Labor day was coming soon. The Sisters from Pro Ecclesia Sancta who reside at and minister from our former monastery in Bloomington wanted to come down to the Franciscan Sisters’ Motherhouse in Rochester, where we live, with a picnic lunch for all of us together. Because of restrictions due to the “virus,” we were not allowed to have a large gathering at the Motherhouse. The Franciscan friars, our dear friends in Prior Lake, responded generously to our need and offered us their extraordinarily beautiful retreat center, this being the only weekend during the year when they were not engaged with retreatants. 

The Pro Ecclesia Sancta sisters arrived early to prepare and welcome us. 

The grounds are exquisitely beautiful, and the site was perfect for bringing together our communities. 

The picnic food was truly delicious and creative with these lovely Sisters presenting the best of their culinary skills.

Sister Lucie is picking the name of a saint for this day of sharing.

Sister Caroline taught the Sisters how to work creatively with paper.

After our picnic lunch we set out to find the lake.

Find we did.

We celebrated a day full of joy celebrating the deep love and friendship among us.

       Reflections by Robert Ellsberg on Hildegard of Bingen, in “Give Us This Day” www.litpress.org.

With extraordinary symbolic illustrations, Hildegard presents a picture of human beings and the cosmos as emanations of God’s love, ‘living sparks’, or ‘rays of his splendor.’  Just as the rays of the sun proceed from the sun itself, Hildegard wrote that human beings are thinking hearts called to be co-creators with God in shaping the world.

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