Celebrate Epiphany!

Greetings,

This Sunday we celebrate the Feast of the Epiphany of the Lord. Tomorrow night at the monastery the sisters will process out of Vespers to bless the main entrance of the monastery. In the midst of a simple prayer the prioress chalks the ancient inscription above the doors "20+C+M+B+12". Sister and I will also be blessing the entrance to the Convent Apartment. A reminder that our Benedictine Hospitality is extended to all those who come through our doors.

This welcome to strangers is also reflected in my favorite reading
from the Mass on Feast...Isaiah 60: 1-6...

Rise up in splendor, Jerusalem!
Your light has come,
the glory of the Lord shines upon you.
See, darkness covers the earth,
and thick clouds cover the peoples;
but upon you the LORD shines,
and over you appears his glory.
Nations shall walk by your light,
and kings by your shining radiance.
Raise your eyes and look about;
they all gather and come to you:
your sons come from afar,
and your daughters in the arms of their nurses.
Then you shall be radiant at what you see,
your heart shall throb and overflow,
for the riches of the sea shall be emptied out before you,
the wealth of nations shall be brought to you.
Caravans of camels shall fill you,
dromedaries from Midian and Ephah;
all from Sheba shall come bearing gold and frankincense,
and proclaiming the praises of the LORD.

It is a joy-filled reading of the promised savior to come...Isaiah so long ago shared this vision of hope for everyone. But it is as vibrant in its promise today, we are all called to gather in the radiant light of the King. An amazing reminder that we are called to all come together
and share in the blessing of Christ.

Blessings,

A Blessed and Merry Christmas

Greetings,

I pray that we are all celebrating a Blessed and Merry Christmas!

I haven't much to share; it is just wonderful to be home at the monastery for this Christmas season. Our schedule? Well, we relax a bit to celebrate this ongoing feast; Lauds isn't until 8:30 with Mass following at 9:00. Then off to morning work and charges for those sisters who live full time here at the monastery (or their volunteers) but we can also use it as free time for visiting or some games (dominoes, cards, etc.). Today, I worked a bit on curriculum planning for next semester. After lunch and noon praise, it is the mirror of our morning time. However, I do plan to take advantage of our unusual 50 degree weather and go for a walk without needing a jacket! Finally, we gather for Vespers and supper followed by recreation.

Exciting? Nope. Fulfilling? Yup. Nothing is better than just living this daily horarium with my sisters. It's in the little moments and quiet times like these that the familial bond is strengthened. Now, I'd love to stay, but it's time to grab a quick cup of coffee and find my walking partner for a stroll and chat along our Sorrowful Way and grottoes.

Blessings on all your Christmas celebrations!

Merry Christmas!

Greetings,

The morning silence of Advent was dashed with bright exclamations of "Merry Christmas!" As we met each other in the hallways, refectory, and spaces in between, the quiet greetings of a nod and smile were replaced with cheery wishes of a "Merry Christmas" or "Christmas Blessings" and hugs . The joy of the day flowed into our prayer at Lauds; the simple chant tone for the Benedictus was replaced with a festive mode. Smiles were contagious as we faced each other 'in choir' singing the Psalms and praises of the Benedictus to each other and God. The celebration of our Christmas Eucharist continued the prayer of praise as our guests of family, friends, and visitors from town settled into the Chapel to join us in prayer.

The remainder of our day is fairly open to allow for sisters to gather for games, retreat to their rooms for prayer, and just rest in the blessings of this day. We will come together this afternoon (after the sisters return from singing at the Christmas Mass for the Federal Prison in town) to sing Christmas Carols, share some treats, and open some community gifts. A celebratory supper will be followed by a solemn Vespers for our evening prayer. It is simply a gift to be together as a family of Benedict in Christ.

Merry Christmas...May God Bless you during this new year of life in God's Spirit.

Christmas Eve Day...

Greetings,

The Nativity is ready to welcome guests, but there is still much to do as we prepare to celebrate the Feast of Christmas!

However, the jobs are accompanied with humming of Advent and Christmas songs, laughing with sisters, and happy chatting of sisters catching-up. It is a wonderful time to be home and working to together to prepare our celebration.

This noon will be our main meal here at the monastery; however, I'm waiting for supper tonight, we have a simple meal of soup, sandwiches, and pie! Christmas Eve supper is a tradition here: potato soup (my favorite) & oyster soup, cold cut sandwiches, and cherry (my favorite) or Christmas cream pie!

It is after supper that our Christmas liturgical celebrations begin. We have a special Vigil prayer for our Vespers tonight. The readings and Psalms combine to lead us in our hope-filled wait for Christmas morning Mass tomorrow. The prioress (or a sister chosen by her)
also shares a special Christmas message during our prayer tonight. Ah, it's Christmas and there is no place like home.

Blessings,

The Eve of the Eve

Greetings,

There are always certain works that must be completed on December 23rd. Most importantly, this is the day that we take down the Advent liturgical colors and symbols and decorate the Bishop Marty Chapel (known as the Upper Chapel in-house) for the Christmas season!

