Another word about this year's jubilee celebration, as it did encompass the entire weekend--a special supper Friday night, the jubilee Vespers on Saturday, and special inclusions at liturgy on Sunday morning. Being another "first" in our renovated chapel, there were lots of new rituals, two of which were particularly nice: the Sisters' seven title banners were hung in the cloister walk from chapel to the dining room, and, after renewing their vows, the jubilarians stood in two rows to sing the "Suscipe" as they moved from the ambo to the altar. All in all everything was lovely--and shared by 200 friends and relatives, in addition to the community.
I always thought the phrase, "What a motley crew!" was one of those hidden compliments that says: We're not all the same, Look at our diversity, We've got a little bit of everything! Well, this jubilee group has a good claim on being a motley crew, not to be confused with the rock band, Motley Crue, of course! Only four of the seven entered this community originally. Two were part of the Benedictine Sisters of Benet Lake, WI, whose community merged with ours in 1991 and the seventh was a Sister of St. Joseph before transferring here 25 years ago.
In fact the whole community has this flavor. Out of the 112 members, 30 (over 25%), were novices or professed members somewhere else. Some came directly from their first community, others were out of religious life for some years and then re-entered here. This certainly qualifies us as a motley crew...and it does make for an interesting variety of backgrounds. No cookie cutter cutouts are we!
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