Candidacy - day 25 - Evening prayer

Our evening schedule is usually dinner at 6:00 PM followed by evening prayer. Tonight, Carol is in bed with a terrible cold. So, it's just Meg and me. It's interesting that Anglican and Episcopalian churches do Vespers (evening prayer), Compline (night prayer), and morning prayer as part of regularly scheduled liturgies. We have lost that tradition in the Catholic Church.

Meg leading evening prayer tonight.

In the above picture, behind Meg, is one of three tabernacles that Margaret Bannan, who was then provincial, brought back from Indonesia. What is significant in the picture is its location -- the dining room. So, in order to make room for me in the house. Carol and Meg moved their chapel. It landed in the dining room where we do evening prayer every day.

Oh, what is a "provincial"? Well, in the United States, the congregation has three regional areas called provinces.  There's one each on the East coast, in the Mid-West, and on the West coast. This province on the West coast is the St. Francis province. The provincial minister heads up the province, Or, as freedictionary.com defines provincial: "the head of a major territorial subdivision of a religious order"

Candidacy - Day 24 @ Nesta's

This was my Saturday. The day started at the gym. I watched TV while walking on the treadmill.

After working out, I drove to San Francisco to pick up my Domincan friend, Dolorice, who will be celebrating her 85th birthday on January 1st (for the second time, we found out one day when we did the math). We arrived at Nesta's house and helped put up Christmas decorations. This is Dolorice watching Janice (my St. Elizabeth's high school buddy as well as my former principal when I taught) put up Christmas lights on the balcony.

Then, Janice (who was Maid of Honor at our wedding before she joined the Domicans) and Dolorice worked on decorations.

After the decorations were up, we couldn't play Christmas music. Nesta, Janice's mom, was a bit dismayed that the CD player wouldn't work. We ended up going to Fry's to get a new CD player which, when we got it home, didn't work either. We gave up on the CDs and played MP3s.

Nesta, who proclaimed me her first adopted daughter when I was a teenager, makes Burmese style chicken curry.

Driving to evening Mass at St. Clement's Church in Hayward.

Arriving home after Mass with the Christmas lights on at the house.

The end of a curry chicken meal with Nesta's neighbors, Ian and Patty, and Dolorice with empty plates. What's missing is a picture of the plate of cream puffs Patty, a superlative baker, made. They were gone quickly. We ate them.

That was my delightful Saturday. I drove Dolorice home to San Francisco and then myself back home to Redwood City. So, Saturdays while living with Meg and Carol are "free days." Oh, for Janice's 25th jubilee in 2003, she was given a week of a time-share in Hawaii. If you want to see a picture of us at a luau, look at the April 23, 2012 blog posting.

 

Candidacy - Day 21 - Desert Sisters SoulCollage

I am usually a very private person. I don't partake in Facebook actively because I do not agree with the philosophy -- that I should connect to everyone in the world. Plus, keeping up with Facebook takes too much time. But, I have decided to share a SoulCollage card that I've recently revisited. I created the card in June 2009 at a Franciscan Living workshop when I was beginning to inquire about becoming a Franciscan. I looked at the card again this week, and changed it a bit in Photoshop to reflect on the outside what I consider to be important to me on the inside currently. The name of the card is: Desert Sisters. Doing the I Am One Who  SoulCollage exercise, this card says to me:

We are the ones who walk where there may be no path in pursuit of the Light, in pursuit of the Holy One. Where we go, there may be few signs from those who have gone before. We walk off the edge of firm ground, of the known, into the shifting sands of the interior desert where the only guide is the star, the Holy One who draws us onward, backward, inward, into -- oneness with the Source of All Being.

Desert Sisters

This SoulCollage card has become part of my discernment process. I do  know I was not meant to be a solitary, a hermitess -- and maybe not much more at this point.



Candidacy - Day 19 - Meg working on a puzzle

It's been a while since I've posted. Life has been busy. I have a few pictures. This is Meg working on a puzzle.

 

Here's the completed puzzle.

 

 

So after a couple of weeks, life has fallen into a routine. School is on Tuesday and Friday. Volunteering at St. Francis Center is on Monday. I cook dinner on Wednesdays and Thursdays. Saturday is a free day. Just a quick update. Good night!

 





Candidacy - Day 4 - Puzzle on the coffee table

This post is short and sweet! Today, I spent a good chunk of time working on a project for my liturgy class at school. Our team of four students attended Mass at St. Columba's in Emeryville. Here's a link to their web site: http://www.stcolumba-oak.com/. The Mass was after the fashion of an African American gospel service in the context of a mass. It was awesome! The team needs to attend mass there three different weeks, but at the same time each week. There are six pages of questions to help us evaluate the liturgy. After Mass, I had lunch with Gracie, one of the Franciscans who lives in Emeryville, CA. Came home. We (Meg, Carol, and I) worked on answering questions for a meeting that will occur in two weeks, had dinner, prayed evening prayer, watched 60 minutes, and worked on the puzzle. Here's a picture of the current state of the puzzle:

Meg found all of the edges. I contributed a couple of pieces to the picture. It's a normal sort of existence. So, to answer a friend's question, I'm not praying all day long. But, another day I'll talk about my take on St. Francis and prayer. G'night all!