All the purple banners hanging from the pillars of the Chapel are replaced with gold and white. This can be a delicate operation considering the sister wielding the staff used to wiggle the pole and its banner stands on a pew looking straight up into our high Gothic ceiling while trying to balance the banner pole on the staff and not drop it onto the sister below...who is waiting to catch the pole just in case. The purple brocade curtain behind the high altar is drawn back and the white is revealed to celebrate the feast.

There is a whole crew of sisters and our Chaplin the monk assigned to tree assembly as well. Four to six trees between 7 and 9 feet tall are arranged on either side of the high altar. The evergreen stands out beautifully against the sandstone walls and gilded carvings in the altar. However, those trees need to be assembled first...and this has proven a challenge. The tree I tackled with sister grade school teacher and the Chaplin monk was all contained in one box (luckily). We fluffed our 9 and 1/2 foot giant into beauty, branch by branch. Some of our fellow tree workers were not so lucky. One tree assembled well, but its stand left it kitty-wampus and needing the support of a wall. Another tree began with a sturdy base, but the sisters soon realized that their tree in a box was really two or three different trees--a hybrid! It took some time, but the final four trees in the Upper Chapel are beautiful and tomorrow they will be framed with brilliant red and white poinsettias before afternoon prayer. Sister liturgist floated between groups to help with trees and locating needed supplies and step stools. Her work continued after we left as she arranged white Christmas candles set off with gold material where the Advent wreath once stood.

The final group of sisters set up the Creche in our gathering space outside the Upper Chapel. This year's Creche is a wood carved setting with beautiful, yet muted colors and form. As it goes with artists' eyes, it took a few turns of rearranging and standing back to observe the affect before all the sisters were in agreement over the final design. Evergreens with white lights frame the back and sides of the Creche and a bench is set nearby for those who wish to sit and pray with the Christ child. It is lovely; a wonderful pray to reflect on the wonder of this celebration of our faith. And you will have to wait until tomorrow to see it too...

Blessings,

Advent-ageous Days

Greetings,

These final days of Advent are a mix of busy silence here at the monastery. The mornings are still filled with silent waiting in the halls and refectory until after breakfast. The daily chapel is still unadorned except for the stained glass lights marking our time through Advent. We are still waiting for the coming of the Christ child...however...

The preparations for the celebration have begun, and it would only be advent-ageous of our sisters here at the monastery to take advent-age of the sisters coming home from teaching or serving away from home or those on break from teaching or serving at the college! Today's goal was to decorate the long hallway past the refectory to the care-center sister's recreation room with hundreds of satin covered Christmas balls. Sister In-Charge explained that we have been bedecking the hall in this way since 1987--twenty-three years of tradition. I love the final affect. The ceiling seems to dance with the swaying and bobbing movement of the ornaments.

The crew of hallway elves included one sister into her diamond jubilee years (overseer or supreme snooper-visor), one sister past her golden jubilee (director of scaffold pushing and ball placement), two teaching sisters in the 'teens' of their profession (one ceiling worker and one scaffolding pusher), and one student sister from Korea (ceiling worker and artistic director).

I admit we had a good time telling tales of hallways past and singing a few Christmas songs
made up to fit the event of day. We also enjoyed the SNOOPER-visors that stopped to visit and check our progress down the hallway. The joy-filled decoration seemed to bring a smile to all that happened upon our work for the day. A few had suggestions about how far to space certain colors or where to fill-in an empty space or two, but all left with a bit more bounce in her steps.

Tomorrow we will begin decorating the upper chapel for the Christmas season. My favorite is the crib scene that we display in the gathering space outside of chapel...and all the poinsettias that brighten our chapel with brilliant reds and whites.

However, it isn't Christmas yet. Our O'Antiphon wreath is still in the main hallway, reminding all who pass by that we still await our King!

Blessings,

Another Life Lesson

Greetings,

2009 was a year of lessons learned. Being away at University has been a chance to learn not only about academics of education, but also about living as a Benedictine away from the Monastery. However, the lessons did not end with the ball dropping on 2009.

After spending the last of Advent and the Octave of Christmas at the Monastery, I joined my parents in the city of the Corn Palace. The weather cooperated and allowed us to visit my sister Lisa and her family for a weekend. It was wonderful to talk with her and my brother-in-law and play with the nieces and nephews. The weather even allowed us to travel home in safety again...however, the wind blew and snow drifted in the sub-zero air all throughout the travel.

We made it home to the "Town with the Beautiful Lake" and settled in to enjoy a few days of quiet. While enjoying the quiet mornings and sleeping in at home, I started planning to visit my sister Joy and her family in the northern corner of South Dakota. Now the weather has reasserted its control. It is supposed to begin snowing again tonight and blowing below zero tomorrow through Friday or so. So...no trip north just yet, but hopefully next week the sun will shine and the air will warm.

The Life Lesson?...no matter how much I plan or prepare, I am not in control. The weather might be a beginning lesson in letting God alter my plans as well. As I begin writing my resumes and applying to teaching positions, I need to remember that I do not need to be in control; God has a plan for me as well. This was the theme for my final Monastic Profession and hopefully I can continue to seek it in Life.

