March 20, 2008
The first day of spring

May the blessings of this Holy Week be with you and bring you nearer and nearer to the Son of God who freely gave of Himself for our redemption.

I have done a lot of palm braiding these past couple weeks. Last Monday I went to Our Lady of Lourdes School for a couple hours to help the 7th and 8th Graders do some palm weaving. Everyone likes to make the little cones, but they are hard to start. This year I finally mastered the art and can do it in a couple easy, fast hand movements. In preparation for the work at school, I started 50+ little cones so the students could just fold the pieces over and over and over and "stick the last piece under the loop."

Last evening, at the invitation of Marsh Krebs, Religious Education coordinator, I went to Sobieski to talk to the Religious Education Students (Grades 1-8) about Holy Week and the importance of these days and the events of the last days of Jesus’ life before His Crucifixion, Death and Resurrection. I was edified at how attentive everyone was and how well they listened. After my presentation, Sr. Bernarda Sanoski distributed little palm-weaved fish I made to each of the 45+ students in attendance. For me it was a wonderful experience to witness the faith of these young people.

Tonight (Holy Thursday) we Sisters have our Agape Meal at 4:30 p.m. and at 7 p.m. our Eucharistic Celebration with adoration until 10 p.m. This is always such a special event.
Tomorrow—Good Friday—we have a silent Walk for Peace at 9:30 a.m. We will be walking through the city of Little Falls making eight stops to pray for various intentions. The first stop is at Maple Island Park where we will pray for the healing of the earth. Our next stop is at the Veteran’s Memorial where we will pray for our military and our veterans. Next we stop at Bank Square where we pray for a just economic system. At the Courthouse we pray for our civic leaders. At the jail we pray for those imprisoned and our law enforcement officers. From there we go to St. Mary’s School and pray for children. At Alverna Apartments and St. Otto’s, we pray for all senior citizens. When we come to St. Gabriel’s Hospital we pray for the sick and all who care for them.

On Good Friday, we also had Stations of the Cross, both in Chapel and Outside near the walkway leading to the cemetery. These beautiful Stations were painted by our Sister Alice Doll many years ago.

Our Easter Vigil service was at 8 p.m. on Holy Saturday evening. On Easter Sunday we celebrated the Resurrection with an 8:30 a.m. Eucharist.

It is so great to have all these services in our newly painted and cleaned chapel. The walls are beautiful, the woodwork shines and the windows and lights are all so clean. It was a BIG job to get all that work done. Thanks, guys for your hard work.

Every Year, on Good Friday morning, the Senior Sisters color all the Easter Eggs. Those trays of colored eggs are beautiful to behold…and remind me of a summer rainbow.

Happy Easter to each of you.
Pax et Bonum.
Sister Mary Lou