Candidacy - Day 3 - Pottery

Well, I'm actually writing this on Sunday. But here is what I was going to post.

I wrote about Franciscan Prayer bowls a while back. If you're interested, click here. So, the project has moved forward. We have several prayer bowls sitting in the chapel in Santa Maria. Here are a few of the bowls that have been made so far. The four in this box had been undergone the first firing, called the bisque firing.

The bowls below have been glazed and fired. These are the bowls sitting in the chapell in Santa Maria. The bowls have been made by several people in the Sacramento, CA, area.



This is a no-money-eschange project so that the intent and implementation in the bowls remain priceless!

Saturday's activities: In PJs until about 10:30 AM. Brunch and conversation with my friend, Jane, at 11:00 AM to celebrate her birthday. Stacks in Redwood City has unusual pancakes. The bananna, macademia nut, and coconut pancakes are to-die-for. A run to the car wash because my car needed a shower. Mass at 5:00 PM, then dinner and evening prayer, followed by work on a puzzle. Or rather, watching the other person with whom I am living, Meg, work on a puzzle.

 



Candidacy - Day 2 - Carol on a Harley Hog

So, this morning began with the unpacking of the car. Somehow it all fit in the room. Here's a picture of the closet -- my life in a dozen 5-ream paper boxes. Yes, for those of us old enough to remember, it does bear a resemblance to Fibber McGee's closet. But, I got the stuff out of the car into the closet just in time. After unloading, I found that the trunk of the car wouldn't open by key or by lever any more.

 

So, to answer some questions that friends have been asking me.  .  . I'm living with two other Franciscan sisters in a three bedroom house in Redwood City. The community doesn't have any monasteries. Most people live in houses or apartments. Here's what the rest of the bedroom looks like. The bedroom I'm inhabiting for the next four months was the chapel. Some of  the chapel items are still in the room, like the picture of Our Lady of Guadalupe on the wall.

 

 

 

There's a gardening window (can't remember what they're called right now) housing my laser printer. It also has the gift from Clara's House board, a framed calligraphy brushed by Franklin Fong, OFM. Interestingly, I served as messenger, carrying the calligraphy from Berkeley to Sacramento -- and didn't know it at the time. :-)

 

 

This is a picture of the window and the bureau, which I think used to be where the tabernacle was placed. It has a statue carved by Lorraine, one of the Franciscans who lives in Oakland. It's a version of the Good Shepard. There's also a framed present from my high school Domincan friend, Janice,  to the right of the statue.



 

 

This is a picture of the bedroom door and the desk. The desk has another carving by Lorraine, OSF, of the Good Shephard. The two carvings were 50th jubilee gifts to Carol and Meg, with whom I'm living.

 

Below is a prayer space made in pottery by my friend Rebecca, The brown fountain inside is a symbol of fountain fullness, a Franciscan theological concept of the Trinity, from my friend Janice who, though Dominican, thinks Franciscan once in a while. Inside is a piece of jade found on the beach in Pacifica after a storm by my friend, Linda, who is a Domincan also.

 

 

Lastly, this is a picture of Carol when she was provincial minister. I "think" she said it was her official picture as provincial. Carol is steering, and provincial secretary, Tina, is along for the ride.,

 

 

So, day 2 ended with dinner cooked by Meg, evening prayer for the three of us, and a sharing of the Harley picture. It was an ordinary kind of day. So, what does it mean to become a Franciscan and live in a community? I'm still trying to figure that out .  .  . may take the rest of my life. But, as my high school bud, Janice, would say, I'm slow to catch on. But then again, this is Franciscan chaosity -- and she's Domincan.

 

 

 

 

 



 

 



 

 



Candidacy - Day 1

Well, yesterday was my first official day of candidacy with the Sisters of St. Francis of Penance and Christian Charity, better known as the Redwood City Franciscans in California. My friends asked me all kinds of questions about "going off to the convent."  So, here's the recap of my first "exciting" day.

I should have started packing the day before, but ended up working until 10:30 PM on Halloween night -- trying to finish things at the last minute at Clara's House (a free clinic for the "voiceless and vulnerable in Sacramento; for more info go to here) before I left for good. So, Thursday morning, I started packing around 9:00 AM. Took a break at noon to go to Mass for All Saints day. Came back, and finished packing and cleaning my bedroom. I started the drive from the Sacramento area to Redwood City at 3:00 PM. Because of traffic, I arrived at the house in Redwood City a couple of minutes before 6:00 PM. It was great timing for dinner followed by evening prayer. It was bad timing for unpacking the car because it was dark. So, I just brought in a few clothes and planned to bring in the rest the next day (today, actually).

You have to understand that the last time I moved was 1977. Now, I had thought that I had gotten my life pared down to a carload of essentials. And yes, the car was fully, fully packed. Good thing I didn't have a passenger because that person would have had to sit on the roof! . So, as I pulled up to the curve in front of the house, Meg opened the door and came out to welcome me before I could even get out of the car. Carol and Meg were so welcoming last night -- even though I was four or five hours later than my originally anticipated arrival time. Anyway, Meg helped me carry a few bags into the house and into my bedroom. It's then that I thought that what I had brought would never fit! I spent the night dreaming about out how to arrange stuff. The night ended with firing up my laptop and reading a few emails, then to bed. So ended my first day. It was more tiring than exciting.