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Our heart was made for love. We have an immense need to love. We cannot learn without it. The richer a nature is and the more capable of great things, the more it feels the need of a higher love. There can be no doubt about it. There can be nothing so fine, so potent and so profitable on this earth as a heart completely dominated by the love of God. Our hearts have been consecrated. We have not the right to squander our affections.
Blessed Abbot Columba Marmion, quoted in Archbishop Leonard Blair's Homily
On Saturday, October 20, 2018, the Blessing of Consecration to a Life of Virginity was conferred by His Excellency The Most Reverend Leonard P. Blair, S.T.D., Archbishop of Hartford, upon Mother Ozanne Schumann, Mother Elizabeth Evans, and Mother Angèle Arbib. The Mass was concelebrated by Father Ryan Lerner, the Archbishop's Master of Ceremonies, Father Robert Tucker, Father Douglas Mosey, C.S.B., Father John Young, C.S.C., Father James Nolte, and Father Peter Kucer, M.S.A. Members of the Franciscan Sister of the Eucharist, and the Congregation of the Sisters of St. Joseph with whom we have collaborated for many years, participated in the ceremony. Family members and friends from across the United States and Europe converged at the Abbey to celebrate the Church's blessing on the three Consecrandae (those to be consecrated) for their faithful service in vowed life and mission. In his homily Archbishop Blair called each Consecranda to be a "light of the world" through her Consecration in Religious Life. He urged each one present to ...rejoice in the Lord for his or her calling and the gifts that He gives us to build up the Body of Christ; so that we may be faithful witnesses in the Church, to do Him some service and to be a light for others, the light of the Gospel. After the Mass and ceremony all convened in the Jubilee Barn for lunch and a musical celebration. The blessing before the meal was followed by a joyful rendition of the Spiritual Eyes on the Prize, arranged and directed by Mother Elizabeth and performed by a choir of the Laity and members of the monastic community. Later The Salt & Pepper Gospel Singers of which Mother Elizabeth is a member, sang a medley of Spirituals, directed and accompanied by Ronald Pollard. The delicious lunch, prepared with the help of Abbey friends, especially Sister Grace Edna Rowland, C.S.J., featured Chicken Balthazar and a beautifully-decorated carrot cake made by chef Phil Polzella. The afternoon allowed family and friends to visit with the members of the monastic community and to catch up with those they had not seen for many years. Our guests enjoyed a slideshow and display highlighting the genealogy, monastic life, and mission of each newly-consecrated nun. All were invited to a tour of the New Horizons renovation site to see the progress of the project. At Mass earlier in the day, Archbishop Blair had suggested that ...a spirit of holy joy would permeate the lives of the consecrated nuns and this house of Regina Laudis. A spirit of joy certainly did permeate this unforgettable day.MEET THE NEWLY-CONSECRATED NUNS  Mother Ozanne Schumann (née Elisabeth) was born and grew up in Connecticut, within the Hartford Archdiocese, in Sacred Heart Parish (now part of Christ the King Parish) in the town of Wethersfield. Her father Roy lived there with one of her sisters until his death at the age of 95 on November 7, 2018, less than three weeks after he joyfully participated in the Consecration celebration. Mother Ozanne's other three sisters and two brothers live across Connecticut, save for one in Ohio. Mother Ozanne's mother Ruth died in 1987, not surviving her second coronary bypass surgery.What Mother Ozanne considers most important is her bondedness to the Abbey land and her passion for the life of the land as an expression of the life of God—to celebrate, to steward, and to share the gifts especially of our wilder, native places. This led her, since November 2014, to work with others within the Community, outside professionals, and with the support of a federal grant, to develop a forest management plan for our land. Implementation of the project began in the spring of 2018 with removal of invasive plant species which continues.  The centerpiece and prime objective of the whole project
is to care for and ensure the continuity of our cherished stand of white pines on "The Hill," site of
our church Jesu Fili Mariæ and long considered the heart of our foundation.Mother Ozanne entered Regina Laudis in 1993, a few years after completing a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Photography at the University of Connecticut. After making her First Vows in 2000 she pursued studies in arboriculture and became a licensed arborist. In addition to her work in forest ecology and the care of trees, she works in the kitchen, cultivates a small orchard, is the Abbey's bee keeper, and snowplower. She is intrepid in her encounter with the natural world and the forces of nature, whether tending bees, climbing trees, tracking some of the furthest reaches of our land in forest stewardship, or braving every snowstorm to complete her snowplowing duties, often throughout the whole night. 
