Tag: thanksgiving

A Day of Thanksgiving in the Monastery

This year Thanksgiving in the Monastery was a day of food, fun, and community celebrating.

At noon, we gathered in the community room, where our Thanksgiving feast was laid out.

We sang our traditional Thanksgiving grace, giving thanks to God for everything he’s given us.

Then we all sat down at our decorated tables to enjoy a wonderful meal.

In the afternoon, we gathered in the community room to watch The Boys in the Boat, an inspirational film about the U.S. rowing team at the 1936 Olympics.

After supper, we went outside to enjoy our traditional Thanksgiving fireworks.

The sisters had to bundle up on the cold Thanksgiving evening.

Sr. Mary Christine and Sr. Mary Pauline set off impressive fireworks.

Sr. Mary Rose and Sr. Mary Margaret enjoy hand-held sparklers.

Sr. Mary Pauline and Sr. Mary Jeremiah had fun with the firework lighters!

After the fireworks display, we went back inside to enjoy some of the annual dog show on TV.

As usual, this Thanksgiving was a day of community fun. We had good food, good laughs, and some great fireworks! We give thanks for God, our community, and for all of our benefactors who make our life here possible. Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving in the Monastery

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving celebration this year, full of laughter, fun, and feasting.

As usual, we decorated the community room and set up tables so we could display and eat the food together. Seeing the full tables reminded us how blessed we are and how God always finds a way to provide us with everything we need. Friends of the Monastery were so generous, as they are every year, so we had plenty of food and treats. We even had an “international” table, with Vietnamese pho soup and a couple of Tanzanian dishes.

We’re especially thankful for our hard-working cook, Sr. Marie Augustine (pictured with a pie).

Other than feasting, we spent the day recreating with each other in the community room. We talked and laughed and relaxed together.

In the evening, we went outside for out annual fireworks display. Sr. Mary Christine was in charge of lighting them while most of us sat and watched, but when she brought out the individual sparklers we all took some to put on our own fireworks show.

When we were done with the fireworks, we went back inside to relax. We had enough time for our aspirant, Sophia, to entertain us with some musical pieces on the piano.

Sophia is an extremely talented pianist, and we all enjoyed chair dancing to her music.

As usual, we had so much fun on Thanksgiving, and it was a wonderful day for the community to come together as a family. We are all so thankful for our monastic vocation, each other, and all of our wonderful benefactors who make our life possible.

Happy Thanksgiving!

So Thankful and Blessed

We had a beautiful Thanksgiving holiday! Although the weather was cold and damp, our spirits were bright and cheerful. It was so good to be together with our sisters sharing a Thanksgiving meal–and almost all prepared by the sisters, too!

The day before–Hard at work preparing various dishes!

Sr. Mary Giuse made a delicious Vietnamese noodle dish while our kitchen helper Diana sliced pineapple.

Sr. Mary Thomas and Sr. Marie Augustine with dressing and dirty rice

Michelle chopping carrots in the bakery. (More on Michelle to come!)

Thanksgiving Day! Sr. Miriam checks out the dessert table.

Fruits and salads!

Sr. Mary Veronica gets some ice for her drink.

Looking over our groaning table.

Some sides and bread–as well as the gravy and cranberry sauce.

The community room was beautifully decorated by the novitiate.

Although we cooked and prepared almost all the food, most of it was given to us by our very generous benefactors. We are truly thankful and blessed to have so many wonderful people who support our life. We are praying hard for all of you!

A New U.S. Citizen!

Sr. Irma Marie is now an American citizen!

Complete with sash, hat, flag, and certificate

Sr. Irma Marie, a native of Puebla, Mexico, has been a member of our monastic community for some time. She began working on her citizenship papers about five years ago, and on Tuesday all her hard work paid off as she was officially sworn in as a United States citizen.

Of course, we had a little party to celebrate the great day!

The festive table

Sister’s card, signed by everyone in the community

The happy new citizen with Sr. Mary Margaret

Now that she is a citizen, Sr. Irma Marie looks forward to getting a driver’s license and registering to vote. We are very proud of Sr. Irma Marie and all her hard work to achieve this goal, and we are grateful to all the people who helped make it happen–and there are many who helped! Thanks to all of you!

On an additional note, although several of us were down with a cold bug for Thanksgiving, we still managed to have a good time!

Delicious!

The majority of our dinner was donated, and as always we are very grateful to all who made our wonderful Thanksgiving meal possible. Thank you so much!

We are overwhelmed by the blessings God has granted us over the last week or so. May he continue to provide faithfully for us, and may we remain faithful to him!

Winter Storm of ’21

 It’s hard to believe now–when we are enjoying temperatures in the upper 70s and even low 80s–that last week at this time we were freezing, literally! However, that proves the old saying: “If you don’t like the weather in Texas, wait a minute and it’ll change.”

As we reported earlier, when we had a more fun snowfall in January, we realize that for many people ice storms, temperatures going down to 6 and 8 degrees Fahrenheit (and maybe lower) and such are part of the usual winter condition. But here in Texas, we’re just not used to it–and we’re not prepared for it, either! One of our sisters, a transplanted Midwesterner, kept assuring us that everything would be fine “when the snow plows come through”. We finally managed to explain to her that there are no snow plows in Texas. She was astonished!

We will have a lot more on this story–what happened and how the community coped–in our Spring issue of “Monastery Bells”. Here’s just a few items that stand out.

(To the tune of “The Twelve Days of Christmas”, with apologies to the authors)

On the day of the Presidents, our Savior gave to us:

–Hundreds of branches snapping

–Eighteen nuns a-shivering

–Several rolling blackouts

–Ten space heaters

–Seven puzzles finished

–Five free days!

–Four busted pipes

–Three inches of snow

–Two pairs of socks each

–And a great, loving community!

We can say this both of our own community and the community of Lufkin! We are so grateful to all the people who came out to help us (and there were many!) and also for everyone who helped us get our generator some years back. We never thought we would need it for a winter storm, but God provided! This was especially important for our elderly sisters, who were able to have heat in their infirmary rooms most of the time. And, we were able to have some lights–definitely necessary in our large building!

We continue to pray for the many people who have suffered more with this storm than we have, both in Texas and throughout the south. We are extremely grateful to all of you who prayed for us! We managed to avoid serious injuries and illness, and even to keep cheerful during the difficult times, which was truly a work of grace. Know that we pray for all of you, too, every day and every hour!