New Year Thoughts

The new year is coming.  I find this very hard to believe, but it's also an opportunity to pause and reflect on where we've been and where we hope to go.

2011 has held many blessings for me.  My final profession of vows.  Spending time with my father, some of my siblings and their offspring, community and friends.  Good work, lots of learning, and fun.  It's been a year of growth and possibilities.

As I look forward to 2012, I pause to give thanks for all the graces that this year has offered.  I pause to recognize the challenges, and give thanks for God's presence through the mix of it all.  God is very good.

What are you grateful for as this year comes to a close?

Merry Christmas!

A repost of a video prayer I put together a few years ago to "Only at Christmastime" by Sufjan Stevens.

Margaret Anna Fridays - Christmas Eve Eve edition

Most Fridays, I’m going to share a quote from the founder of my groovy sisters, Margaret Anna Cusack, known in religion as Mother Francis Clare.  Today's installment:

Oh, how blessedly near is His advent! Today we are decking our houses for His divine visit; let us not forget to deck our hearts.  Let us sweep out every imperfection, every imperfect disposition, every wandering thought, with the besom of penance, and adorn ourselves with the fair bright flowers of contrition and love. To-morrow our Infant King will come.  Are we prepared to receive Him? Have we all teh love ready for him we should like to offer him? ~ M.F. Cusack,Meditations for Advent & Easter, 1866

Bugs, Simplicity & Christmas

I've been a little under the weather with a yucky bug, but am happily on the mend after lots of sleep.  Thankfully I simplified Christmas preparations in my life years ago or else I'd be in big trouble as I've been capable of little this week. Donations have been made.  Christmas cards I'm afraid will need to be skipped this year.  A few presents for family.  Ta Da!  Done. :)  I love a simple Christmas.

Tomorrow morning I am flying south to visit my oldest sister and her family for the long Christmas weekend.  Marie inherited many of our family decorations so it will be a little bit of a walk down memory lane.  I'm really looking forward to quality time with my nieces!  I know there will be coloring with the 5 year old, and hopefully some Christmas cookie baking as well.

Merry Almost christmas!

Decorating Grace House

Grace House is decorated for Christmas!  One of my housemates is on retreat this week but my other housemate and I had fun this morning decorating the house while we listened to Christmas music (including Sufjan Stevens of the video clip below).

I put out my manger set this year.  Past years I haven't put it out because one of my housemates had her own quite substantial collection of nativity sets and it just seemed like to much to add one more.  She's moved though, so I put mine out.  It's simple and reminds me of my mom's.  I'm going to be in California with my sister's family on Christmas day so I had to tell my housemate where I was hiding baby Jesus and ask her to put him out next Sunday.  The 3 Kings and their 2 camels are starting their long trek through the dining room. They should make it to the manger by Epiphany I think.  That was always my job as a kid, walking the kings through the house, every day a little closer.  Yes, I'm a grown up now but it's still a fun tradition.

Lastly, I set up my little mini Christmas tree.  When I closed up my apartment, I gave away the majority of my Christmas decorations. I kept the manger, and I kept a small collection of ornaments that mean something to me.  I have a little artificial tree that is just big enough for my few ornaments. It's cute and keeps me connected to Christmas memories past.  However, it already has lights on it so I couldn't put the lights on the tree.  But I could sing this song!

Happy last week of Advent everyone.  May your preparations be merry.

Margaret Anna Fridays - Advent Edition

Most Fridays, I’m going to share a quote from the founder of my groovy sisters, Margaret Anna Cusack, known in religion as Mother Francis Clare.  Today's installment:

Consider the angelic salutation, "Hail full of grace." If Mary was full of grace before Jesus was conceived in her womb, how she must have overflowed with grace when the Fountain of grace abode within her! ... Mary was so full of grace, that there was no room for self, and no room for creatures.  Self and creatures are two great obstacles which prevent us from receiving the measure of fulness of grace which God desires to give us.  Let us ask our immaculate Mother to teach us the secret of emptying ourselves, that we may be filled with God.  Let us begin this blessed work now.  Jesus is coming very quickly; shall we not do all we can to make room for Him in our hearts? ~ M.F. Cusack, Meditations for Advent & Easter, 1866

Sister Mary Rose loved her brownies

During my novitiate years, I baked ... a lot.  Baking therapy has always been a good coping mechanism for me.  The beauty of living at east coast groovy sister hq for the majority of my novitiate years was that I had a ready made audience for my baking therapy.  I baked cookies for the maintenance staff, cakes for the elderly sisters next door, and brownies for Sister Mary Rose.

