Dec. 26-29

The four days Dec. 26-29 are really wonderful times for people that pray, formally, a couple of times a day such as we do! Four feasts make them really very, very nice: special prayers, hymns and blessings. St. Stephen, first martyr; St. John, the Apostle; the Holy Innocents, slain baby boys when Herod went on a rampage to get rid of the "newborn king of the Jews," and the Feast of the Holy Family....which was highlighted by a great homily on the evolving and growing definition of "family" and how the Church is slowly getting its head together about that reality.

Additionally, during these days we had seven sisters from a missionary order in Toronto, here for some retreat days. We saw them at every prayer period and at meals. They were lovely and, I think, had a very nice 3-4 days in our guest quarters.

Christmas 2019

Seven-mile creek, open and flowing strongly
in our 50 degree weather!

Our beach (about 10' of sand) and lakefront.
Water was very, very calm.

At sunset Christmas evening.

Very special days

Saturday the 21st was a special day on its own--made more special within our community.

On its own it was the date of the Winter Solstice for 2019--the shortest day of the year, but also the beginning of the return of light that will grow throughout the next three months until Spring arrives. For those of us who celebrate the O Antiphons, it was the fifth day: "O Radiant Dawn, splendor of eternal light, sun of justice: Come, shine on those who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death." Fitting for the solstice.

In our community it became a very special, a very blessed day for all of us as we accompanied two of our sisters into Eternal Life. Sister Mary Bernard, 90, entered new life at 9:30 a.m. and Sister Dorothy Szczypinski, 88, entered her new life at 9:30 p.m. In both cases the sisters had been experiencing failing health and were at peace with the next phase of their journey. The community was present with them throughout the last three days and recited and sang our ritual prayers at the time of death. You can read their beautiful obituaries and prayer cards here.

Our Christmas decorations "erupted" this weekend. As we've converted to LED lighting for our large tree in the inner courtyard this year, I wanted to use the old lights for something as long as they still worked. Here you see them drizzled over our azalea bushes along the windows of the cloister walk between the chapel and dining room. Sister Veronica would be so thrilled to have them on either side of her beloved Mary statue!

Schizophrenia? Coming along well.

Neighbors celebrating Advent and Christmas simultaneously!

Pink, patience and pizzelles

If you were visiting us this weekend....which from the size of the crowd at Sunday's liturgy included a lot of people...you would have seen lots of pink (for Gaudete Sunday--the third Sunday of Advent), been challenged to work on your patience during this holiday season (as the second Reading in the Mass was on this virtue..not exactly one that is heard too much about in our society these days) and you would smell the Christmas holiday scents of both vanilla and anise pizzelles (as one of our part-Italian Sisters got out her mother's pizzelle irons and recipes and organized her annual pizzelle extravaganza). Many of our newest members came out to see yet another of our holiday  community "traditions": pizzelle night.

Having been faithful to the celebration of Advent while minimizing Christmas decorations, this week we both continue the Advent days but the decorations will slowly, slowly seep out. I saw a Christmas elf on a door handle this morning and a jingle bell wreathe in an office. This week we are schizophrenic.

photographer-postulant Jen Frazer

Our Lady of the Snows!?

Today, December 12, we celebrate the beautiful feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe. Right outside of Mexico City. Never to be confused with Our Lady of the Snows...which is located right outside of Erie, PA.

Our new feeding station this year. The inner courtyard
where everyone can see the winter birds feeding.

Seed is safely inside. No critters, allowed.
Notice that it doubles as a snow measurer.

My so far unsuccessful attempt to offer water in the winter.
It keeps freezing over!

The prophet Isaiah.

The Isaiah readings that fill our Advent days speak so eloquently of God's loving care for us, God's ever presence with us and a multitude of imageries of God's relationship with the people.

It has brought to mind one of my favorite sayings--which, by the way, is on a plaque placed among the trees in our woods by a guest in our hermitages. Here it is. It is written in English, but I kind of like the Latin: "Vocatus atque non vocatus Deus aderit.

I read that Carl Jung had it carved in Latin over the front door of his house. And he was a psychoanalyst-----nice!

No snow--this time!

