Tonight the area Serra club hosted all the sisters, monks, and order priests of the Archdiocese at a Mass celebrating consecrated life. All was set to be a great evening of worship and fellowship, and then it rained...in February...in the cold. However, Sister Marietta and I are adventurers and we set off into the misty rain to first support the women's basketball team from our college and then to the Mass. I am very glad we went to both!
The women played against the local Lutheran college (God loves us all) and even there we met a few surprises! One of Sister's parish families has a daughter not only attending the opposing school, but playing on their opening line up! We joyfully joined their extended family to watch the game and cheered on their daughter as well as our own team. In good fun, we groaned a bit when she would make a good shot or rebound; however, it did get a bit tense toward the end. All in all, it was a wonderful game (our women won). We stayed to meet a few alumni, but there was no time for dawdling in the hallways because we needed to party hop to the next town for Mass.
The Serra hosted the Consecrated Life Mass in one of the smaller towns outside of the city. I love the idea of this mobile meeting to celebrate, but with the rain and cold weather, many of our sisters did not make it out to the Mass. 25 to 30 sisters from religious orders, apostolic institutes, and secular congregations joined with our Archbishop to thank God for our gift of consecrated life in the Church. I am so grateful we Benedictines were there.
The Archbishop's main homily was a wonderful reflection on the universal call of the Baptized to be salt and light for others. He challenged the whole congregation to be aware of their effect as salt and light on their home, work, and school in the upcoming week. He reminded us all that to be an authentic Catholic we must do more than build a personal relationship with God, we must go out and actively seek to have an affect on our world. Then he thanked the members of consecrated life for our generous living as salt and light for the Church; for all that we do that is both seen and unseen. I felt both challenged and humbled by his message this evening. It will lead to much reflection in the upcoming days.
The Mass was followed by a reception with the sisters, priests, Serrans and Archbishop. We snacked, laughed, and visited while the mist continued to fall... As we finally went to our cars, I was grateful for one last thing; the temperature stayed above freezing. The strange February weather made the day gloomy, but it didn't dampen our joy-filled day one iota!
Blessings,
No comments:
Post a Comment