Sister Mary Rose was a lovely (and somewhat mischievous) Sister who lived in the infirmary next door to the novitiate.  Each day she would write little jokes on the white board in the pantry to entertain the Sisters and staff as they got their morning cup of coffee.  She was also deeply prayerful, faithfully taking her walker into the chapel for daily office, liturgy, and just to visit with Jesus for a while.

While we were living next door as novices, we were invited to join the Sisters for their Sunday afternoon meal each week.  Most times, we would bring dessert.  I had discovered a brownie recipe (which, truth be told, comes mostly from a box mix) for triple chocolate brownies.  The first week I made them, Sister Mary Rose wheeled her walker over to the table where we were sitting and said, dramatically, "Which one of you made these DELICIOUS brooowwwnies." (She was born in Brooklyn so add the accent for full effect).  I confessed.  She smiled, winked, and walked away.

From that day forward, she was always sure to let me know how much she appreciated it when the dessert selection included the triple chocolate brownies.  Even when it didn't, she'd politely thank me but tell me it was nothing like those brownies.  After I left New Jersey to start ministry in Seattle, whenever I would come back to east coast groovy sister hq for a meeting she'd be sure to stop by and tell me how much she missed me .... and my brownies.

Well, Sister Mary Rose passed away on Sunday at the age of 92. As I read her obituary, I remembered that her baptismal name was Susan.  We'd bonded over that one day ... the fact that she's a Susan turned Mary Rose and that I was baptized a Susan Rose.

I found the little essay on our website that she wrote on the occasion of her 70th Jubilee a few years back.  Here's an excerpt, typical of her mix of class and mischief:

My seventy years in religious life have made me strong as stone and fragile as a rose. I entered from Brooklyn in 1936 and continue to appreciate the beauty of religious life. ... Now that I am older and a retiree, I experience slow motion at times. I depend much on God's grace. My goal is to live and die in peace. Only this lends meaning to my life and death. Since this year celebrates the Jubilee Sabbath, the following quote from Sabbath Presence best describes what I strive for as a Sister of St. Joseph of Peace, “ . . . A relationship with God, with others, with the created world and with the inner self.” 

Goodbye Mary Rose.  Enjoy the brownies in heaven.  I hear they are all you can eat.

Advent Waiting

I was pointing our house out to a friend this evening after our Justice Movie night held in the parish hall next door.  "It's the one without Christmas lights," I said.  He looked across the street at the other convent (Dominican sisters live there - yes it is a two convent neighborhood).  "The other Sisters don't have Christmas lights either," he said.  "That's ironic."  "Actually," I said, "it's because it's still Advent."  We have an advent wreath on our prayer table.  We won't be decorating the house until after we've lit the 4th candle on Sunday.  That's how we roll.

Advent is such a short precious and powerful season.  It can go by before you know it--you have to pay attention to the anticipation or you might miss it in the midst of Christmas crazyness.

In our world, waiting is something that we've pretty much given up on.  In the words of Veruca Salt, "I want it now!"  Add to that the commercialization and secularization of our Christmas traditions, with Christmas lights going up after Halloween and coming down on December 26th (when Christmas is just starting!), and it can lead to confusion.

I'm sure some of our neighbors think it odd that the Catholic nuns in the neighborhood don't exhibit the Christmas Spirit.  They probably think it's equally odd that once we get our decorating acts together, we leave our decorations up until the 1st week of January.  Epiphany, what's that?

I don't mean this post to be a rant against anything in particular, but rather an opportunity to wait in the spirit of Advent.  We rejoice this third week of Advent.  We anticipate the O Antiphons which will start in a few days!  And then, yes, Christmas will come.