Day after day last week we watched the evening news start off with reports on the early, yet major, snow storms that were battering the West, Midwest and finally, this past weekend, New England and the east coast. For an area that averages nearly 100" of snow a season, the awareness that we were having no snow at all during this time was shocking. Oh, we'll certainly get ours--there's no doubt about it, but if it's not coming from Canada, sweeping over the three Great Lakes that are west of us---it really isn't that unusual that the storms that travel up the east coast, don't reach us, here on the other side of the Allegheny Mountains.

Here's what we found on a quick trip around Presque Isle State park, while others were shoveling out or waiting endlessly in airports.

I think some of these ducks, and certainly many Canada geese,
winter here and seem to be able to find enough open water.

Duck hunting and deer hunting are going on at this time.

I just couldn't resist a follow up from Monday's blog--the wonders of YouTube. Here's the 1950s cartoon of "Here Comes Susie Snowflake." It really wasn't a Christmas show at all. It was more like a PSA interlude between shows, as it was only 2 minutes long.

Or if you prefer, here's Rosemary Clooney's version. She's the one who really made it a Christmas song. Trivia: Rosemary was married to the actor/director Jose Ferrer and the mother of the late actor Miguel Ferrar who played Owen Granger on NCIS Los Angeles.

Frosty the Snowman turns 50

I should be writing about our chapel, which is beautiful in its Advent environment or about the hymns in our special Advent booklet that we started today: 57 in total, or about the special prayers and poetic, prophetic readings we had both at the vigil Saturday night and all day Sunday. You'll read plenty enough about them during the next 3+ weeks, both here, on other blogs and on our community website.

Instead, here's what really caught my eye in our Sunday paper: "Find when Rudolph, Frosty, Charlie Brown, others airs," a December 1-31 schedule of the traditional holiday shows that run only in December. "A Charlie Brown Christmas" is this Thursday...that would be my #1. How can we ever forget Linus's recitation of the Christmas story. (Even honored on a USPS stamp.)

Others I'd love to catch: "Santa Claus is Coming to Town," "How the Grinch Stole Christmas," "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer," "Happy New Year, Charlie Brown," and "Dick Clark's Primetime New Year's Rockin' Eve." (Really? you're kidding! Is Dick Clark still on?! No, he can't be...but maybe he's channeled through Ryan Seacrest.)

I'm going to post this list for all the sisters to enjoy...if I can tear them away from the month-long Hallmark Channel Christmas movies they all love! But I have just one question, if after 50 years they are still showing "Frosty the Snowman" why not also show "Here Comes Susie Snowflake"...my all-time favorite---of course!

Music, music

We are blessed with wonderful musicians and music here at the Mount--and it's about to get much better!

Both the Sisters Schola (34 singers strong) and handbell choir (10 of us) have new pieces that we've been faithfully practicing for over three months now, getting ready for the Advent and Christmas seasons. It's great fun to get new songs, yet they come with just a little "appropriate nervousness" when performing them for the first time!

Then, if those weren't exciting enough, we arrived at the first of two special all-community choir practices last week, again for Advent and Christmas, and what do we find? a new Mass (with five sung parts) for our Sunday liturgies and 6 new Benedictus tones and 6 new Magnificate tones for our everyday Morning and Evening Prayer! A bonanza of music has erupted.

I know many of you don't live near enough to come and hear all of these, but check out our homepage now and then. We do record them and upload them there occasionally.

Wish you could be here!

My soul is clapping

Since this is Thanksgiving week, I think we ought to be mindful of gratitude and thanks all week long. So here's one of Mary Oliver's best reflections on what it is that we should be most grateful for: each other.

What is the greatest gift?

What is the greatest gift?
Could it be the world itself--the oceans, the meadowlark,
the patience of the trees in the wind?
Could it be love, with its sweet clamor of passion?

Something else--something else entirely
holds me in thrall.
That you have a life that I wonder about
more than I wonder about my own.
That you have a life--courteous, intelligent--
that I wonder about more than I wonder about my own.
That you have a soul--your own, no one else's--
that I wonder about more than I wonder about my own.

So that I find my soul clapping its hands for yours
more than my own.

Mary Oliver

Another stunning sunrise.

