Our Lenten Chapel
Lent is a many faceted time of the year. It means many things to many people. A lot depends on what is going on and around our planet. At this time a war is waging in the East. As always the innocents pay the highest price. The media outlets focus on the children and perhaps they are our teachers, models as only they can be. Blessed are the pure of heart for they shall see God.
February on the Move
At this time of year we begin to look forward to change. What is ahead for us as we move away from deep winter with the melting snow and the greenery poking up its welcome heads. Across our beloved planet we are at a cross road, choosing life or decline. Lets us be with those who choose life and make it happen through care for one another and planet earth.
Camping on the Edge of the Planet
Interview Sr. Kathleen
Our planet and all that is on it is waking up. Before us are the many gifts that our forebears have left us to use with care and creativity so as to pass them along to the many who will follow. At this campsite in the Chapel of the Franciscan Sisters of Rochester, Minnesota I think of our patron Francis of Assisi. Aware that he was coming to the end of his life on planet Earth he chose a hut near his friends, Clare and the poor Sisters, who lived down the hill from Assisi. As we move on to new dimensions of our lives we need friends. I was blessed by young parents who loved to camp out on the beautiful mountains and rivers of California and of course, the Pacific Ocean. My thoughts go to the millions of people who are camping out not by choice. They cannot tidy up their campsite and go home. They are home and will remain there until we do something about it.
Monterey Bay, a bite from the California Coast
Walking West Cliff Drive in Santa Cruz—kind to myself.
Who am I, made of blue water, tan colored sand,
cement, wooden stairs down to the beach
that plays to the rhythm of the waves.
“O how sweet thou are.” The sun going down
over waters so deep, so blue,
the scene composed by a wildly wonderful God.
Now the moment is passing,
no not passing,
it lives and moves within me.
Wherever I go, the blue Pacific is part of me,
and Santa Cruz is the gateway to the Bay of Monterey.
Sister Beth Lynn, OSC, a native daughter
PS My daddy told me that I was “hatched on a hot rock in the middle of the Bay.”
It sounded good to me.
Winter’s Welcome January 2022
Earthscapes from Friar Vincent Petersen, saving the earth one day at a time.
Last Snow
Beyond the window, branches heavy
with the last snow of a long winter…
one final time the morning is stilled by the sight
and soundlessness of snowfall.
It lies heavy on the trees, white as moonlight,
making fantastic patterns of wet black boughs,
and towers of evergreens.
What is spring in the windowpane
is like deep-sea landscape:
fantasy of snow-feathered fronds
weighted, gleaming, seen for the first and last time.
Sister Kate Martin
Into this New Year…
Yes, the Sisters of St. Clare are back. It is a new year, even though so many of the directives for surviving a pandemic are the same. We here at the Motherhouse of the Franciscans follow all the rules with fervor because what we might get as a simple cold could cause an older Sister to die. The elders here at Assisi Heights are much too beautiful to let go of just yet. So…we follow the guidelines to keeping Assisi Heights free of the viruses.
Breaking news: The Roman Catholic Church world wide, is called forth by Pope Francis, to engage in a Synod, 2021-2023. I can hear the Roman Catholics now. Are not Synods the work of Anglicans and Lutherans and Reformed Churches. It is true they engage in Synods much more frequently than the Romans. For myself and for you I looked at Webster’s take on “Synods.” We Catholics can definitively have one. I must say that for me I am weeping for joy.
Christmas at Assisi Heights
- This Christmas season was beautiful in all aspects except there were no people to join us in singing and celebrating the birthday of Christ and our Christian faith. Our families and friends were tucked away in their homes caring for one another and watching our Eucharistic celebration on Zoom.
Easter Everyday
Easter, 2021
Dear Friends ,
This has been a year like no other. We have learned a lot about ourselves and what is deeply important to us. In first place, is the daily Eucharistic celebration called by the familiar name, “the Mass.” We were quarantined in our little third floor monastery. On first floor there were no Eucharistic celebrations in the large, elegant Lourdes Chapel. Within a few weeks of the Pandemic lockdown we found our liturgical home in Ireland. At 7:00 a.m. we gather around the television screen in our community room and celebrate the Eucharist with the priests and a few women of the choir at Sts. Peter and Paul, Portlaoise, Ireland. Their parish church is shut down but thanks to international television their Mass is broadcast all over the planet. Each morning they read off the names of individuals and families who have written in for mention at the Mass. And so we know we are praying with the whole wide world.
EVERYDAY EASTER
We die repeatedly, they say:
despair, depression, disappointment,
every dark human helplessness
hints at death.
And yet it happens also that some unscripted word
(not our own) sets life moving in our veins again.
Strange that we cannot do this for ourselves,
and how that little spring surprises us.
Quick as heartbeat, the paralysis of death gives way;
Subtle as breath, life claims us and we rise.
Sister Kate Martin, OSC
Please know our love and prayer is for each and all of you, dear friends and family,
your Sisters of St. Clare
stclaresrochester.org
Sister Margaret’s birthday when we were quarantined to our 3rd floor wing during the pandemic…
Our dear friend Kim Jaworski supplied all of the fixings for our party celebrating Sister Margaret’s birthday.
Peace into our New Year
