The gathering begins
Our youngest partner
Meeting for the first time
Reconnecting with partners from last year
Gathering in the dining room for introductions
Prayer begins
A moment of silence
Many are chanting for the first time
Prayers are offered for a blessed year
Final blessing of all the partners
Today and tomorrow I am spending all day and night at the Kansas State Fair in Hutchinson. Several communities are co-sponsoring a booth "The Catholic Sisters of Kansas". It is always a wonderful chance to meet a wide variety of people, pass out some pencils and holy cards and offer a book for people to write prayer requests that are passed on to all the different communities. Each community has two full days that they are in charge of the booth. Sr. Rosann and I have gone together the past several years and have a really lovely time. Above is a photo of me standing next to the wheel that people spin for a holy card or pencil.
This is a live owl that was at one of the booths in a nearby building.
This is a sculpture made completely out of butter. The theme this year was
"Check Out the Stud"
Finally, I thought I would attach a couple little video clips of the pig races I attended - who would have thought those little guys could run so fast! The winner received an oreo cookie so I guess that was great motivation.
This weekend I spent some time out at our lake house. The house is about 7 miles outside of Atchison and has a wonderful picture window that overlooks a very little lake . While it is always wonderful to have a relaxing weekend and enjoy the nature that wanders by, this weekend was particularly wonderful in that there was a flock of about 40 pelicans that were hanging out on the lake.Now for those of you who may be confused (as I was my first fall in Atchison) apparently American white pelicans spend their summers in wet prairies and marshes and Atchison is right on the migration path of a group of pelicans as they head to their winter lodgings. Every year they stop on by for a rest on our little lake. They were quite a wonder to behold.
This morning at prayers, the Feast of the Triumph of the Cross, I started thinking about what an appropriate weekend for the pelicans to show up. The pelican, for those of you who don't know, is a common Christian symbol. Legend has it that, in times of famine, a mother pelican will pluck her own breast and feed her young with her blood, resulting in her death. The pelican is thus an apt symbol for the crucifixion of Christ, which he suffered willingly for the sake of the church.
How interesting that on this Feast Day the pelican should show up to remind us the beauty in giving of ourselves for others. A great reminder for us all.
Over the weekend, our community had the opportunity to preview a documentary that will be shown on September 13 on ABC (this may vary according to your location). The documentary is called "Interrupted Lives: Catholic Sisters Under European Communism"
It was a powerful documentary on the situation faced by many women religious after WWII in the Communist occupied countries. Here is a description taken from their website:
Interrupted Lives: Catholic Sisters Under European Communism is a one-hour TV documentary that explores the oppression of Catholic Sisters in Eastern Europe under Soviet domination. This period began in 1948 after World War 2 ended and lasted roughly until the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989.
During this 40-year period, the Catholic Church as well as other religions were harassed, suppressed and driven underground by the atheistic Soviet regimes across various European countries. However, this documentary will focus specifically on the plight of Roman Catholic and Greek Catholic Sisters whose schools, hospitals and motherhouses were seized; who were forbidden to meet publicly or privately and accept new members; who were forced to work on farms or factories when they were no longer allowed to serve as teachers or nurses for fear of “contaminating” others with their beliefs; who were imprisoned or sent in exile to Siberia and other camps as political punishment for resistance; who were forbidden to wear their community habits and veils; whose convents were seized by the state; who were forced to live secretly in ones and twos in apartments as laywomen; and who were kept segregated in “concentration convents” with limited access to family and friends. Many Sisters suffered imprisonment, exile, torture, deportations and surveillance during this period.
The program will make extensive use of interviews with the Sisters who endured this treatment for over 40 years. Many of these “Sisters Survivors” (now in their 80s and 90s) offer amazing stories of courage and fidelity in the face of this bleak political repression. The producers have made two trips to Eastern Europe, visiting Lithuania, Ukraine, Hungary, Romania and Slovakia to conduct interviews and shoot video footage at the convents, monasteries, schools, motherhouses, prisons and concentration convents where the experiences took place.
Concordia, Kansas Sisters of St. Joseph Margaret Nacke, CSJ and Mary Savoie, CSJ, who have been collecting testimonies and researching the experiences of Eastern European Sisters for about 5 years, serve as executive producers of the program. Sylvania, OH Franciscan Sister Judy Zielinski, a documentary filmmaker on staff at NewGroup Media in South Bend, IN, is writing and producing the program.
Interrupted Lives has been selected by the US Catholic Bishops’ Communications Department as one of its 2009 programs for the Interfaith Broadcast Commission TV series and is slated to air on ABC affiliates in the fall. Dates and air times have not yet been announced.
