On Saturday last, we travelled to Ortonville, Michigan to be present at the final profession of Sr. Mary Joseph of the Holy Family. She received a grant from the MEFV in 2007. We have visited her and her sisters at their monastery (Our Lady of Mt. Thabor) on two previous occasions but were unable to be present for her first vows back in 2009.

We were surprised that such a small community (there are five sisters) has so many friends. Their chapel, which I estimate holds about 150, was full. The sisters had reserved a place for us in the front.

Sr. Joseph's parents were able to attend, having travelled from their home in Portland, Oregon. We met them on our way to the chapel.

The principal celebrant was Bishop Hanchon, an auxiliary of Detroit. After his homily, the Prioress, Sr. Anne, questioned Sr. Joseph:

Sister mary Joseph, are you resolved to make Perpetual Profession according to the Constitutions of the Nuns of Our Lady of Mt. Thabor of the Order of Preachers?
I am, with God's help and yours.

Beloved Sister, through baptism you have already died to sin and have been consecrated to the Lord. Do you wish to be joined more closely to Christ and the Church by the title of Perpetual Profession?
I do, with God's help and yours.

Are you resolved to make progress in the love of God and neighbor, to be truly a member of Christ, offering yourself completely to win souls, as the Lord Jesus, the Savior of all, offered himself totally for our salvation?
I am, with God's help and yours.

Are you resolved to be incorporated into Our Order by Perpetual Profession, so that, persevering in prayer with Mary, the Mother of Jesus, you may ardently long for the fullness of the Spirit, as one totally consecrated to God, devoted to the entire Church in a new way, to prophetically annonunce the blessedness of Christ, so that the people of God may be enriched by a hidden fruitfulness?
I am, with God's help and yours.

May the Lord, who has begun this good work, bring it to completion.
All: Amen.

After the questioning, the Bishop prayed: My dear sisters and brothers, let us pray to God the Father almighty, that He may pour out the grace of His blessing on this servant, whom He has called to follow Christ perfectly. In His kindness, may He confirm her in her holy intention.

Then Sr. Joseph prostrated herself as all knelt and prayed the Litany of the Saints.

Then kneeling before the Prioress, Sr. Joseph placed her hands in those of the Prioress, with both laid on the Constitutions of the Order and Sr. Joseph professed:

I, Sister Mary Joseph of the Holy Family, make profession and promise obedience to God, to blessed Mary, to Saint Dominic, to the Master of the Order, to the Archbishop of this Archdiocese, and to you, Sister Anne Mary, the Prioress of this Monastery of Mt. Thabor, according to the Rule of St. Augustine and the Constitutions of the Dominican Nuns of Mt. Thabor, that I will be obedient to you and to your successors, until death.

Sr. Anne, the Prioress, welcomes Sr. Joseph to the community with the Kiss of Peace

Again the Bishop prayed: Dearest Sister, by this Perpetual Profession you have given yourself over to God and His will: therefore through the ministry of the Church, God has consecrated you to Himself, as a preparation for the gospel of peace, so that you may be His own and that He may be your inheritance forever.

The Bishop then blessed and gave the veil as follows:

O God, the Head of all the faithful and the Savior of the whole body, bless + with your right hand this veil, which your servant is about to place on her head for the love of You and of Your most blessed Mother and ever virgin Mary. May she, through your constant protection, keep safe that which is mystically signified by this veil, unsullied in mind and body. And so, when she comes to the everlasting reward of the saints, having prepared herself together with the prudent virgins, may she with You as her guide, be worthy to enter into the wedding feast of unending happiness, through Christ our Lord. Amen.

Then, Sr. Joseph, Sr. Anne, and the Bisphop each signed the Book of Profession on the altar.

And the Mass continued. After Mass, Sr. Joseph's family, Bishop Hanchon, Sr. Joseph and her sisters posed for a group photo.

I have to practice to make it across the US/Candian border. There is something about being asked questions by a uniformed customs official that makes me forget who I am and where I live. So we have learned that Katherine needs to give me a practice quiz before we get to the front of the line.

But in Lewiston, NY there was no line, so I got to the Canadian customs lady without preparation. Which was bad because she was in the mood to grill us. We usually are more concerned about getting me past the US folks since, in our past experience, the Canadian folks only toss out powderpuff questions. Not this time.

Where do you live? Ummm, Arlington. Arlington, Virginia

Where are you going? Sarnia.

That was probably my first mistake. We were going to Sarnia, (the border crossing back into the States 300 km west) because we were taking the shortcut from upstate New York to mid-Michigan. But we were also stopping for two days to visit Niagara Falls. Would you like your country used as a shortcut or as a tourist destination?

That got her focused on our destination in Michigan which really threw me for a loop. She has my US passport in her hand, why is she asking about what I'm planning to do in my own country?

Where are you going in Michigan? Ortonv..., Flint. Flint, Michigan.

What are you doing in Flint? <Blank stare> (From Katherine: Visiting friends.) Yes, yes, visiting friends.

