March 10, 2026 // Bishop

Moms, Daughters, Religious Gather for ‘Brunch with His Brides’

Andrea Krumanaker

On Saturday, February 28, Bishop Rhoades was joined by 36 religious sisters from 11 communities across seven states as well as approximately 300 mothers and daughters from throughout the Diocese of Fort Wayne-South Bend for the second annual “Brunch with His Brides” celebration.

The event began with an 8:30 a.m. Mass at the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception, celebrated by Bishop Rhoades. After Mass and a group photo on the Cathedral steps, participants processed to the Grand Wayne Center for brunch. Traffic was temporarily blocked to allow the group to walk together downtown.

The event was organized by Lindsey Arnold and a planning team made up of women from parishes across the diocese. Last year marked the first brunch, which was held at St. Vincent de Paul Parish in Fort Wayne. This year, organizers expanded the gathering to welcome more mothers and daughters from across the diocese and to make room for additional religious sisters.

Arnold told Today’s Catholic the team felt prompted to widen the scope of the event in order to offer it to more families and to receive more sisters. She said the collaboration among women from different parishes has been a gift in planning the larger celebration.

During his homily, Bishop Rhoades reflected on Jesus’ words from the Sermon on the Mount: “Be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” The bishop said those words summarize the invitation the Church addresses to the faithful during the season of Lent.

Bishop Rhoades said the three pillars of Lent – prayer, fasting, and almsgiving – are meant to renew the faithful in their daily lives, helping them become more Christ-like in their thoughts, words, and actions, and to help them grow more fully into the stature of Christ.

“It is only in Christ that we can attain that perfection,” Bishop Rhoades said. “He shows us in His real life what that perfection looks like. It’s the perfection of love.”

Holiness, he explained, is the perfection of love. It includes observing the Lord’s commandments with one’s whole heart and soul. Referencing Psalm 119, he noted the blessing given to those who follow the law of the Lord.

Jesus did not come to abolish the law but to fulfill it, Bishop Rhoades said. At the same time, Christ calls His followers to more than external conformity to laws and regulations. He calls them to a deeper righteousness and to what Bishop Rhoades described as a radical interiorization of the law.

That interior transformation includes loving one another as Christ has loved and extends even to loving enemies and praying for persecutors. Such commands, he said, surpass those of the Old Testament and reflect the mercy of the Father.

“Jesus is the perfect image of the Father,” Bishop Rhoades said, citing St. Paul’s Letter to the Colossians and the Gospel of John. “Our Lord shows us what it means to be perfect like our Father in heaven. He shows us how to be fully human the way God made us to be.”

Bishop Rhoades emphasized that the call to holiness is universal and rooted in baptism. It began, he said, when Christians received new life in Christ and became adopted children of God.

Living as God’s children means adopting the mind of Christ, dying to sin and selfishness, carrying the cross, and loving God and neighbor. The Holy Spirit, sent by the Father and the Son, helps believers in that lifelong process of conversion.

Bishop Rhoades connected that universal call to holiness with the particular vocation of consecrated life. Rooted in baptism, consecrated life consists in the profession of the evangelical counsels of poverty, chastity, and obedience.

Quoting Church teaching, he described consecrated life as a way of following Christ more nearly and pursuing the perfection of charity in service of the Kingdom. He noted the significance of the phrase “perfection of charity,” referencing the Church’s teaching on the renewal of religious life.

Consecrated virgins and religious, he said, are to be a living icon of the Church’s identity as the Bride of Christ. By giving up earthly marriage, they profess a perpetual “yes” to Jesus and dedicate their lives in loving devotion to him.

“I thank you for being a prophetic reminder to all of us of our baptismal call to holiness,” Bishop Rhoades told the sisters present.

He concluded by pointing to the Blessed Virgin Mary as the preeminent example of holiness after Christ. She is the most evident example of human perfection in mirroring the heavenly Father and the Church’s greatest model of discipleship, he said.

The brunch event was emceed by Father Brian Isenbarger, pastor of St. Joseph Parish in Garrett, and Father Jake Schneider, parochial vicar at St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Parish in Fort Wayne. Father Daniel Niezer, pastor of St. Dominic Parish in Bremen and the diocese’s promoter of priestly vocations, joined them as well.

Throughout the morning, sisters representing teaching, contemplative, and missionary communities were seated together at the Cathedral before joining families at the Grand Wayne Center for brunch and conversation. Young girls and their mothers had opportunities to meet the sisters and learn about their communities and daily life.

The gathering brought consecrated women and families together in prayer and fellowship, centered on the Eucharist and the shared call to holiness. Organizers said they hope the event continues to grow and encourages openness to religious vocations across the diocese.

The mission of the event, Arnold said, is to create space for young women to witness the joy of religious life and have meaningful encounters that open their heart to the Bridegroom’s voice.

A keynote talk was given by Sister Philomena from the Franciscan Sisters of Renewal in East Harlem, New York. After the keynote and brunch, there were breakout sessions on prayer divided by elementary, middle, and high school led by the religious sisters. There was also an expo where the girls visited with each of the 11 different orders and collected stickers to place on a water bottle that was provided in their bags.

The eleven religious communities represented at Brunch with His Brides were: the Sisters of the Third order of St. Francis from Peoria, Illinois; the Franciscan Sisters of the Renewal from East Harlem, New York; the Dominican Sisters, Immaculate Conception Province, from Justice, Illinois; the Franciscan Daughters of Mary from Covington, Kentucky; the Sisters of Children of Mary from Newark, Ohio; the Religious Sisters of Mercy from Alma, Michigan; the Franciscan Sisters of the Sacred Heart from Frankfort, Illinois; the Sisters of St. Francis of Perpetual Adoration from Mishawaka; the Franciscan Sisters of the Immaculate Heart of Mary from Indianapolis; the Little Nuns from New Orleans; and the Eucharist Missionaries of Nazareth, an order from Spain that will soon be establishing a convent in Fort Wayne.

“The Lord, in His generosity, drew enough brides to the brunch that each table had at least one religious sister sitting at it,” Arnold said.

“The time around the tables offered a great chance for the conversations to go a little deeper, and the moms and daughters were able to make real connections with the sisters.”