Franciscan Sisters of the Eucharist, Plus One: This Mother's Perspective

When Dominique was 15 years old, she told me she felt called to religious life.  

Anne Marie and Dominique age 8

She told me she had felt this way since she was ten.  Dominique is now 23 years old, a university graduate, and for the last year has actively perused the different orders that exist for women religious.  The first steps were tricky, because there really doesn't seem to be a 'path' for a woman to follow. A man would, I imagine, follow a path to the seminary where he would begin his discernment, but that didn't seem to be the case for Nique.  She had one disastrous interview with one of our local priests (who will remain nameless), then a more heartening interview with one of our former priests, Fr. Taylor, who was able to dispel the negative feelings of unworthiness the first priest cast and offer her some bonafide things to think about and read, and finally an interview with another one of our former priests, Fr. Scalia, who actually had a potential path for her.

Father Scalia put Nique in touch with Sister Clare from the Franciscan Sisters of the Eucharist based out of Falls Church.  Sister Clare took Nique under her wing, answering her questions, encouraging her to participate in their activities on the weekends, and I think made Nique's calling more of a reality.

The 'Mother House' of this order is in Meridan, CT. Nique visited Meriden three different times over the past year and as she put it: 'I walk in there, and I just know this is where I am supposed to be.'

How can I argue with that?

At this point, I am well aware that this is going to culminate in 'something'. Nothing has been kept from me regarding her plans. I knew when she wrote to the Mother General requesting to become a pre-postulant, and I knew there were a few weeks that Nique spent on pins and needles awaiting her reply.

So I should not have been surprised when on April 2nd, the Mother General wrote back to say 'of course you can begin your discernment!'  What surprised me though, was my reaction - I cried. No, I all-out bawled, sobbed.  It was a kick in the gut, devastating, mournful wail. And I was shocked! The only words I could come up with right that minute was 'I feel like I'm losing her!', but I still was not sure why I felt this way. This is not a cloistered order, Sister Clare seemed like just a normal, joke-cracking, woman who fit right in with our family when we had her down for dinner - so why I felt the way I did, was puzzling.

Maureen and Nique

The tears did not ebb - I kept hoping they would. Maureen McClure, my friend and choir director sent me this which gave me a different perspective of my tears:


Vatican City, April 3, 2013 – During his brief homily at an April 2 Mass at the chapel of St. Marta’s Residence, Pope Francis encouraged the faithful to pray to God for the gift of tears, to imitate Mary Magdalene during this Easter season.

Addressing various members of the Vatican gendarmerie and other Vatican workers present for the Mass, the Holy Father mediated on the passage about the “sinful” woman who wept upon seeing the empty tomb.

Mary Magdalene, he said, is the woman “whom Jesus said had loved much and therefore her sins were forgiven.” However, she had to “confront the loss of all her hopes” in not finding Jesus, and for this reason she wept.

“All of us have felt joy, sadness and sorrow in our lives,” but “have we wept during the darkest moment: Have we had that gift of tears that prepare the eyes to look, to see the Lord?” the Pope asked.

“We too can ask the Lord for the gift of tears,” he said. “It is a beautiful grace … to weep praying for everything: for what is good, for our sins, for graces, for joy itself.”

"Weeping", the Holy Father explained, “prepares us to see Jesus.”

It is the Lord, he said, “who gives us the grace, to all, to be able to say with our lives, ‘I have seen the Lord,’ not because he has appeared, but because ‘I have seen him in my heart.’ And this should be the testimony of our lives: ‘I live this way because I have seen the Lord.’”

I was also reminded of the story of Abraham and Isaac, (which made me cry, by the way), and was loosely putting Nique and myself in their shoes (sandals) and knew that when I got to the top of the mountain, God was probably not going to change His mind - He wants my daughter, my show of faith is beside the point. But then just this past week I realized that Isaac (Nique) is actually dragging Abraham (me) kicking and screaming up that mountain, begging me to sacrifice her. She is so excited by this she cannot wait for me.