Jeremiah 29: 11 ~ For surely I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, plans for your welfare and not for harm, to give you a future with hope.

Blessings,

A White Christmas

Merry Christmas!

All the monastic preparations in the world cannot thwart the path of nature in South Dakota! The sisters arrange for Christmas celebrations and services to be open to the public who joins us, we hope to create a schedule that also allows our employees time to be home with their family and loved ones, and many sisters either invite their families to join us for Christmas or visit their family over the Christmas season...then the blizzard creeped in starting on Wednesday afternoon.

Wednesday began with some light drizzling rain and sleet. The weather folk recommended getting to your destinations by late afternoon because the roads would be so slick. This was not unusual for December and while the weather channel seemed a bit excited, we assumed it would all blow over. Thursday dawned with more snow and high winds. Neither of these let up throughout the day, soon the swirling snow began to create the most beautiful drifts in the two inner courtyards at the Monastery. We appreciated the power of the storm, but now began to wonder when it would blow itself out. A usual South Dakota blizzard lasts a day, maybe two at the most. Friday morning I met some of our staff at breakfast! Many of the employees had stayed overnight in our guest rooms and retreat rooms! The weather was too treacherous to try to drive home, and if they had, there would have been no way to come back to work the next day. The wind continued to eddy around the Monastery at gusts between 30 to 40 miles per hour! Wind doesn't stop when it hits a brick wall at that speed, it merely turns direction. Now the drifts in the courtyards were growing by leaps and bounds. The smaller courtyard had snow past the first floor windows and the larger courtyard's drift wasn't far behind! Saturday morning dawned with still more snow and wind. The weather folk predict that the wind will slowly
die away today and the snow should stop for a bit, but now we will
believe it when we see it.

For three and half days, the Christmas blizzard has buffeted and blown the state of South Dakota to a stand still. It may be hard to understand for those who have never experienced such a storm, but the wind and snow were so thick that you couldn't have seen more than a few feet ahead of yourself at times, and snow blown this hard creates drifts that are as solid as rock. The pictures I've added today are from the Kelo Land news site, two Yankton residents had posted the pictures one from the north side of town and the other from within the city...they amaze me!

Back to Christmas!
I have never realized how grateful I should be that our Monastery is city on a hill. Our home contains our bedrooms, the kitchen and dinning areas, exercise and recreation space, library and computer access, and most importantly our Chapel and prayer space. As the blizzard enveloped the world around us in a white blurr, we were able to continue our Christmas prayer.

Christmas Eve Vespers began with Statio (solemn procession) into Bishop Marty Chapel. As Sr. Organist played "Silent Night" we processed two by two into the candle lit Chapel all fitted out in gold and white for Christmas. It was a beautiful way to begin our celebrations. The next morning we realized that our preparations for Christmas Day Mass were, well, not needed...the usual congregation from the surrounding area could not make it out of their homes! So, we celebrated the Christ Child as a community, praying for those stranded by the cold and snow.

Christmas Day was also a time for family, fun, and food (of course). There was a break after brunch to allow for individual plans, I napped, and then we gathered for a Christmas party. All the community came together for cookies and coffee, carols, and laughter. We received a gift from the community and a few gifts from the generous parishioners at St. Mary Church. It was wonderful. The blizzard had kept everyone in and there were more sisters home for the extended Christmas celebrations than anyone had planned--we were all home for Christmas. That night we finished our Christmas Day with a wonderful meal...steak, wine, and all the fixin's. The sisters lingered over supper telling stories and laughing together. I was on dish duty with Srs. Julie and Paulette, we decided sing as we worked our way through the mountain of supper dishes. Christmas Carols and holiday songs from our childhoods rang merrily off the tiled walls of the dish room.

I feel so blessed to have been Home for Christmas.

Two Sleeps!

Greetings,

Only two sleeps until I come home for Christmas and all the holy days that follow! I'm very excited to see all the sisters, family, and friends. I'll have just over two weeks at the Monastery in Yankton and then just under two weeks to bounce around and between family. This is the part of college that I like best, four weeks over Christmas to travel about and catch up with all the folk I've been missing. Okay, so I like the learning and meeting new professors and friends as well.

I sent home an e-mail to our sub prioress, anticipating the possibility of volunteering in a variety of ways while I'm home. The liturgist has claimed me for part of day to help out in preparing the chapel. This could involve carrying/arranging/rearranging poinsettias, setting out new candles, hanging the festive banners from the columns, draping white and gold material, and (of course) cleaning up after all the tramping about. I'm sure I'll get to help put several trees together for our hallways, entryways, and the gathering space by the chapel. My biggest hope is that our baking sister will need help with all the Christmas cookies, breads, and goodies that pour out from her ovens during this season. The warmth and smell from our bakery is intoxicating this time of year.

Sisters, I'm on my way home soon! I can't wait to be hugged over coffee, quizzed about school, and in all ways warmly brought back into the fold.

Blessings,