It is a difficult subject to watch but the story is one I am sure many people are completely unfamiliar with.
Well I am not one who usually likes spiders. OK to be perfectly honest I really don't like spiders at all. They are the one thing that really creeps me out. But one morning early this summer, I walked into my office to find this really cool spider web between my screen and my window. If you can not tell from the photos, it is this wonderfully beautiful tunnel that is in an interesting "V" shape.
Since I really admired the beauty of the web, I had a little chat with the spider (through the glass of course) that if it stayed in that designated location, I would allow it to stay. Well throughout the summer the web has changed and grown in many different ways and it is always one of the first things I notice as I walk into my office. I believe the spider has enjoyed the location as well for there seems to be quite a few bugs that fly outside my second story window.
But as we all know time moves on and with fall creeping into our weather in Atchison, I am to the point of opening up my windows to let the cool breeze in my office, which means my little office companion will have to find a new home. So this afternoon, Sr. Elizabeth is going to relocate my office companion to a new location. (She is good at things involving spiders and other creepy crawly things). So in tribute to my spider and the unique beauty it has brought to my world, I have returned to the world of the blog with a new determination to blog weekly. Feel free to remind me if I forget.
How good God is to bring beauty into our lives in many unexpected ways!
Climbing a tree in Ava, MO
Cross at the outdoor amphitheatre
Field where I first heard my call - except it was late at night and under the stars
Altar by the water
Window in the indoor chapel
A bit after returning from San Antonio, I traveled to Ava, MO to a Trappist monastery for a gathering of Benedictine Vocation Directors. It was a great meeting and it also gave me the opportunity to experience prayer in the middle of the night. Each night the Trappists rise at 3:15 for 3:30 am prayers. The prayers where sung in the dark at first for the first 1/2 hour and then the lights were turned on for the last 1/2 hour of prayer. I found that I loved this prayer time. I decided that this prayer was so different because my brain was still asleep and so I could enter into the prayer without the inner thoughts that sometimes distract me or break into my mind. It was a very different experience of prayer but one that I loved.
After our meeting, we took some time to visit the monastery's fruitcake shop and then later we took a side trip to the house of Laura Ingalls Wilder. Below are some photos from this trip.
Fruitcake made in Ava, MO
House Almonzo built for Laura after their house burned down - Rose grew up here.
Finally, a couple weeks ago I went on a trip to Copper Canyon with my Dad and his siblings. My Aunt Sis turned 80 and for her birthday celebration, she wanted to take this trip and I was invited along. It was a beautiful train ride through some really amazing parts of Mexico. On the trip, I saw some awe-inspiring views. It was a great chance to see a canyon that is even larger than the Grand Canyon, to spend some time with my dad and his siblings and to be grateful for the amazing gifts that God has given this world. Here are a few pictures from our trip.
Aunt Sis and Dad
Copper Canyon
El Fuerte Hotel - view from my room
From the top of the Canyon - I loved this tree!
So those are a few of my most recent adventures. This week I am glad to be home and ready for the wonderful liturgies that Holy Week has to offer. Have a peaceful and blessed Triduum.
Lately I have been thinking a great deal about music. Some of my earliest memories involve music. I have always surrounded myself with a varied assortment of music and I usually have some music playing in the background. When I remember major events of my life, I usually have a song that is connected with that memory. I have also been gifted with the ability to memorize and retain the lyrics to songs very quickly. So music has always been a significant part of my life.This Christmas a friend of mine received a turntable that plugs into his computer and converts old albums into digital recordings. One of the first albums he converted was Aurora by Gene Klosner and Brad Colerick. Gene is a friend of ours and when I was in high school this was one of my favorite albums - I listened to it over and over (as you do with favorite albums). When I received a digital copy of my old album, I was interested in rehearing the old songs that were some of my favorites. As I listened to the old songs with "new ears" and many more years of life behind me, I found it interesting that my favorite songs all contained themes that I find each day in the psalms.
The song Aurora speaks of the appreciation of God's creation, Just Because speaks of unconditional love, Secret Places speaks of finding those quiet silent places in life and the peace those places bring and Paradise Beware is pure shared gratitude . Listening to these songs got me reflecting back on the songs that have touched my heart throughout my life. As I started listing my favorite songs over the years, I was surprised to see just how many of them held those familiar theme that I find each day in the psalms we pray.
I found it amusing that in looking back, God had been planting the seeds of love for the psalms in my heart from the youngest age. Over and over the songs that had meant the most to me were songs that speak parallel messages to the psalms. That love of the psalms seems to have been there from the beginning it just took me a while to make the connection and find my way to them. I am glad that God was so patient! May the sounds of music and the psalms continue to draw us all closer to God.