With Thanksgiving weekend this year, comes the beginning of Advent. Sometimes we get a week in between, sometimes not. This year is a "not" and therefore has kept me on my toes as far as finding a time when the temperature rose above 45, with no wind and little blowing. Finally got one last Thursday afternoon and thanks to the help of one of our maintenance guys, Jim, we were able to put our new LED lights (saves on electricity and billing they tell me) on the magnolia tree in the inner courtyard. They will be lit every Advent Saturday night for the Vigil of Sunday and, as Christmas nears, every night until January 6th. Can't wait!

Sunrise, sunset

Postulant Jen Frazer's morning shot.

We are just at that unique time of year when our sunrises and sunsets, given no or minimal cloud cover, are just lovely. It's hard to catch them, though, they come and go very quickly. My sunset isn't very good---it'll just be a warm up for better ones to come.

November is an unusual month, all around.

Chances Are...

Last week I opened an email from our local library announcing to me that a book that I had had on the reserve list for 8 weeks was finally mine to pick up. What joy! This is an author that one of my more literate friends got me hooked on a couple years ago, so when I saw that he had a new book I got on the list. What a great, really great writer. His name is Richard Russo, he is a Pulitzer Prize winner and is, for me, a kind of male Anne Tyler, whom I also love. I like their writing for the same reason: they write about the extraordinary in the ordinary.

This new one by Russo, with an ellipsis in the title, seems set up to be classic Russo. Here's a little from the book flap: "Russo is renowned for his astute, masterful understanding of community...Shot through with his trademark comedy and humanity, his latest bristles with suspense and menace..." A perfect beginning to one of my favorite winter survival techniques: hunkering down with great books!

Life is grey

We got to hear a wonderful presentation this evening about Christian ministry and how it is and should be changing in this country and in our Catholic Church. Dr. Greg Baker from our local Mercyhurst University shared his ideas on how "pastoral power" is not the mechanism to lead people on their faith journey, but rather accompanying people on their paths of freedom, guiding people along their own seeking is the better way. He used the analogy of fences--that tend to control and hold in, contrasting them with porous boundaries that allow coming and going with the freedom of adulthood.

He shared the statistic that in 1970 55% of US Catholics attended Mass weekly. In 2018 it was 21%. Something is not resonating with seekers. He stressed that this is not at all a Catholic-only trend, as 26% of Americans now identify themselves as "unaffiliated" in religion.

It was a great presentation, full of contemporary, yet solid perspectives and concerns. Greg complimented us on the many social justice areas we address, but we think that with people as himself by our side, they are all the more meaningful, powerful and enriching.

Special weekend

Two special experiences stand out this week, no, let's make that three.

In nature, it's THE week when our larch tree is in its golden glory. Usually one of the last whose leaves turn from green to gold, as well as one of the last to get those leaves again in the spring, it's such a special tree. We get a first hand view of it every day as it is located right outside the dining room.

On the guest list, four of the writers of the book Dear Joan (see the blog entry below) came to visit for the weekend. It was delightful to see them again. They had a chance to visit with Sister Joan, to join us in prayer and just to be "on site" after a year and a half since their first visit. I heard that many of them are doing things with the book: offering retreats, book club sharing, Q & A's. Good for them. The book has already sold over 1,000 copies.

Third, after two weekends in a row of community meetings and obligations, it was nice to have a "free" one and to see so many of the sisters enjoying a weekend to visit friends, catch up on projects, watch movies or TV and just relax.

Letters

Today I'm going to plug one of our newer books, Dear Joan Chittister: conversations with women in the church that was published a few months ago. It's a very, very interesting little book, put together by eleven 22-35 year old women who attended a spirituality institute here that Benetvision sponsored a couple years ago. All of them are somehow involved in theology or religious studies or a similar area. In the book they each write a short letter about an issue and Sister Joan responds in a letter back to them.

The topics range from such things as:mentoring younger women, divorce and its effects on women, how to handle patriarchy in parishes, how to live authentically. In this month's US Catholic magazine, with a cover story ironically on Benedictine monks in Chicago, they ran a excerpt from the book---a full letter to and from Joan. The subject was: male only pronouns versus inclusive language. I don't know where to buy this issue, outside of libraries such as ours, but here's a 5-minute youtube video of the editor, Jessie, giving an overview.