Margaret Anna Fridays

Most Fridays, I’m going to share a quote from the founder of my groovy sisters, Margaret Anna Cusack, known in religion as Mother Francis Clare.  Today's installment:

For as you know, the religious orders in the Church of God are like the flowers in a garden each has its own use, its own duty, its own special perfume and is own beauty. All are good because all have the Divine sanction. All are useful because each has is own special work. Hence let us love and care for all as far as it is in our power to do so and let us rejoice in their joys and sorrow in their griefs. - Margaret Anna Cusack, General Letter to the Congregation, April 1887

This quote from Margaret Anna is appropriate as I'm headed to my first meeting as a member of the core team for Giving Voice, a grassroots organization of younger women religious from a wide variety of congregations.  We'll be praying, dreaming, and planning for the future of our organization as we lean together into the future of religious life.

mary moments

Perhaps it is my Catholic School girl past, but over my life whenever I have been in a pinch, the prayer that comes to my lips is Hail Mary, full of grace.  Whether it was when my mom was in the ICU and other prayers were not coming to mind or even at more trivial moments like when I was late to the airport and hoping the flight would be delayed (that's only happened once in my travels, and thankfully I made it), this is the prayer that is on my lips before I know it. I guess you could say Mary is my go to woman.

For my protestant readers, no I am not praying to Mary but asking her to pray and intercede for me. There's just something about Mary. A strong Mother who wasn't afraid to call her son Jesus to task when he wasn't living up to his potential at the wedding in Cana. A woman of great faith who said yes, even though she had many questions. A woman whose magnifcat speaks prophetically for justice. She ponders the word of God in her heart and acts.  And so she is a model of faith, as our CSJP constitutions say.

On this feast day, Holy Mary, mother of God pray for us now and always.

Advent

Week two of Advent. Not quite sure how that happened!  Here's one of my favorite Advent themed reflections, a poem by Jessica Powers.  The nights are midnight dark at 6:30 pm--not hard to imagine waiting in Mary-darkness.

I live my Advent in the womb of Mary.
And on one night when a great star swings free
from its high mooring and walks down the sky
to be the dot above the Christus i,
I shall be born of her by blessed grace.
I wait in Mary-darkness, faith’s walled place,
with hope’s expectance of nativity.

I knew for long she carried me and fed me,
guarded and loved me, though I could not see.
But only now, with inward jubilee,
I come upon earth’s most amazing knowledge:
someone is hidden in this dark with me.

               ~Jessica Powers

Margaret Anna Fridays - 4 Church Women

Most Fridays, I’m going to share a quote from the founder of my groovy sisters, Margaret Anna Cusack, known in religion as Mother Francis Clare.  Today's installment is in honor and memory of Maura Clark, Ita Ford, Jean Donovan and Dorothy Kazel, four American church women who were murdered in El Salvador 31 years ago today for carrying out very their own practical Christianity with and for the people suffering from poverty, brutality and violence during the civil war.  May each of us be inspired to and move beyond the theoretical to the practical where Jesus calls us to take risks on behalf of the least of these.

So long as your Christianity is merely theoretical, they are very well pleased with you; but once they find you are practical in carrying it out, they part company with you, angrily or scornfully....

-Margaret Anna Cusack

Remembering

Today is December 1st.  Had she not passed away eight years ago, today would have been my mom's 77th birthday.

This is one of my all time favorite pictures of my mom. It was taken at the Oregon Coast about 11 years ago when I organized a family Thanksgiving with my mom.  My two sisters were there, one of my brothers, my mom and dad and the two little nieces in the picture.  We had a marvelous time, walking on the beach, eating way too much turkey, and just lounging around together.  Mom, as you can tell, was in heaven.

So many happy memories.  Sad ones too, but the happy ones are much stronger.  After all, when Harry Potter needs to conjure a patronus to ward off scary creatures, he relives the happiest of memories, not the sad ones.  They are what get us through the tough times and make us smile in the good times.  Thanks for all the happy memories Mom and for everything you taught me.  To live.  To love.  To laugh.

Happy Birthday mom!!