Happy Feast of All Saints and All Souls Day

For yesterday, I wish you Happy Feast of All Saints, those already in heaven, and the rest of us in the process of becoming Saints--Saints in the making. And today, All Souls Day, we remember and pray for all our deceased family members, friends and all who have died. Eternal rest give to them, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon them.

I am late getting this week’s blog written…and in a couple days it will be time to write another one! Today was the first day of our 3-day blood drive. Wonderful results today—our goal was 90 and we had 106 units of blood donated. My hope is that the next two days will be as good. I call the Party Line radio program to remind people of the blood drive. The last two days after my call, two new donors called and made an appointment to donate blood. That is great. I will report next week on our total collection. After one gives blood, they always give you a sticker that says, “I gave blood today” but the stickers today also said that and then “And I got a good cookie!” That last was a new sentence. We make our own fresh cookies and I’ve heard some people say they come for the cookies. The cookies this week are: decorated Halloween cookies, oatmeal raisin cookies and peanut butter cookies.

Tomorrow is the first Thursday of the month again. (How did it get here so fast?) Anyway, there is Taize Prayer at 6 p.m. in the Chapel Gathering Space.

Saturday night is the night for our Harvest Supper fund raiser…fried chicken, sausage, garden vegetables, cole slaw and homemade bars. Come with a good appetite.

On Halloween Day we were invited to dress-up for some fun in the dining room after we had our lunch. There were some great costumes. The Housekeeping Department came as the Seven Dwarfs. Sneezy was going through the lunch line ahead of me. I guessed him to be Sneezy even before I say his name tag. As they left the dining room they were singing , “HI Ho, Hi Ho it’s Off to Work We Go.”

Last Saturday the Sisters were invited to the Olive Branch Retreat Center on Fuller Lake, near Grey Eagle. We had owned that property for about 10 years and then sold it. The new owners changed the name and did some fixing-up and they wanted us to see the work they had done. It is beautiful. About 40 of us accepted the invitation and enjoyed our visit. You can check them out on the web at http://www.olivebranchretreat.com/ .

Every year in November, Sr. Joel puts up a display where we list those who have died since last November 2nd: 2 priests from the Diocese of St. Cloud, 4 of our Sisters, 66 relatives of Sisters, and 118 Friends, Donors or Associates are listed this year.

Another 1,000-piece puzzle was finished the other day. It was a beautiful wolf family. The irregular outside frame took a little while to finish, then, the rest went fast.

Let us pray for the safety of deer hunters…and wish them a successful harvest. Too many cars are having encounters with deer. My sister-in-law had one last week.

Peace and Blessings on each of you!

(Pictured below are yours truly on the right with Sister Georgine, the Franciscan Sisters of St. Joseph from Asumbi, Kenya, Sisters Claudia and Mary Idah, and Jeff Odendahl from the Office of Justice Peace and Integrity of Creation in the chicken costume)