Franciscan Sisters of Little Falls: Life at the Convent

1/13/14

My Life, My Family, God's Way

With the Church Feast of the Baptism of the Lord yesterday, the Christmas season is officially over. I put my Christmas decorations away Saturday. It always happens that after I carefully check to see that I have everything in the box and put the box in the closet, there appear at least two items that managed to escape my eye and now I need to pull a box out and add these errant items. Ever happen to you?

What a change in weather from last week when we had a minus 23 temp (minus 40 wind chill) last Monday and a plus 42 yesterday afternoon. Last night the trucks were out scraping ice off the bumpy roads around the buildings. Moving around is easier today.

We had two Sisters die over the weekend. Sister Lydia Langer died Saturday at 6:22 p.m. Sister Elizabeth (Kizzie) Omann died Sunday at 4:10 a.m. Sr. Lydia’s Funeral is Saturday, January 18th and Sr. Elizabeth’s Funeral is Monday, January 20th. Family members and Sisters have been sitting with each one for a couple days. Eternal Life give to them, O Lord. And let Perpetual Light shine on each.

We had the Blood Mobile here three days last week. Though we did not meet our goal of 265 Units, we did collect 225 Units and that is a lot of blood. God bless all who braved the very cold weather and came. You are life-savers in the true sense of the word. Thank you.

Last weekend 12 Stephen Ministers of Anoka came for a weekend retreat. This group began coming here in October, 1986, so it will be 28 years in October. Sr. Rita Barthel was on the staff at St. Stephen’s and coordinated their group to come here. Sr. Johnelle Becker followed Sr. Rita in her position. Sr. Roberta Zimmer was Hospitality Manager at that time. The Stephen Ministers joined us for Saturday Evening Prayer, Meals and Mass on Sunday. Thank you for coming and do come again.

Retreat with Father John Quigley, OFM starts tonight. Title of the retreat is “Our evolving Images of God; Oh how we’ve/they’ve changed. There are 35 of us signed up for the retreat—mostly Sisters, bur a couple Associates.

Other than the retreat and preparing for the funerals, it should be kind of a quiet week here. I will keep you, my readers, in my prayers. Please do the same for me.

Peace and blessings,

Sister Mary Lou

1/7/14

It's cold outside!

We are into January and a cold one it is. Local radio says it was minus 23 this morning with a wind chill of minus 43 degrees…that’s cold if you have to be in it for any length of time. My plans are to stay inside as much as possible. They say the high today will be about minus 15. Even with the severe cold we are still fortunate because we have electricity and do not have ice coated power lines, trees and roads.

After two weeks with a “Sunday” in the middle of the week, and a “Monday” after Wednesday, it is good to be back to a week where Monday follows Sunday and the days go along as expected. We don’t have to say, “Today is Monday.” The past two weeks the day after Wednesday felt like a Monday.

We’ve had Christmas and New Year’s and Epiphany. Next Sunday is the Feast of the Baptism of the Lord and the end of the Christmas Season according to the Church calendar. It seems to me that it all went by pretty fast. On Saturday we Sisters had our Christmas celebration. After the special meal, we sing Christmas carols for half an hour or so. We do like to sing.