December  6, 2017

Happy Feast of Saint Nicholas.  He came to visit us in the dining room this noon and gave us each a little bag of peanuts…a nice little treat.  I remember him coming to our home when we were children.  There would be a big racket on the porch, but when we went to look there was no one there, but we’d find a bag of peanuts and apples & oranges in the wood box.

There are many activities come up in the next couple weeks. On Sunday December 10^th at 2 p.m. the St. Francis Community Chorale will present their Christmas Blessings, Concert in Sacred Heart Chapel.  There will be a reception in St. Francis Hall.  This group is directed by Barb Stumpf.

The other noon, Jeff and a group of ladies did an enlunchment presentation, telling us about the work a group of them did wile in Haiti.  I am always impressed by the great works volunteers do both in our own country and in other countries.  Thank you for sharing your faith by putting it into action.

On Friday, December 15^th at 7 p.m. the St Francis Chorale and Chamber Orchestra will give a concert, Joyful Yuletide, in Sacred Heart Chapel.  The concert is directed by Bobbi French.   

The Little Falls Lions Club will come for Christmas Caroling and pizza on Thursday, December 14^th from 7:30 to 8:30 p.m. in St. Francis Hall.

There will be a retirement party in the dining room for Jeff Odendahl at 2 p.m. on December 12^th.  Jeff has served as director of the Justice, Peace and Integrity of Creation department for the past 13 years.  Thanks, Jeff, for a job well done.  We will miss you.  Do come back to visit.

Friday, December 8^th, is the Feast of the Immaculate Conception and the patronal feast of our Community.  It will be a special day for us.  We will have Morning Prayer together at 8:15 followed with brunch.   At 11 a.m. we will have a festive Mass with lots of singing .  Following 4:15 Evening Prayer we will have a special dinner.  A little statistic:  We are 117 living Sisters and 338 deceased Sisters.

The Give to the Max collection was a little over a week ago.  From our generous donors our Community received over $54,000 to support our ministries.  Thank You.  We are grateful and we do pray for you.

We have a bit of snow on the roof tops but not enough on the ground to make mention of.  The temperate is cold—but I guess we should expect that since we are into December.

May your Advent days be peaceful (unstressful) as we get nearer to Christmas.

Peace and blessings,

Sister Mary Lou

November 28, 2016

Happy Advent.  May we remember that Advent is a time for our spiritual preparation for the coming of Jesus at Christmas.  It is so easy to become involved with many activities and forget that Jesus is already here and waiting to come anew with new graces and blessings if/when we are ready to receive them.  Come, Lord Jesus.

“Gracious God, You are the One who comes to heal and save us, to bring joy and peace.  Help us to see, hear, feel and understand the ways You came to us through the person of Jesus.  Teach us how to live as He did so we might also bring joy and peace to others.  Amen.”

Rita Hacker blesses us with beautiful harp music as the prelude to Mass each Sunday of Advent…a prayerful prelude to the Liturgy.  Thanks, Rita.

On Thanksgiving, they served about 400+ people at the Community Thanksgiving Dinner at the High School.  It is a wonderful opportunity for people to celebrate with family and friends.  The mashed potatoes (five 5-gallon pails) at the meal were grown in our garden and peeled by about half a dozen Sisters last Tuesday.

On Thursday we will be hosting the annual Ministerial Christmas Luncheon.  We are expecting about 35 guests.  I’d like to extend my thanks to these special people who minister to the spiritual needs of the people in their care.  We need you.

Sister Julien carved the turkey for our Sister’s Thanksgiving dinner.

The first Thursday of every month we have Taize prayer in Chapel from 6 to 7 p.m. 

What Taize prayer is, is an hour of meditative prayers and song with Scripture readings that fit the Liturgical Season—so, Advent for this month.

Next Sunday, December 4^th, is the Community Chorale Christmas Concert at 2:00 p.m. in our Sacred Heart Chapel with a reception afterwards.  Come enjoy wonderful music and goodies, too.  It will get you into the Christmas Spirit.

With the colder weather, it was time for me to put on my “Chicken and Stars” quilt.  This was a great gift from a friend thirteen years ago.

Christmas trees and decorations are starting to appear all around the building…so exciting. 

Blessings on you this Advent Season.
Peace.

Sister Mary Lou

Celebrate the Holidays!

