends and collaborators at Our Lady of Guadalupe Parish on November 3, 2024 for a Mass of thanksgiving celebrated by Archbishop Thomas Wenski.
How we ended up opening a Pauline Book Center in Miami is one of those improbable yet stupendous miracles of Divine Providence. In 1959, the year that the diocese of Miami was founded, Sister Mary Thecla and Sister Mary Paula were attending a catechetical convention for Catholic schools at the Golden Hotel. After meeting them, Bishop Coleman Carroll expressed his desire to bring women’s religious communities into the diocese. Venerable Mother Thecla, our co-foundress, was visiting our American province and happened to be that day at our motherhouse in Boston. Within hours she was on a plane to Miami to meet with the bishop, and from that moment on Miami has opened its arms to the daughters of St. Paul. Over the decades we have shared the Gospel in so many ways: in our Book Center, through our Paulinas Distribution Center, on the radio, through parish missions and formation programs, and door to door evangelization.
Sister Patricia Thomas Lane is one of the newest members of the Miami community. “I’ve been stationed in Miami for nine months,” she said, “and what I love most is the energetic, warm-hearted, devoted way people live their Catholic faith here.”
Our book center in Sweetwater, Florida, affectionately referred to by locals as “Las Paulinas” has been a place of encounter for so many people. Besides the large selection of titles in English and Spanish, and a bi-lingual staff, the sisters and lay collaborators have hosted many events including prayer, talks, workshops… the most famous being the Annual Baby Jesus Party Miami style with live music. For a number of years our Miami Book Center was known to college students, young adults, and seminarians for its Paulinas Coffee House.
Sister Maria Elizabeth Borobia has spent many years as a missionary here in Miami. She recalls: “My first assignment in Miami in the late 1980’s, when I was a novice, was such a gift. I got to know so many Cuban, Haitian and Nicaraguan families and learn of their experiences as immigrants fleeing difficult and dangerous situations. In these past 15 years there have been a greater number of people from Venezuela, Colombia, Mexico, and a new influx from Nicaragua with the repression happening there. What has most impressed me—then and now—is the passion of so many Hispanic people to deepen their faith and to share the Gospel, good spiritual reading, and the faith with their families, friends, and neighbors. Evangelization and creating community is in the DNA of Miami Hispanics! There is a saying that Miami is like being in a different country! The Archbishop often jokes that Miami is the nearest country to the USA.”
“I love living in such an international city,” said Sister Irene Regina, who can often be found in the Book Center. “Interculturality is the name of the game here. I find it so interesting to meet people from all over Central and South America.”
In 1996, as a way to provide faith resources in Spanish and make these more available to book stores and parishes serving Spanish-speaking families throughout the USA, the sisters began Paulinas Spanish Distribution Center, based in Miami.
No matter what language a Daughter of St. Paul uses to announce the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the hope that he brings to all of us, our words spring from one foundation: love. Mother Thecla Merlo once wrote: “When our hearts are filled with the love of God, this love necessarily overflows onto the world.”
In his homily for the Mass of thanksgiving, Bishop Thomas Wenski highlighted our religious consecration with these words: “In a way, we could say that as consecrated women you represent the Church ‘concentrated,’ for you give the entire Christian community a unique witness to the implications of our own baptismal call to holiness. Sisters, your consecrated life is a gift to the Church that makes manifest the striving of the whole Church as Bride towards union with her one Spouse, Jesus. In other words, your love has overflowed into our world here in the Archdiocese of Miami.”
The community in Miami is looking forward to the next sixty-five years, giving attention to the Pauline Cooperators. Sister Irene Regina reflected, “We know that bringing together the gifts and spiritual resources of both religious and laity in the Pauline Charism is so important. Pauline Laity collaborate in the Pauline mission because they know from their own experience that today there is such an urgent need for evangelization and hope. Through the Pauline Charism and sharing in our spirituality they find support in deepening their own spiritual life.”
The heart of a Daughter of St. Paul is never satisfied with what has been accomplished. She remains rooted in Saint Paul’s desire to always strain ahead, offering the hope that Jesus alone can bring about in our hearts and in the world: “Forgetting what lies behind but straining forward to what lies ahead, I continue my pursuit toward the goal, the prize of God’s upward calling in Christ Jesus” (Phil 3:13-14).
Read about the Anniversary Celebration: “Your Love Has Overflowed into Our World,” by Emily Chaffins, in FloridaCatholic.