<Questioning stare>

She got the blank stare because I'm thinking to myself "does she want the whole story?" We run this non-profit, it gives grants to get people it relgious life, we visit them when they make profession ... I never think first of the simple approach.

<Continuing questioning stare> We run this non-profit, it gives grants to get people it relgious life, we're visiting one of our grant recipeints who is taking final vows.

(Tacking back to Canada, as somewhere along the line I had managed to sputter out that we were visiting the Falls before going to Flint.) Where are you staying? The Hilton Garden Inn.

How many nights? Two.

(A sense of resignation that she is just dealing with another clueless US citizen) Do you have any firearms or mace? No.

She hands back our passports and we escape into Canada.

After that woeful experience, I was careful to practice to get back into the country at Sarnia/Port Huron. And we had plenty of time as the wait was once again about an hour.

The practice session went something like this: K: Where do you live? C: Arlington, Virginia. K: What is your citizenship? C: US. K: When were you born? C: 1956. K: What were you doing in Canada? C: Visiting Niagra Falls. K: How long did you stay? C: Two nights. K: Any firearms, pepper spray, numchucks? C: No. K: What's your favorite color? C: Blue ... no Red! K: What is the airspeed of an unladened sparrow?

But in the event, it was uneventful. I handed the nice man our passports, and:

Where do you live? Arlington, Virginia.

What were you doing in Canada? Visiting Niagra Falls.

How was it? Great. It was a beautiful day.

(Handing back the passports) Have a nice day.

We crossed into Canada yesterday on the way from Canastota, New York to Flint, Michigan. If you're driving between these two points, the most direct route is through Ontario, Canada. Staying in the US will add 2 hours to the trip, though you might drop an hour of that advantage trying to get back into the States at Sarnia.

Niagara Falls is one of Katherine's most favorite places. So although it's not quite the midpoint, we spent last night in Niagara-on-the-Lake to be able to visit the Falls today.

But first we visited Lock 7 on the Welland Canal. We knew a ship was scheduled to be passing through Lock 7 at about 10:30 this morning because of the very useful Seaway System website which shows where boats are now and where they'll be soon.

I am facsinated by the great engineering works of man and by modes of ground transportion. A ship passing through a canal lock is a great draw.

The Algomarine passing through Lock 7 on its way to Lake Erie

Then we were off to see the falls where a million bathtubs of water flow over the Niagara Escarpment every minute. Day in and day out, year after year, still going everytime we visit (which is as often as we can).

There is no free lunch (or free anything else) on the Canadian side of the falls. But $15 for parking seemed a bit high for pre-season, so we resloved to go back to the top of the town where there was $5 parking for the added price of walking down to the falls and back up again. (Besides, we need the exercise.)

Accordingly, we were flabergasted to find a free parking lot at the top of the hill on Portage Street overlooking the pay lots (and the falls). Coincidentally, the parking lot was across the street from some large building related to Carmelites, so naturally, we had to go over and investigate that. It turned out to have originally been the largest Carmelite seminary in the world. There was a devasting fire in 1967 which resulted in the eventual destruction of one of the building's wings. But the chapel had been rebuilt and the place is now being used by the Carmelites as a retreat center. We went into the chapel to visit Our Lord.

On our way down to the falls, we saw it from a new perspective

I don't think Katherine could ever get enough of Niagara Falls. She could stand and watch the water and the tourists all day long if we let her. But I eventually get tired of standing, so we headed back to our car. There was an incline plane railway (more interesting ground transportation) that pleasantly reduced our exercise requirements for the day.

Katherine's parents attend Our Lady of Czestochowa in their town of Turners Falls, MA. As noted on the parish website, “The Polish traditions and the true Catholic Faith are not forgotten in this parish.”

We had a pleasant afternoon tea hosted by Katherine's parents with the parish's pastor, Fr. Charles DiMascola, a visiting priest, and a friend of Katherine's parents. During the course of conversation, the progress of a chapel being built at the parish cemetery came up. It is a labor of love by a local craftsman working on it in his spare time over the last few years. It has been converted from an old garage. We last saw it sometime last summer, but were informed that it is nearly done.

We noted that we would try to see it before we left and Father said to drop by after the daily afternoon Mass and he would go with us and open it so we could see the inside as well. I only had my cell phone with me so these photos do not do the chapel interior justice.

The exterior roof line is modeled after a traditional architectural style found in the Tatra Mountains of Poland. Fr. DiMascola did the original architectural drawings for the chapel.

The altar design is also of a well-known traditional Polish style and completely hand-crafted except for the bronze Last Supper insert.

The icon over the altar was painted locally and is a depiction of the WWII Polish martyrs under the mantel of Our Lady.

We are on the second day of our first outing for 2012 so it's time to restart this blog. We left home yesterday at 10 AM and got to Katherine's parent's house in Turners Falls, MA at 10 PM.