December 30, 2015

This is probably the last time I will write “2015.” This little quote probably fits: “HEAL the past. LIVE the present. DREAM the future.” My wish for you is that your Christmas Season will continue to remind us of God’s Great Love for us by sending His Only Son to live among us, to guide and direct us, to support us in our needs, to show Mercy to us and Love for us. We are never alone. What a gift it is to have the gift of Faith and to be Baptized.

I hope you saw the full moon on Christmas Day. The last time it happened was in 1977 and will not happen again until 2034. I took this picture Christmas Eve. It was beautiful.

On December 12th MANY volunteers placed 4,190 wreaths on graves at the Veterans Cemetery. What a nice way to honor our Veterans. Thank you, volunteers. I have not been out to take a picture yet. I’ll post it when I get a picture. I always get goose bumps when I see all the green wreaths with the big red ribbons…especially with the white snow cover.

The Values Committee sponsored our Advent Giving Project of donating to Employment Enterprise, Inc (EEI). This program trains adults with developmental disabilities to achieve greater independence and self-sufficiency Earlier I showed all the gift boxes. The total we donated to EEI was $1,577! Pam Baltes, (red shirt) accepted the check. With her are some of the winners of the baskets. Table decorations that day little painted penguins made from long-stem glasses. I was fortunate to win one.

These two Christmas Trees, in the back of the Gathering Space of our Chapel, have the tags of the donor’s needs and intentions listed on them. In a couple weeks each Sister will get a little pile of these cards and those are the people we individually pray for during the coming year. We pray for all our Donors every day.

The snow on the walls in the courtyard makes for a lovely scene. We didn’t get very much snow from the mega-storm that was moving around earlier in the week. I don’t mind.

Here are a few of the crib sets I found around the campus. The card with the Nativity picture in the candle flame was the card we received from Bishop Kettler. It was drawn by a student from Mayhew Lake.

A special group of singers sang a song or two before the Christmas Eve Mass. All the music was beautiful. Sister Jean does a great job of selecting music and practicing with the Sisters.

A new marble bench arrived in our cemetery the week before Christmas. It is a gift from the Weier Family nieces and nephews to honor the six Franciscan Religious of the Frank and Nellie Weier Family (of twelve12 children). Four of the girls are members of our Little Falls Franciscan Community (Sister Lenore {1917-1974}, Sister Camillus {1919-1982, Sister Vianney {1924-__}, Sister Elizabeth {1927-2015}. Sister Helen, OSC {1933-­­___} is a Poor Clare Sister living in Bloomington, MN. Father Thomas Weier, OFM, Cap {1914-1980} was a Franciscan Priest ­of the Capuchin Order.

On Wednesday, December 23rd, from 3 to 7 p.m., Sister Julien and I “Made a Joyful Noise” out at Coborn’s Superstore as part of a fundraiser for the local Food Shelf. Folks were extremely generous. We had $674.77 in the box when we counted the money at 7 p.m. THANK YOU, GENEROUS DONORS.

Monday I had the nicest surprise. Kathy, a teacher I hired in 1977, to teach as St. Mary’s School in Morris, MN, came to visit, along with her husband, Dave, and their son Jason, who will graduate from Medical School in May. What a treasured visit!

The Blood Mobile will be here Wednesday and Thursday, January 6th and 7th from 1 to 7 p.m. and Friday, January 8th from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m.

And I wish you peace and blessings in the NEW YEAR!

Sister Mary Lou

Christmas celebrations abound!

December 14, 2015

Already the Third Week of Advent. As we prepare for the Birth of Jesus, may our hearts be kind and merciful to everyone…those near at hand and those far away.

The local Lion’s Club members came to St. Francis to entertain the Sisters with some Christmas songs. They invited us to join them in some of the songs and that was great fun. After the singing we all enjoyed a pizza treat.

Friday evening, the 11th, the Saint Francis Music Center presented us with wonderful music by the St. Francis Preparatory Orchestra and the St. Francis Concert Orchestra, directed by Bobbi French.

The title of the program was “Sweet Holiday Suites.” In music, a “suite” is a collection of pieces that are somehow related to one another—in tone or style or by composer’s design. The play on words in the title was a convenient way to teach younger students the correct pronunciation of the word “suite.” Thank you to all players for sharing your talent and giving us an hour’s worth of great entertainment. Their next concert is Friday, April 22, 2016, at 7 p.m.

