First peninsula trip

It was a beautiful Sunday in Easter season, Mother's Day weekend, for everyone in our area. As we sing "Alleluia" throughout our prayer and, especially on the Sundays of the Easter season, it was much easier to feel the spirit of rejoicing because our weather has taken a much-anticipated turn to warmth and sun.

Though there are still many flowers in chapel, the first ones have begun to fade and we were able to plant their bulbs in the inner courtyard garden. Fun to see lilies blooming in July and August!

We got the opportunity to travel to our peninsula, too. This time of year, pre-tourists, you only run into locals. Nice!

Here's the Oliver Hazard Perry monument area at the very tip of the peninsula, two of many fishermen on the bay, our lighthouse at the entrance to the channel with the Flagship Niagara out for an early spring sail, and the professional kite fliers on Sunset beach (quickly becoming known as the kite flying beach!).

May is Flowering

I thought our onslaught of guests would wind down a bit, I was wrong. We have 4-5 women here this week who are fitting into our post-Easter "Let's all just be quiet and return to the every day" atmosphere just perfectly. They are all smiles, yet quiet and unassuming. We are trying to be the same! One, however, has taken me off guard, as she announced that she had me in high school some 30+ years ago. Yikes! She is back in Erie for awhile because of an ailing parent and she needed a quiet, away place to be while negotiating some parenting. This is just what Benedictine hospitality is for.

Our website has some new entries, including a fun slide show from Sunday's benefactors' brunch. A brief disclaimer on why yours truly looks so tired----I was! But happy...it was a fun event.

Despite our barrels of rain, acres of standing water ponds and endless sun-less days, our trees are flowering beautifully. If we weren't so cold we could get outside and enjoy them! But nonetheless, here are a couple lovely, delicate ones that I found hidden in obscure corners of the Mount. Can you tell where they are?

And Happy Anniversary

Our guest speaker this weekend was terrific. Maria Cimperman is an Ursuline currently living in San Diego, CA, though doing some online teaching with occasional on-campus time in San Antonio. She is writing a new book on social analysis and we got a dose of the ideas, with twists and tweaking for religious congregations. The example we used to go through some of the process's steps was the natural gas drilling question that is THE topic throughout much of Pennsylvania as we are poised above huge natural gas reserves in our shale. However, the environmental and human costs, dangers and risks of this drilling and fracking are monumental. The film, Gasland, which documents one young man's research into this drilling, is currently #1 on amazon's DVD list---so interest in the topic is really taking off...thank goodness.

Two of our favorite Easter gifts: The DVD of "The King's Speech" from one of our English oblates and two volumes of the St. John's Bible: "The Psalms" and "Gospels and Acts." Beautiful, both.


If you haven't given the new Monasteries of the Heart website a look yet, you might try it soon. It's very cool and has lots of options, such as a blog with reader conversation, videos, and some daily postings by some of the sisters involved or those already in MoH groups or interested in starting one. It's here.


Happy Anniversary LTSGW....Today begins year #5.

Easter Week

Ursuline Maria Cimperman will be our speaker this Saturday at our April Community Days weekend. Her topic is "From Paralysis to Analysis: toward a socially conscious spirituality." Additionally this weekend is our annual recognition of our major benefactors--at the Benefactors' Brunch Sunday morning. This is always a delightful affair, a good time to "touch base" with some people we only see a couple times a year.

Easter

He is risen, Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia!

Easter Sunday

"Thirst"

Another morning and I wake with thirst for the goodness I do not have. I walk out to the pond and all the way God has given us such beautiful lessons. Oh Lord, I was never a quick scholar but sulked and hunched over my books past the hour and the bell; grant me, in your mercy, a little more time. Love for the earth and love for you are having such a long conversation in my heart. Who knows what will finally happen or where I will be sent, yet already I have given a great many things away, expecting to be told to pack nothing, except the prayers which, with this thirst, I am slowly learning.

Mary Oliver

Holy Saturday

"Making the House Ready for the Lord"

Dear Lord, I have swept and I have washed but still nothing is as shining as it should be for you. Under the sink, for example, is an uproar of mice--it is the season of their many children. What shall I do? And under the eaves and through the walls the squirrels have gnawed their ragged entrances--but it is the season when they need shelter, so what shall I do? And the racoon limps into the kitchen and opens the cupboard while the dog snores, the cat hugs the pillow; what shall I do? Beautiful is the new snow falling in the yard and the fox who is staring boldly up the path, to the door. And still I believe you will come, Lord: you will, when I speak to the fox, the sparrow, the lost dog, the shivering sea-goose, know that really I am speaking to you whenever I say, as I do all morning and afternoon: Come in, Come in.

Mary Oliver