I am crying because:

• This is happening now so fast, even though it has been coming for years.
• I don't want to lose HER. I am SO afraid she will not be MY Nique. I've only met one nun in my entire life! Are they all like Sister Clare? Or is she the rare exception? Or are they the humorless, wimpled whisperers that I've seen on TV? 
• This was not my plan for her or any of my children, and I'm surprised that my 'plan' is so hard to let go of. I am a convert. Religious life is foreign to me. I would not have chosen it for any of my children because I don't know what it looks like having never experienced it myself.
• I am mourning the children she will not have. 
• How do I keep my connection with my artsy, funny, musical, witty, smart, creative, nutty daughter? Will her obviously deep spirituality overshadow the person I know???
• Will we be 'worthy'? She is fresh out of college and has imparted her new found wisdom a number of times in regards to how we are taking care of the pets and raising Gracie, (I did the same thing to my parents - sorry mom and dad!). I know this is a phase - but I don't know what kind of 'phase' she is going to go through on this journey! Better? Worse? More of the same?  
• How do I parent this? How do I support this? Will I 'get it' or will I say dumb stuff?

This weekend we took her to Meriden to begin her pre-postulancy, the first step in a years-long process of discernment.  After a quick stop at Mike's sister's for dinner, (leaving Gracie there to spend some time with her cousins) we arrived at the convent.

Sister Catherine Mary and Nique

This crowd of sisters flew out of the house enveloping Nique and then of course, me and Mike.  All smiles, friendship, hugs, laughter like they couldn't wait for us to arrive.  I can only give a watery smile and will the tears to stay back (not happening). They all introduce themselves, but the problem seems to be they are all wearing brown dresses and I swear all their names are some derivation of 'Mary'.

We visited for a short time, then settled in the Guest House for the night. The next morning started with Matins and Mass.  (I cried, surprised?) Then we had breakfast, a tour of the Chiara Center and property (they've got hospice, elder care and counseling centers)

and then our work assignments were handed out. Saturday at the convent is a day of Work! (We were expecting this!)  Nique, Mike and I got put on garden duty at the Mother House, a nearby property where some of the nuns live.

 The Mother House

 Sister Patricia (I remembered her name!) and Bosco the dog.

 Dominique and I think Sister Regina

We spent the morning with four or five sisters planting potatoes, onions, Swiss chard, broccoli and peas in their absolutely awesome garden.  After lunch we went back to Nicole's to bring Gracie back to the convent so we could meet the animals on the property.

 Sister Francis and Annie, one of four sheep

 Peanut, one of five goats

 Chickens, too wiggly to count

 Gracie collected the eggs - 22 in all!

 Sister Mary Peter gave us the animal tour.

Licorice

They have chickens (for eggs and meat), goats, sheep and some barn cats.  They've inherited a few dogs from people who had been in their hospice/elder care facility.

Throughout the day we are meeting more and more sisters. My head is swimming in brown dresses and women named Mary, but the best thing that is happening, is I am seeing the 'people' that these nuns are. Just like any crowd of people - coworkers, family, congregation - they all have personalities!  They are all varying levels of funny, grumpy, witty, serious, happy, busy, silly. This is what I needed to see!  I think Nique will still be Nique!

At Vespers that night - no tears! A breakthrough!

We said 'good-bye' to her this morning, I got teary, I did not CRY cry, you know what I mean. I am happy for her.  I'm not sure when I'll see her again, but she has her phone and computer, so contact will be the same as if she were still living downtown.

I wish I could say my tears are over.  About the time we crossed into Pennsylvania it hit me again how excited the sisters were to welcome Nique, how they all went to her big smiles, open arms, really, genuinely glad to see her again and meet us. Now my tears land more on the joyful side.

I really think she is where she needs to be right now.  *sniff*

http://www.fsecommunity.org/

March Quilting Queue Update

I know, I know. It is a whole week into April, and I'm just now getting March's review out.  But be patient - it has been Spring Break and I haven't been in a position to sit down and organize my thoughts for March yet!  I really have some great excuses though:

We spent April 1st at the Supreme Court watching my sister-in-law, Danielle Pray, get sworn into the bar by the Supreme Court Justices.  

This is Danielle with her daughter Emilie and husband Steven. 

I spent a good deal of time just gawking at the splendor that only these fabulous old buildings can offer.  

My favorite was the ceilings.

As SOON as that event was over (literally!) we headed to Florida to spend some time with 

my Dad and stepmom Tobie.  

Gracie's 11th birthday was on the 4th, so we took her to Universal Studios to check out 'The Wizarding World of Harry Potter'.

Just as Gracie finished dragging us on all the water rides she could find, the skies opened up and got all the rest of our dry parts drenched.  We. Were. Wet!