Saturday was the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe. We had a special Mass and prayed for the people of the Americas—North, South and Central America. The Virgin Mary is the Patron of the Americas.

As of January 1st, we will no longer be a distribution site for altar Breads—something the Franciscan Sisters have done for nearly 125 years. Pictured is Sister Anne with the last delivery of altar breads that will be sent out in the next couple weeks.

Sister Anne has been in charge of this department for 41 ½ years. That is a long time! THANK YOU, SISTER ANNE for all those years of service.

Pope Francis declared this year The Extraordinary Year of Mercy. The Vatican has a website set up for this special year. The address is: www.im.va. This is a great place to find out more about this special year. The logo shows Jesus as the Good Shepherd, who is carrying another person. Sister Mary Obowa has sewn the logo onto a piece of linen that adorns the ambo in our Chapel.

On Thursday we will have our Employee/Sister pot luck lunch and also for the drawings for all the lovely gifts that have been on display in the Clare Parlor the past couple weeks.

Sister Ruth is still busy processing tomatoes in tomato juice. The tomatoes were frozen a couple months ago when she was too busy with other garden produce to make the juice. She makes such good juice. I always take it for breakfast. Thank you, Sister Ruth, for all the nutritious food you bring to our table.

May your week be blessed. May all the Christmas cards get to their destination on time. “They say” today is the busiest Mail Day of the year. Sister Georgine would agree. We had LOTS of mail delivered today.

May Jesus and His Teachings become more of a part of our life these last weeks of Advent.




Sister Mary Lou

We prepare for the Lord

We are into the Second Week of Advent.  “Behold, the Lord comes to save His People: blessed are those prepared to meet Him.”  May the hustle and bustle of the season not deter us from the meaning of Advent—of Who we are waiting for.

The Little Falls Ministerial Group met here for lunch on Thursday, December 3^rd.  They are a large group taking care of the spiritual needs of the people of our area.

Shawn Colberg, professor at St. John’s University, was the speaker at the December 5^th, Advent Reflection Day.  He spoke about Saint Bonaventure’s take on the Incarnation of Jesus and how this is meaningful in our lives.  Shawn reminded us of the importance of seeing Jesus in the present moment.  Do I believe God?  Will I do what God asks of me?  At least 70 people came for the day.  That was a great turn-out.

Saint Nicholas came to visit the sisters and guests at noon on December 5^th, the eve of the Feast of Saint Nicholas.  He handed out little treats to both the naughty and the nice.

Sunday evening’s St. Francis Community Chorale and Children’s Choir Concert, was a real treat for our ears. Sacred Heart Chapel was full of eager listeners.  I commend directors Barb Stumpf and Joan Wingert for a job well done.  (I took a picture of one of jars of the “free-will offerings” taken in that night.)  All their practices and efforts were well worth the effort.  Thank you for sharing your talents and your efforts.

On Friday night, December 11^th, we will have the privilege of hearing the St. Francis Music Center’s two Orchestras.  The program will take place at 7 p.m. in Chapel.  We invite you to attend.

Usually we have a Communion Service on Saturdays.  This week, because of the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe, Patroness of the Americas, we will have Mass at 11 a.m.  Father Tony Kroll will be the Celebrant.

Christmas decorations are going up all over the building.  These are a couple pictures I too today.

Peace and God bless you,

Sister Mary Lou

Advent Season is Upon Us

First Week of Advent.  ‘Behold, the Lord will come, and all His holy ones with Him; and on that day there will be a great light.” (Zec. 14:5, 7.)  Let us continue to pray for the light of the World to bring peace to our suffering and troubled world.

We had about 4 inches of snow yesterday…and from the sounds of it, it will all be melted by the weekend.  The wet, sticky snow was good for making good snowmen.  My sister, Rita, will be

returning to Indonesia on Friday.  Here she is with her snowman.  She will leave the farm near West Union at 6:30 a.m. and arrive at her home in Sentani, Indonesia at about 7 a.m. on Monday her time.  Her trip takes her from Minneapolis to Tokyo to Singapore to Jarkarta to Jayaoura to Sentani with a couple layovers along the way.  It’s a long trip.  She does cross the International Dateline along the journey.