The whole concept of young, educated Catholic women musing over the things about "church" that interest and bother them, is very attractive and interesting. Listen to Jessie and enjoy. BTW, six of the eleven letter writers are going to be here this weekend for a kind of reunion and to celebrate their project.

P.S. if you'd like a copy of the excerpt in the magazine, I'll send you one, just ask.

Bag Man

In the early 1970s my interests swayed little from my dedication to becoming a good high school teacher and the same for becoming a finally professed religious woman. I had little knowledge of the stories behind the political news of the day and, therefore, only got the big picture of Watergate and the Nixon era. Now, forty years later, along comes Rachel Maddow and her unique and compelling brand of storytelling to get the whole picture behind current events.

Recently Rachel produced a series of seven audio programs, Bag Man, on the background stories that led to the resignation of Vice-president Spiro Agnew, an event that was a pivotal prelude to the resignation of President Richard Nixon. They read like a modern day spy/thriller and have eerie similarities to today's political picture!

I want to encourage you to give them a try. Just listen to the first one (they are each only 30 minutes long). And, if you are hooked, as I was, I know you'll be fascinated with this time in our recent history, knowing now how things evolved over the next four decades and what could have happened--had things gone another way.

Ernest Howard Shepard

A little retro admission. I love greeting cards, whether through the mail or hand-delivered. And I have some friends that find the most wonderful cards, really unique and just stunning. Fortunately I am often the recipient of these unique pieces of art. This week I received two of them.

The first one was from one of my favorite illustrators, E.H. Shepard. Hallmark still produces a series of Winnie the Pooh cards, both the Disney ones and originals like this one.

And here's a new type of card, laser cut. They are just lovely. This one is "Birds on a Wire." You can see lots of examples by going to google images and type in laser cut cards.

Happy Halloween!

Peak week #2

Sorry, this is all we're talking about these days! Our trees and bushes absolutely popped over the last 3-4 days, more so than even the ones last week. I was encouraged to share some more pictures when our weekend speaker, who is from San Antonio, Texas, just exclaimed and exclaimed when she saw the autumn colors. "We don't have this in Texas," she said. "I have to take pictures for the sisters that I live with. They won't believe it."

So, believe it--here they are. (Plus another, better fire escape sunrise. More sky in this one).

Our backyard #1

Our backyard #2

7:45 am, four stories up and facing east.

Color my world--it's our peak week

Some of our trees have turned, others are as green as ever!

Along Troupe Rd at our side entrance

One of our many "golden" trees.

Even one of our sweet new trees changed colors! 

October interlude

This weekend was certainly an autumn interlude, a break from our more recent cool and somewhat rainy days that crept in throughout October. But, this weekend the sun shined brightly and the temperatures hit 70.

Two major groups were extremely grateful for this "surprise": the first one I'd say were the groups that came to our place this weekend, three of them. All really did their own thing, so to speak. One was a one-day retreat, the second was here from a local college for a planning meeting and the third was another college small group here for a get-away and probably some planning within that. All of them could enjoy the beautiful sunny outdoors, whether they were actually in it or enjoyed it through open windows.

The second major group that was very grateful for this break were the local residents of the Erie area. We took some time at the peninsula Sunday afternoon and I swear 1/2 of Erie was there! People were walking, fishing, taking their boats out of the water for the season, playing with their dogs and kids, biking, and any other activity they could come up with. We were doing a little walking and passing pleasantries with other walkers and bikers we met, along with trying to get some photos--primarily just for this blog.

Here's the best one of the day--The Victorian Princess must still be having lunch/afternoon trips around the bay. Beautiful!

Sunrise, sunset

In our Lake Erie town the sunset is right "into" Lake Erie, allowing great beachfront or parking lot views on the lake's edge and at Presque Isle State Park, as well as right at our Glinodo beach, too. One of our sisters, a great photographer, is obsessed with catching the perfect sunset and has taken 100s of photos in the attempt.

In October, the three weeks that precede turning the clocks back an hour, we have a unique sunrise reality. The sun rises around 7:30 am, give or take 15 minutes during these three weeks. That is exactly when we are arriving at work. So, as you can see from the pictures below, I can run up to my office on the fourth floor, go to the old fashioned fire escape on the east side, open the upper window (no screens) and see these once-a-year sunrises come up over the east side of the city of Erie.