So now I'm home. I have a day to get organized before my RealJob starts back up tomorrow - assuming there are no more snow days in the forecast (three in March!  Unbelievable!).  Thanks to the snow days though, this is what I was able to complete this month:

 These are the Gen-X Quilters 'Sisters Ten' blocks for March.  I had a really hard time getting into this block - not my favorite.  I thought it looked like Frankenstein - so I actually took it a little that direction and fussy cut those center blocks to look like eyeballs...  

(I'm also frustrated that I can't get two pictures on the same 'line'... My learning curve on this blog is tremendous! Ugh! Bear with me...)

These are the second round of blocks from the Skill Builder BOM.

March block from the Craftsy 2013 BOM. It actually needs one more border, but I'm not sure where I'm going to use it, so I don't know how big I need it to be yet.  I'll add that later.

I did two month's worth of my Folk Art Cats quilt, since I didn't start it until March 29. I did the outline stitching while visiting with Dad and Tobie. The guy with the eyepatch makes me smile...

Here are my Sue Spargo Dancing Birdies BOM for March!  The green is a little washed out, but they are still fabulous.  I modified the wing a bit on the top birdie - my first modification on this project which must mean I'm getting comfortable with this genre.

Of all the work I did this month, the most important was that I finished Mike's Civil War quilt!!!  This is machine pieced, but was all hand quilted. (You can see some of the quilting in this photo on the right.) From start to finish I think this project took 12-13 months, the last five months or so just on the quilting.  It is 100x100 inches and is by far the biggest thing I've ever done.

Mike loves it and I'm feeling pretty smug about how nice it turned out

I'm a week into April, but since I've been out of town I'm feeling like I'm not organized yet.  I've got a few obstacles to my time this month beyond my RealJob - I'll save that news for another post.  One thing I have in my queue for this month - DUE on 4/21 - is to make myself a quilted nametag for the Quilt Guild I joined.  UGH!  So many ideas but no idea if I can pull it off!  I may end up with a sticky note pasted to my forehead!

Meeting Sir James Galway

When I was eleven years old I started playing the flute because my best friend at the time started playing the flute the year before and I thought it was really cool.  My parents rented an Artley for me and then when I was 15 invested in a professional model Gemeinhardt.  

For the first ten years of my musical education, my flute and I were not far apart. My life revolved around my band friends and activities. I was a music major (flute performance - I never had any aspirations of becoming a band director!) when I started college, 

and met my husband (euphonium and tuba) in the marching band at the University of Utah.

In the late 70's, when I first became aware of music around me, Jean-Pierre Rampal was the big name in recorded flute music. Then James Galway started making his way into the record stores. Most people would have heard him first in John Denver's 'Annie's Song'. When I was in high school I bought my first cassette tape of Galway. (I just looked on iTunes to confirm the name of this album, but it looks like the pieces were absorbed into other compilations.)

In addition to marrying a band geek, we've raised four band geeks: 

two flutists,

a French horn player 

and a percussionist

(and we are getting ready to get our youngest set up with her first instrument - another flute.)  

We have also acquired a son-in-law band geek who plays french horn with the 

UMW Symphony Orchestra.

 

And THAT's how I found out that James Galway was coming to Fredericksburg!

I will admit that once I was married with small children and began moving around the world with my USMC husband, there were years that I didn't even know where my flute was.  I didn't really start playing with any regularity until we moved to Fredericksburg and Mike retired from the Marine Corps. We became charter members of the Fredericksburg Community Concert Band and some friends and I started up the 

Fredericksburg Ayres (Fredericksburg's Finest Flute Ensemble!)

Marla Snyder, Kristine Clifford, Julie Lauver and moi

So for the last 15 years my life has been flute enriched again, just in time for Sir James Galway to come into my life and re-energize my love of my flute. 

In addition to the concert, those with VIP tickets were invited to a question and answer session the morning of the concert.  Unfortunately the lighting was horrible and my pictures did not come out.  I didn't have any good questions to ask (- until after the session then I thought of a great one, but I'll have to keep it to myself I guess...)  

A Few Nuggets From Galway

• Get into a practice routine which starts with long tones, moves through scales, etudes then a nice piece of performance music. (He still does this!)
• Your embouchure should be relaxed - not 'smiley' like band directors tend to teach their beginning flute players (and I will be conscious of as I start my newest flute player on her flute adventure.)
• Three pressure points: lip, right thumb and left crook in the index finger. These three points will support the flute.  The fingers should be relaxed and natural.
• The keys should be 'stroked' not 'hammered'.  
• When practicing the long tones, practice playing these at a variety of dynamics, especially pianissimo and maintain intonation throughout. He said when playing pianissimo, you are not lessening how fast the air is blown, you are lessening how big the airstream is.   This really made me stop and think, because we are always told to 'support' those soft notes, but what does that really mean? Well, Sir James just told me!  

After the concert, which was just amazing, the VIP ticket holders were invited to a reception to meet him.  

Marla Snyder, moi, Sir James Galway, Sue Cosgrove

My dear husband was the great photographer, and his only question for Sir James Galway?  "What's your favorite beer?"

His response? 

Guinness, of course!

February Quilting Queue Update

I ended January's quilting post with a to-do list of things I wanted to accomplish in February.  The list was definitely attainable...well...until I joined three more Block of the Month (BOM) projects.  In my defense, the only thing I did NOT do was finish Mike's quilt. It sits here patiently waiting for me to finish hand quilting it, but alas it got pushed to the end of the queue. Again.

The things I was able to keep up with this month:

Craftsy BOM 2013 February blocks

Folk Cat block

Sue Spargo Dancing Birds BOM

I left the month of January with these three very manageable on-going projects, plus the Civil War quilt for Mike I mentioned earlier.

But I couldn't leave well enough alone.  

The next three BOM projects all teach a technique I had been introduced to, but wanted more practice with.

This is the Lucky Stars BOM from the blog: http://www.dontcallmebetsy.com/p/lucky-stars-bom.html

This BOM teaches paper piecing.  I'm making the 6.5" blocks and the 12.5" blocks.  I've had a fat quarter bundle of Cuzco by Moda fabrics sitting on my sewing table since January waiting for just the right project, and this was it.

And even though I was sure I wanted to use these fabrics for this project, it didn't make it any easier to start pulling the fat quarters from the artfully fanned bundle... sigh...

The next BOM project I'm doing is teaching a technique called Quilt As You Go (QAYG), so after you make a block you quilt it and at the end you somehow stitch them all together.

 I really didn't want to buy any more fabric in order to do this project, but was stuck on what to use for it.  I got inspiration from the marked down fabric at my new local quilt shop, The Crazy Cousin, where I spied a Civil War reproduction background fabric. 

Eureka!  

Finally! 

Something to do with the plethora of CW fabrics in my stash!!!!

The link for this BOM is:
http://www.pileofabric.com/skill-builder-bom

I've actually gotten the next two block made for this BOM, but she posts the quilting directions two weeks after the piecing directions, so the schedule isn't quite monthly....     

I also started this fun BOM from GenX quilters: http://www.genxquilters.com/2012/12/sisters-ten-modern-bom-2013.html

I love the fabrics, and the piecing is not necessarily a new technique, but the layout at the end is very different and I'm curious how this will all play out.

Okay so not only did I make 14 extra blocks that I had not planned on doing, I also COMPLETED two more quilts.  This first was a wall hanging that I had made years ago from a kit I purchased from http://www.connectingthreads.com/Quilting.cfm

I had completed the top and had it all basted waiting for me to machine quilt it, and I just wasn't ready to take that plunge until now.  So this month I quilted and bound it and it is sitting in my office waiting for me to change my decor from winter to spring.  

The last thing I'm going to show you is a crib sized quilt I made for my new grand-niece (great-niece?) who I'm expecting to be born before I go to bed tonight!  I wanted to make an 'I Spy' quilt for her from the many fabrics I had already in my stash. So I just started cutting out 3 1/2" blocks and then started sewing them together:

I was able to complete this in a little over two days. When I put it in the chair to take a pic of it, Polly was sure I had made it for her and promptly posed for it!  

One cool thing I did for the first time ever was to add this piping to the binding.  I LOVE the effect and hope to make my bindings AND my borders more interesting from now on.  I sent the quilt off and just this week got great feedback from the Paquettes up north that they love it! Now I just need to wait for baby pics!

My last comment for this post is an invitation for you to check out any of these blocks on my Flickr page.  Because these classes are taught online, the people taking the class can't see what everyone else in the class is doing, so the instructors encouraged everyone to post their blocks on Flickr. So if you are interested in seeing any of these blocks in more detail, check out my Flickr page here:  http://www.flickr.com/photos/ppaq614/