I hope our Thanksgiving Day was truly a day to give thanks for the blessings from a good God who loves us very much.  Our table was laden with good food…but the first event of the day was to attend Mass.

Sunday is the Second Sunday of Advent and also the Feast of Saint Nicholas.  I hope you’ve been good so Saint Nicholas can leave you some goodies.  I remember, as a child, Saint Nicholas always left us some peanuts and candy.  There’d be a big racket on the porch, but no one was there, but there was a bag of goodies on the wood box!

December 8^th, the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, is a big feast for our Religious Community.  We are mindful that our religious title is Franciscan sisters of the Immaculate Conception.  We go by Franciscan Sisters of Little Falls as a legal title since it is called for in so many dealings with the public.  It is also the day on which Pope Francis will have the Catholic Church begin the “Year of Mercy.”  Now during Advent we prepare for the Birth of Jesus—the God of Mercy among us.

December 12^th, is the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe, Patroness of the Americas.

We will host the Ministerial Christmas Luncheon on Thursday, December 3^rd, in St. Francis Hall from 11:45 a.m. to 1 p.m.

The Advent Day of Reflection is Saturday, December 5^th, from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.  The speaker is Shawn Colberg.

We will have opportunities for lots of music enjoyment in the next two weeks.  I hope you can join us for some of the events.

St. Francis Music Center has Christmas Recitals December 4^th at 7 p.m.; December 5^th at 10 a.m. and 1 p.m.; December 6^th at 1 p.m.  Their recitals are all held in Room 242 at St. Francis Center. 

Sunday, December 6^th, the Music Center presents their Christmas Chorale Concert at 7 p.m. in our Chapel.  This concert will be repeated on December 13^th at Bethany Lutheran Church in Cushing, MN.

Friday, December 11^th, the two Music Center Orchestras will present their Christmas Concert at 7 p.m. in our Chapel.

The 8^th Annual Franciscan Community Volunteers will host their Christmas Open House on December 6^th,  from 2 to 4 p.m. at the Franciscan Welcoming House (1600 11^th Ave. South, St. Cloud, MN.)

The other day I went to the Pottery shop for my first and last time.  Pictured is Sr. Tonie standing beside the kiln her father donated to St. Francis High School in the middle 1960s.  Soon the kiln will have a new home.

Pax et Bonum. (Peace and All Good)                                                                                                                         

May the Lord, bless us and all our brothers and sisters throughout the world.                                                    Sister Mary Lou 

Christmas Blessings

December 22, 2014 First full day of winter.

We are in the Fourth week of Advent. In a few days we celebrate the Birth of our Savior Jesus Christ. May Christ bless each of us with many blessings this Holy Season.

Last week we brought to a close the end of an era. For 45 years the Franciscan Sisters operated the Clothes Review. These last many years it has been housed here on St. Francis campus. From now on the ministry will be handled at “New 2 You” a new Thrift shop in conjunction with the Boys and Girls Club on the west side of Little Falls. I stopped there on Saturday to see it for myself. It is really nice. Besides clothes they have household items, furniture and every so MANY other things. (A few of the employees, wearing attire from the Clothes Review, furnished a little entertainment at lunch.)

Last Thursday we had our Sister/Employee pot-luck lunch and also the drawings for the many baskets. The proceeds went to the Boys and Girls Club. The total exceeded our expectations. We raised $1,577. Thank you to all who supported this effort. One of our Franciscan goals is to support at risk youth. Support of the Boys and Girls Club helps us reach that goal.

Saturday I drove out to the Veterans Cemetery at Camp Ripley. I knew that on December 13th there was a short ceremony and then LOTS of volunteers went to work to put a wreath with a red ribbon at each of the 3,800 grave sites. In 2006, 5 wreaths were placed—one for each branch of the military. The program has grown. The wreaths will be removed on January 31, 2015. Let us pray for the families of these and all military families.

Christmas Eve Singing starts at 7:00 p.m. Mass is at 7:30 p.m. followed by refreshments and visiting in St. Francis Hall after Mass.

Christmas Day Mass is at 8:30 a.m.

Rejoice… 

In the Spirit of Christmas which is PEACE, 

 the Miracle of Christmas which is HOPE, 

 and the Heart of Christmas which is LOVE.

Merry Christmas!

Peace, health and safety to you and those you love,
Sister Mary Lou