REDEMPTORISTINE NUNS of NEW YORK, Inc.

We celebrate the feast day  of Blessed Maria Celeste Crostarosa, foundress of the Redemptoristine Nuns, on September 11.

Bl. Celeste was born on October 31, 1696, in the same city, Naples, and a month after St. Alphonsus, yet they did not meet until they met in Scala, Italy in 1730. 
 
Celeste was a vivacious child, the tenth of twelve children, whose parents taught them all to pray and love God with all their heart.  At the age of six she began to experience an unusual intimacy a sweet, secret companion.  Jesus had invited her to love Him alone and Celeste longed to serve Him                                                                        all the days of her life. 

Celeste began her religious life as a Carmelite after persuading her mother to allow her to enter that monastery during a simple friendly visit.   Six years later that monastery was dissolved.  At the age of 27, Celeste then enter a monastery in Scala in 1724.  While she was a novice the Lord appeared to her during Holy Communion and dictated to her a new Rule for the Sisters that their lives would be a Living Memory of the work of salvation which He accomplished out of love for all humankind.

This was met by incredulity by the community and they called her a troublemaker filled with illusions.  Nevertheless, Sr. M. Celeste made her profession in 1730 and final approval for the new Rule was given in 1731 after a young priest and canon lawyer, Alphonsus Liguori, declared Celeste visions authentic and the Rule inspired by the Lord. 

Later that year, Celeste had another revelation: She saw Christ with
St. Francis of Assisi and Alphonsus conversing and heard the words,
“Go and preach to every creature that the Kingdom of God has come upon you.”  Sr. Celeste shared this with Fr. Alphonsus and encouraged him to follow his heart in beginning the Congregation of the Redemptorists.  In 1732, the Congregation was founded and its first house was situated in the corner of the Redemptoristine property in Scala.

Sadly, three years later, Celeste was expelled from the monastery because of grave matters of conscience.  In liberty of conscience, she could not follow dictates contrary to the inspirations revealed to her by her Savior.   After helping reform another monastery that had grown lax in the life of holiness, Celeste began her own monastery in 1738 in Foggia, finally putting into practice the new Rule of the Order of Redemptoristine Nuns.   There, St. Alphonsus, in an extraordinary move, sent the young Redemptorist Brother Gerard Majella to be the community’s spiritual director. 

On September 14, 1755, Mother Celeste died on the Feast of the Triumph of the Cross at the age of 58.  St. Gerard, on his own deathbed, cried out, “I have just seen the soul of Mother Celeste wing its flight to heaven live a dove, to receive there the reward she has merited through her great love of Jesus and Mary!”

Thanks to the assistance of St. Alphonsus and St. Gerard, the monasteries grew during her life and after Celeste’s death.  In 1762, when Alphonsus became bishop of St. Agata di Goti, he invited the nuns to make a foundation in his diocese.

During Bl. Maria Celeste’s life, she abandoned herself to the powerful call to holiness and mystical marriage to Christ. She enjoyed supernatural gifts throughout her life and readily shared her Dialogues with her Beloved, her Autobiography, reflections on the scriptures and poems.   By Bl. Celeste’s mystical experiences, she guided the life of the nuns to be a living memorial of Christ’s redemptive love for all humankind.  The Incarnation, the Eucharist, the Cross and devotion to the most Blessed Virgin Mary were her daily contemplation.   It allowed her to peacefully face, not only the struggles of daily life, but the numerous obstacles and trials she endured over the years.  The humiliations she bore only strengthened her conviction to follow more faithfully and generously in God plan of love. To this day, Bl. Maria Celeste Crostarosa shines brightly as a foundress, a woman of prayer, a witness to liberty of conscience and mystic.

On June 18, 2016, Maria Celeste Crostarosa was declared a Blessed in Foggia, Italy.  

"Life for me is Christ." Phil1:21

Redemptoristine Nuns are a worldwide monastic contemplative Order who strive to be a living memorial, an active participant of Jesus life in today’s Church for the salvation of the world.  The Sisters celebrate this life of prayer, praise and intercession in the name of all, and in support of the missionary activity of the Redemptorist priests and brothers.