"There's No Place Like Home"

Greetings,

This is the first Saturday I have free and clear from school work.  My morning began slow with a cup of coffee, a Sacred Heart chaplet, and some quiet time with Christ.  I could take all the time my heart needed without worry of getting my homework done...

However, this afternoon will be filled with Suzy-homemaker chores and tasks.  After some teacher meetings on Tuesday, I will be going home to the monastery for the summer; so I need to leave my areas of the apartment convent ship shape!  My bedroom will become the 'Guest Sister' bedroom for the summer and little dusting and sorting needs to be done.  I'm glad to do this when I know that I get to be home at the monastery while another sister uses our convent apartment as a get away space.

Home!  I will be home in time for Vespers--Liturgy of the Hours--Divine Office with our sisters.  Our prayer together is the thing I miss most while working away from the monastery during the school year.  Sister Roommate and I follow the same prayer here at our apartment convent, but there is a big difference between two voices alternating and a hundred voices harmonizing. 

Sister Subprioress has me busy about the monastery for the summer: gardening, cleaning guest department, doing dishes, and scrubbing bathrooms; and I am excited to do it.  Charges (in-house work assignments) are a part of our Benedictine life.  Chapter 48 of the Rule of Benedict reminds us to balance daily manual labor and prayer in our daily life:

And if the circumstances of the place or their poverty should require that they themselves do the work of gathering the harvest, let them not be discontented; for then are they truly monastics when they live by the labor of their hands, as did our Fathers and the Apostles. Let all things be done with moderation, however, for the sake of the faint-hearted...Weak or sickly sisters should be assigned a task or craft of such a nature as to keep them from idleness and at the same time not to overburden them or drive them away with excessive toil. Their weakness must be taken into consideration by the Abbess.

My daily charges within the monastery aren't just work; they are a ministry of love for my sisters in community, a way of taking care of each other.  The work of weeding and gathering we do in the garden eventually helps to feed our sisters homegrown produce not just for one day but throughout the winter months as well.  The ministry of cleaning and caring for our guest rooms is an outreach of Benedict's call to receive all guests as Christ.  Even the daily work of doing dishes and scrubbing floors can be lifted above the mundane to the divine when we remember that it is done for the love of our Sisters.

While there will be much to do once I arrive home, I am excited to be there. 
There is no place like home!

Blessings,

Anticipating Triduum

Greetings,

The Monastery is abuzz with preparations for our Triduum celebrations!

I awoke early to get ready for the day, but not earlier than our Sister Baker. When I opened my curtain at 7AM to look out on the world, I could see right across the courtyard into the brightly lit bakery. She already had dough on the table and the 'proofing' room filling up with breads special for the feasts: the round loaves of sweet, soft agape bread and the rings of cinnamon laced sweet bread.

After morning prayer, the sisters in charge of environment (candles and cloths) began to take down the purple in the Peace Chapel. Since we will be praying the Upper Chapel (Bishop Marty Chapel) through all of Triduum and through the Easter Octave, the sisters might not set out the new candles and cloths just yet...but we will be preparing the Upper Chapel this afternoon. Holy Thursday's environment needs to include clean space in the sacristy to place all the goods of the Sanctuary after the altar is stripped as well as adding new environment to the smaller St. Joseph Chapel (for our care center sisters) where the reserved Sacrament will be taken tonight. Helping to prepare our Chapel for these sacred celebrations allows me to move from the busyness of my school days to the centering on our celebrations of Christ's passion, death, and resurrection during this Triduum.

This afternoon also includes some community fun. The sisters in our care center dye the Easter eggs for the whole Monastery! Those of us who can join them in this colorful community collaboration have some good old family fun. It is interesting to see which sisters favor which colors and the artists that come out of each one of us. I also love to hear the stories the sisters tell of their childhood memories of Easter egg coloring at home or how they celebrated earlier in community life.

However, I am most excited for...our silence...I know, you're shocked. I really am looking forward to our time of deep quiet and reflection that begins with the transfer of the Sacrament at the end of our Holy Thursday Mass and continues through Good Friday and only comes to an end after Lauds on Holy Saturday. The whole Monastery is focused on this deep awareness of God in our midst. My students and the faculty both seemed a bit surprised at this quiet that I was excited to be joining. One of the Junior boys joked that he didn't think his mom or sister could go a few hours much less a whole day and a half without talking. I told him that he might be surprised at how much those same folk might love a bit of silence in their day...he didn't believe me.

Blessings,

Palm Sunday

Greetings,

I know I'm a bit early on the Palm Sunday posting...but I was one of the readers for Mass this evening and long readings leave time for lots of reflection time between lines.

There was alot of action going on during this Mass. Extra folk were trying to squeeze into pews, while finding missal and song numbers. After we had all found a place to sit, Father invited us to the gathering space to hear the first Gospel, bless our palms, and process outside around the Church building. It was a nice part of the service, but I'm glad I reserved my seat with song book and my Lector papers taking up my space in the pew. Many other folk lost their spots tonight.

Little kids are always a blast to watch with the palms. There are the pirates playing sword fight behind Mom's back. The future dress designers making bows for their hair, tying the palm around their sleeve, or threading them through their belt loops. A few kiddos were watching their parents or grandparents make crosses out of the palms during the proclamation of the Passion. Some tried to imitate the process, but it was usually up to grandpa to fix it in the end.

How did I see all this? I was the Lector for the reading to the Philippians and so by default Lector number three for the Passion. The Passion in the books we were given was written out so each Lector and Father were given long blocks of reading (2-3 paragraphs); no Jesus voice, narrator, and other voice. You read the whole block; each of us had 4 to 5 blocks of reading. So, I had time to look out into the congregation and see what was happening when I wasn't reading.

One of my parts was near the end. Joseph of Arimatheia is taking Jesus' body away to the tomb and the faithful women are following. They stay with Jesus while He is being wrapped and placed in the tomb; only after the stone is in place do they go to prepare the oils and spices they will need to anoint Him after the Sabbath. I am always struck by their courage and dedication to follow Him to the end. They care so completely for Jesus that they stayed after all the other disciples and apostles had left. How dedicated am I?
Tough question to ponder during this Holy Week.

Blessings,