Mother Elizabeth Evans (née Monica) grew up in New York City and received her Bachelor’s degree from Sarah Lawrence College, from where she would occasionally visit the Abbey on weekends to hear the community sing Gregorian chant. After college she earned a law degree from Stanford Law School, where she was an associate editor of the Stanford Law Review. She went on to practice corporate and securities law on Wall Street and in San Francisco, and then become a law professor at Santa Clara University in the Bay Area, followed by a licentiate degree in Canon Law at the Catholic University of Louvain in Belgium.The social-justice and racial ferment of the 1990’s—not unlike that of the present time—instilled in her an urge to seek answers and healing impossible to reach in the usual academic or political spheres: she needed to seek on a completely other dimension. Towards this mission she entered the Abbey as a postulant in 1997 and made her Solemn Profession of Vows in 2012, the first  African-American woman to make vows at the Abbey, as she is the first African-American woman in this country to receive the Rite of Consecration to a Life of Virginity. In the community Mother Elizabeth works closely with the Abbey choir and Gregorian chant scholas, as well as with a lay schola focusing on spirituals and freedom songs of the civil rights movement, and she sings with The Salt & Pepper Gospel Singers, an interracial gospel choir. For many years she served the community as a cheesemaker and now she serves as a baker and as a guest mistress. Through these works she hopes to draw out the “voice of God” that is within everyone, truly believing that those voices together can heal a broken soul, and a broken world. 
Mother Angele Arbib (née Joyce) is a Jewish convert to Roman Catholicism. She was born in 1948 to a French mother and Egyptian father who emigrated to the United States from France in 1942. Almost all of her family lives in Paris. She attended Connecticut College and transferred to New York University, graduating with a Bachelor of Arts in 1970.Mother Angele enjoyed a 28-year career as a manager of opera singers at Columbia Artists Management in New York City, a profession she loved and at which she excelled, as music was always important to her. She traveled a great deal during her career to hear performances that are indelibly in her ears and eyes. Fortunately, this also allowed her to see her family and friends in Europe. Mother Angele began coming to Regina Laudis in 1994 and over a 4-year period, found much that she responded to in monastic life. She entered the Catholic Church in April, 1996, and became a postulant at Regina Laudis in November, 1998. As much as she loved her professional career and cherished the friendships that had been forged in New York City, she felt drawn towards the “more” that was calling her to religious life. Mother Angele made her Solemn Profession of Vows in 2012  Most of her work within the Abbey centers around her mission as “monastic agent”, in which she is able to apply many of the skills she learned in her professional life. Her primary works are fundraising and development, as well as being a member of the New Horizons Building Group. She cares for the women’s guest house and for our 18th-century Neapolitan Crèche. She participates in the management of the monastic Art Shop and also coordinates publicity and public relations for the community, which frequently involves writing and editing. HIGHLIGHTS OF THE CONSECRATION CEREMONY LITANY OF THE SAINTS The Consecrandae lie prostrate in the sanctuary surrounded by the Archbishop, concelebrants, community, and congregation, all praying over them and asking for the intercession of the saints on those to be consecrated to God.
RENEWAL OF THE PROMISE OF CHASTITY During a powerful moment in the ceremony, each nun places her hands within the Archbishop's hands and offers herself to God through the Prelate as the representative of Christ.
SOLEMN PRAYER OF CONSECRATION
PRESENTATION OF THE SIGNS OF CONSECRATION After the Prayer of Consecration, each nun receives a ring and is adorned with a beautiful crown of flowers designed specifically for her, both signs of her spousal dedication to Christ. She also receives the Monastic Breviary, the Prayer of the Church, that through her prayer and praise she may intercede for the salvation of the world.
PRAYER COMPOSED BY MOTHER OZANNE, MOTHER ELIZABETH AND MOTHER ANGELE
Lord God, Father of all creation, before the beginning of time you prepared a dwelling place for your Son in the womb of the Blessed Virgin Mary: make us worthy to be a home for those who cry out for healing, that firmly rooted in this land and under the mantle of the Queen of Praise, we may stand together with hearts pierced and open to redemptive love that casts out all fear. Through our Lord Jesus Christ your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, world without end. Amen.
Gallery of Consecration Mass and Ceremony
Gallery of Celebration at the Jubilee Barn
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