I'm going to try to get our sunset-Sister to come up to the fourth floor window, too, and try her magic eye on a sunrise!

A chip-monk among us

I wasn't a first-class participant in this (ad)venture--I just saw a little at the beginning and passed through near the end, but here is the gist of the hour and a half event as I understand it.

As I was leaving for a prayer vigil downtown on behalf of the immigrant children being held at our southern border, I passed through chapel and heard a sister exclaim, "There's a chipmunk on the altar!" After verifying this unusual announcement, I grabbed my phone and took this shot.

Soon two sisters, armed with a piece of paper and a plastic bag, tried in vain to coax it into the bag. It would have nothing to do with that and scampered down to the chapel floor. I went off to the prayer vigil and when I returned an hour later, I traveled through the chapel again. Much to my surprise about a dozen sisters were there now (arriving for lectio a 1/2 hour before evening prayer, I presumed) and they were up and kind of dancing around, stamping their feet and waving their arms. The chipmunk had reappeared!

I continued through the chapel but I did return twenty minutes later, wondering what in the world I would see now. All was calm, all was bright. Quiet, serene and chipmunk-less. It seems that all the "encouragement" by the sisters had finally sent the chipmunk to the open door and off it went, most probably grateful to escape this odd group of animals.

"What do you do all day in the monastery?" we still occasionally get asked. It's very hard to give a full accounting!

Funk & Wagnalls---fond memories

No, this is not from National Geographic, nor from our Presque Isle State Park or from google images! This was taken by my friend Io right in the backyard of the Mount yesterday. What a great shot! So, I immediately went to google and put in white-tailed deer, which eventually got me to what I was looking for: their mating season--and sure enough mid-September to mid-November, with October being the prime time.

We seldom see buck, especially with antlers like these, on our property, but we do have plenty of doe with their various-aged offspring--and it is October.

This whole scene took me back to growing up. What did we do as a child or even an adult, when we had questions such as that? Ask the nearest adult? Go to an encyclopedia if we had one? Wait till we got to school to find one? Call the reference desk at the library?! It's a whole new wonderful world of knowledge now: What's that? What's this? When is it happening? How do they do that? Where's that? Who was she? Just "google it" and voila!

Amanita

It's mushroom time at our Glinodo property, especially along the boardwalk down to the lake. There are three large evergreens rather close together and in the grasses around them a colony of mushrooms seem to pop up every fall. I've been disappointed that I haven't seen them this year, even thinking that I'd missed them entirely, as I don't get down there as much as I wish. But, today I did and found this amanita mushroom. Well, I'm not sure it is an amanita, for 20 minutes on google and google images doesn't make one a mycologist (one who studies mushrooms)!

Anyway, if it is an amanita it is not one of the edible kinds of mushrooms, poison in fact. No fear here, I wouldn't even think of picking it, as it is beautiful to just behold! I hope some of its friends come along soon though, they make a lovely setting for October viewing.

Conversatio

I just finished Louise Penny's latest effort to bring us outstanding, thrilling mysteries mixed with equally enthralling characters. The Better Man is the 15th in her series about Chief Inspector Armand Gamache and the cast of characters that he works with in the Montreal Surete as well as those in his village, Three Pines. One of my friends said that this might be her favorite of all of them, but that's hard for me to say after fourteen others! If I really, really had to pick one (which I do not want to do) it would probably be How the Light Gets In, though as soon as I say that I think of others that I loved equally!

In this book one of Penny's recurring themes is in full view and that is the theme of conversion or redemption, you might say. This time it's Clara, the brilliant artist in Three Pines and Jean Guy, Gamache's protegee and son-in-law who continue to struggle with their demons--not that they haven't made progress, they have...but conversion continues each day--as the Rule of Benedict professes!

The books continue to charm, the excellent writing by itself is reason to return to them. The only downside is the fact that only the first, Still Life, has been made into a film. Come on film makers...there are many more!

The Time of Harvest

A lovely early fall-like day made Sunday absolutely perfect for the annual Emmaus Harvest. These fertile grounds once again produced a large amount of produce for the faithful gardeners who planted and tended them all summer. Friends, supporters and guests mingled outside of the food pantry and roamed the remnants of this summer's gardens hoping to catch a peek at any leftovers. Here's what I found: