150th Anniversary Celebration at the Convent!

Gachia and I were invited to visit the Convent for a Mass celebrating the 150^th anniversary of the Sisters of St. Francis of Perpetual Adoration.  And we got to visit with Anna! 

Five Bishops and about 50 priests concelebrated the beautiful Mass, including OLMC’s own Fr. Richard!  Anna and the other postulants were assigned to the choir.  Other Sisters made up a small horn and string section. Anna is singing 2^nd soprano but she admits she can’t hit the highest notes. The choir director told her she will learn to ‘stretch’ her voice.  Anna has a nice voice but soprano is indeed a stretch!

Anna is the oldest of the six postulants by age, but she was the last of the postulants to request acceptance into the order.  Therefore, she is the youngest of the Sisters in ‘Convent age’.  As a result she also had another role in the Mass during the procession of the gifts.  She pushed the oldest Sister, who is 102 years old, in her wheel chair as part of the procession.  Anna met her last week and had an instant bond as she was born in Omaha, NE and the Hoefer family has Nebraska roots, including Gachia who was also born in Omaha.

After Mass we were bussed to the Gillespie Center on the St. Mary’s College campus for a luncheon which gave us 15 minutes to visit with Anna.  The good news is she was upbeat about how she was adapting to life in the Convent.  However, all is not rosy, she did comment “I have never cleaned or sung as much in my entire life as I have the past 2 weeks”! 

At the luncheon, other orders of Sisters in attendance were recognized.  Among those in attendance were the Nashville Dominican’s and the Sisters of Mercy from Alma, Mi.  Anna had visited both of those Convents as part of her initial discernment.  The Dominican’s who attend Notre Dame University stay at the Franciscan Convent.  The Sisters of Mercy provide some professional services to the Franciscans such as psychological evaluation of the Candidates before entering the convent. 

We were at a table with a current or previous connection to OLMC: Fr. Richard Doerr, Fr. Dan Gartland, Sister Margaret Mary, Dave and Barb Mitchel, Anna, Gachia and me.  Needless to say, with that collection of wit, we had a good time during lunch.  When Sister Angela, mother superior of the province, went to the podium, she stated one thing Sisters are good at is keeping order.  That’s why we have at least one Sister at each table.  The plan worked very well except for the Our Lady of Mount Carmel table!    We took being called out as a compliment…..

Most of the attendees were either benefactors or in leadership positions with the various apostolates the Sisters oversee.  Several of the Sisters introduced one of the benefactors to Anna.   He used to be in a leadership role at PwC and wanted to meet that new postulant “Miss Anna” who used to work as a CPA at PwC.

We took the bus back to the Convent and had a little more time to talk before saying goodbyes. We left with Anna and another postulant Rachael saying goodbye using the white handkerchief (tissue) wave.

It was great to visit with Anna. That makes the goodbye even more difficult, but Anna said it was not quite as difficult as the first goodbye.  Gachia recently wondered whether it will ever get easier for us to leave the Convent.  I do believe it will be less difficult over time, but I doubt it will ever be easy.