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November 26, 2019By Christina Galeone
CFP Correspondent
WORCESTER – Before Mother Miriam of the Lamb of God became the Benedictine she is today, she was Rosalind Moss, a girl who grew up in a traditional Jewish home in New York.
So, when she was around 20-years-old and felt wounded upon hearing that the Catholic Church had allowed nuns to modify their habits, she didn’t exactly know why.
But after years of transformations, the woman who loves being a sign of God now understands. In 2008, at the invitation of Cardinal (then Archbishop) Raymond Burke, she founded the Daughters of Mary, Mother of Israel’s Hope. The contemplative-active Benedictine community of religious sisters seeks to help restore God’s design for the family. Through speaking at conferences and retreats and on EWTN’s “Catholic Answers Live” and Immaculate Heart Radio, she’s seeking to fulfill the community’s mission to bring “the life-giving message of God’s healing, forgiving love and mercy to every soul.” At the diocese’s women’s conference Saturday at Assumption College, she shared her journey to the Catholic faith.
With warmth and humor woven throughout her talk, she began by recounting fond childhood memories of celebrating Passover with her family in a 12th floor apartment in Brooklyn. She noted that one tradition was to leave an empty chair for the Messiah, and a family member would check to see if he had arrived. When she was 11-years-old and it was her turn to check, she was relieved that he wasn’t there.
She then spoke about how her brother’s faith dissolved to the point of atheism – until he began to learn about Jesus. When she was in her early 30s, her brother read an article to her about Jewish people in California who believed that Jesus is the Messiah. Although she couldn’t understand how that was possible, the next year she moved to California and discretely approached a man wearing a “Jews for Jesus” shirt.
The man gave her a card which said that if being born didn’t give people purpose in life, they should try being born again.
“I thought if there was any truth to this, maybe I’d start all over again and have a purpose,” Mother Miriam confided. But, she added, “I would only want to live for something that’s worth dying for, or why bother?”
That led her to ask why Jesus died for us. She said that over the course of two hours, in a restaurant in Santa Monica, about 12 Jews for Jesus articulately answered her question by citing Bible passages. They helped her to understand that although no man could become God, God could become a man. They also helped her to see that the blood of all the lambs Jewish people had sacrificed couldn’t wash away their sins, but the blood of the Lamb of God could.
She tenderly explained her conversion and how everything seemed new to her, even enjoying an ice cream cone – because it was the first one she could share as a Christian with Jesus.
She remained an evangelical Protestant for 18 years until her brother – who had become a Catholic – introduced her to Catholic apologetics. Her interest in the Catholic Church grew after listening to an audiobook by Scott Hahn, a Catholic theologian, author and teacher. After Bible study, discussion and prayer, she eventually embraced the Catholic faith and the Eucharist.
“If I could crawl up on the cross with him, would I not do that?” Mother Miriam asked. She added, “Through the Eucharist, that sacrifice is brought to us, and we can crawl up on the cross with him.”
She concluded by pleading with mothers to raise their children to be “in the world and not of it.”
“We just need to be Christ in the world,” she said. “Hold nothing back from God from this moment on.”
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