Mercedarian Formation

After trying several different religious orders and my home diocese, the Mercedarians are the ones who gave me peace and happiness. Now I mean true, deep hearted happiness and peace, not whimsical feelings. And to think it all started with a web search for the Franciscans of the Immaculate in Bloomington, Indiana. Their home page was down so Google gave me a long list of other friars. I scrolled down and picked the most peculiar looking name...Mer-ce-dar-ians. I thought it said, mercenarians...like mercenaries! How often to do you meet one of those in real life? Turns out, they aren't the mercenary at all, but the liberators...the ones who even give their lives to save those in captivity! They are a community dedicated to mercy, hence the name. One might say, they aren't mercenaries, but rather redeemers! They go so far to have a fourth solemn vow of redemption! Under penalty of mortal sin, these consecrated religious profess to give their lives, if necessary, to save those faithful who become captive. This isn't idle talk either; these Mercedarians have over a 100 blood martyrs to attest they live what they profess! How more inspiring could that be?

No matter how inspiring the history was, I had important questions I needed answers to. Was this group faithful or had they gone the course like many orders and compromised the true tradition of the faith. It was important for me to find out especially before getting any more excited. Are they currently faithful to the magisterium and if they had a love and devotion to the Blessed Mother and the Eucharist. A big part of my reversion back to the faith had to do with my annual consecration to Jesus through Mary by the preparation of St. Louis de Montfort. And the prayers to Mary brought me to the Eucharist. I wanted to know if I could still have those essential parts of my faith in a religious order. Their website confirmed they focused on the Blessed Mother and the Eucharist. This was beginning spark my interest even more. I kept reading their site. More later....