This time, forty years ago

Dad and Aunt Molly visiting me in Emmitsburg forty years ago.


This time, forty years ago

I was in Retreat ( as I am now) but that was just a short retreat , preparing for my departure from the novitiate ( we call it the Seminary) to be sent out on my first mission.

In those days, the sister wasn't told where she was going until the day she went.  I wasn't worried about that at all.  I was glad to be going anywhere.

How ironic, since now I am back living in the same place I was living forty years ago, and have no desire to live anywhere else.  Of course, the place is very different, and I am very different.

I went back to my journal of August 1979, and read this , written on August 19, 1979:

"I haven't the faintest idea where I'll be this time tomorrow - and it doesn't bother me. I am definitely not sorry to be leaving the Seminary, for the ten thousand reasons I have gone on and on about in these journals. I know it has been a valuable experience, and has brought me closer to the Lord, but it has been so nerve-wracking and painful that I am immensely glad it's over. Last night we all had Recreation together; Sister J cried and Sister P filled up, but I just smiled peacefully, glad to be leaving. .."


Here is a photo of our Seminary group with a sister who was celebrating ( sort of) her 100th birthday.
A reporter from the local paper took the picture.  A long and , to me at the time, maddening and ludicrous story goes with the picture, but I don't feel like telling it here. Suffice it to say that my face and posture, compared with that of my companions, says quite a bit of it.

I am gritting my teeth, can you tell?   The miracle is that I am the one , out of this group, who is still a member of the community.  With all its ups and downs, I am still here.  As I have watched women come and go and stay over these forty years, I have realized that one has to really want it in order to stay.    That's probably God's grace, though it feels more like pure stubbornness.