Sr. Mary Margaret’s Feast Day!

Sr. Mary Margaret’s actual feast day is January 18–but that is so close to Christmas and Epiphany that we usually celebrate either around the feast of the Exaltation of the Cross (her mystery) or St. Margaret Mary Alacoque. This year were celebrated on October 14 and 15. It was grand!

Sr. Mary Margaret in front of her groaning feast day table

We started the day with a traditional feast day song. This is usually a melody we all know with new lyrics written by one of the sisters.

Singing the song…

…and still singing (it was long!).

After the song, each of us came to greet Sister and wish her a happy and blessed feast day.

Following all this, we began playing games. We had a number of games involving plastic cups, dice, and playing cards. It may sound funny but they were games everyone could participate in, no matter what their age or condition.

Picking up a die…harder than it looks!

Concentrating…

If you managed to pick up a die, you had to stack it on top of another! Only two teams managed this.

We also had a game where we had to flip the cups upside down. They had to land standing up, which was quite a trick. On the right you can see the cups in mid-flip.

Sister Miriam (on the right) did really well as usual!

After the games, it was time for prayers and our noon meal. Sister Cook made all Sr. Mary Margaret’s favorites, including homemade lemon meringue pie…yum!

We enjoyed our festive meal in the community room. Since we were not in the refectory, we were allowed to talk–and talk we did!

Dinner was followed by the inevitable dishes and a nap for many. In the afternoon, following prayers, we returned to the community room for a sweet treat from Dairy Queen.

Finally, it was time for the opening of the gifts. Sr. Mary Margaret received a lot of homemade gifts–maybe some will be featured in our next raffle.

Baby blanket

Cat

Shawls and a bag

Man’s vest–started by Sr. Miriam and finished by Sr. Carmen Gloria

Hair accessories

A new way to wear your veil, modeled by Dominic’s Angels

Painting

Embroidered tablecloth

Cross-stitched cross

Sister also received a book version of this blog–handy for the sisters who don’t use the Internet and also good for the archives.

The decorations in the community room made us feel like we were on vacation!

In the evening, the novitiate performed an aerobic dance routine for us–made us tired just watching them! Then Sr. Mary Therese organized karaoke! Most of us had never done it before but we had a great time. Several sisters were put into teams of two, and three sisters were judges. The songs were all family friendly and ones we knew, although if you didn’t feel you knew a song you were allowed to choose another.

Sr. Mary Therese demonstrates karaoke.

Sr. Maria and Sr. Mary Thomas attempted to sing “The Rainbow Connection” from “The Muppet Movie”

We finished the celebration on Sunday with a screening of the movie “Mrs. Harris Goes To Paris”. This was the more recent version–not the TV movie (for those who remember it!). It was a lot of fun and we enjoyed seeing how the characters changed over the course of the story. We had a little free time after the movie, so we watched some Hungarian folk dances in honor of our Hungarian prioress. All together, a lovely weekend. We are so grateful for everything Sr. Mary Margaret does for us!