That's a bit long even for us, who don't like to take the direct route. Google maps shows actual driving time (for going by way of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge) as 8 hours and 12 minutes. That did not account for an hour slog to go 10 miles to cross the Anacostia River and get past some road work. And we took our time with lunch and dinner. And then there is that infinite distance between Trenton and I-287 (via Princeton) that must be traversed if one wants to avoid the the deadly dull (and currently under construction) NJ Turnpike. And as everyone who has ever driven on I-84 knows, Connecticut is the biggest state in the Union.

We'll spend a few days with Katherine's parents and then head west for our first MEFV destination: the final profession of Sr. Mary Joseph at the Mount Thabor Dominican Monastery in Ortonville, MI.

Sr. Mary Joseph very kindly posed for us so we could put her photo in our April appeal letter which will highlight her vocation story.

I mentioned in my last post that we are in Summit for the week. That's because we are here to witness Sr. Mary Amata's Profession of Solemn Vows. And that we did this morning. I witnessed a good portion of the ceremony through the lens of my camera as the sisters requested that I act as the official photographer.

I warned the sisters that I am an amateur. It's good for them that my camera, a Nikon D40, has a continuous shutter mode which I use a lot. Some fraction of the many photos I take come out pretty good. Today that fraction was about one half. By making just under 400 shots and keeping the good ones, the sisters will have about 200 photos to choose from.

But I did well with what they really wanted a photo of: Sr. Mary Amata's Profession. It's been a while since a sister placed her hands in those of her superior and both under the book of Constitutions of the Order. God willing, it will happen again next year and then in a few years the MEFV's grant recipients will be doing it.

Sr. Mary Amata of Jesus, OP (right)
Solemnly Professes to
Prioress Sr. Denise Marie of the Holy Spirit, OP

A couple of very nice New Jersey commuters provided us with a free ride into New York City today. We're staying at the guest quarters of the Summit Dominicans this week and we were at the Summit NJ Transit Rail station bright and early for a trip to the Cloisters Museum. While standing in line for a ticket, two commuters picked first Katherine and then me as beneficiaries of a interesting rule of NJ Transit monthly passes: on the first day of the month you can use last month's pass to get into the city, but you can't use it to get out in the afternoon.

One of our free passes into New York City

So commuters who already have this month's pass have a free half commute in the form of last month's pass. Their kindness saved us $20.

Katherine has been wanting to see the Cloisters (which is an arm of the Metropolitan Museum of Art) since see saw it when we passed it once on our way home through New York City. In addition to being built from portions of European monastaries packed-up and shipped to the US, a collection of Medieval Art is on display. Almost all Medieval Art was created for the benefit of Churches. There were reliquaries, altar pieces, chalices, statues, etc., etc.

The Cloisters from the hill of Ft. Tryon to the south

They also had one of our favorite Annunciation paintings (which was difficult to get close enough to properly enjoy because the proximity alarm kept going off):

Katherine was intriqued by the pieta shown below because the Blessed Virgin is carved as an older woman as she would have been at Christ's Passion.

The Fund supports quite a few Dominicans and by chance the cards I have scanned to-date are all from Dominican sisters. I'll try to scan some more tomorrow and perhaps there will be other orders represented.

We had the joy of spending time with Sr. Mara Rose last summer when we were in Nashville for the profession of vows by two other MEFV grant recipients. God willing, Sr. Mara Rose will make final profession with the Nashville Dominicans this coming summer.

One of my nun correspondents has caught me in one of my usual muddles concerning the names of sisters. It was Sr. Mariana we met with who will, God willing, be making final vows this summer. Sr. Mara Rose made first profession last summer which is why we were there in the first place. And it is Sr. Mara Rose's Christmas card.

Adoration of the Magi
Fra Angelico

She writes (on December 8th): A quick note to say hello and let you know I'm getting along quite well especially with vows. Thank you for allowing me the opportunity to live such a fulfilling life in this community.

Classes are over for the semester and we are preparing our hearts, minds and house for Christmas. All of the sisters will come home in the course of the next two weeks, so we must prepare for the increase in numbers. It's always a joyful time.

Please know of my prayers for you and your intentions.

Sr. Mara Rose's card included a poem by St. Cosmas:

For a Christmas Card, the Sisters of Mary, Mother of the Eucharist are able to use their logo for double duty. It is printed on simple white card stock with the well known prophecy from Isaiah on the inside: For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given ...

Our grant recipient with the Sisters of Mary wrote the following Christmas greetings: A most blessed and grace-filled Christmas to you! May the precious Infant's eyes rest upon your loving hearts today and always!

I am so grateful for all you have done, and continue to do, to promote and support vocations! If it were not for you, I would not be here!

Please know of my daily prayers for you and your intentions! God Bless
In His heart,
Sr. Francis Mary, OP

I must note here that most of the MEFV's grant recipients see Katherine and I as the personification of the MEFV. But their offering thanks and prayers should always be read as offerings for all the benefactors of the MEFV.

Okay, we're not travelling just now, but I should still be posting, so I've got a new project: Posting the Christmas cards we received from our grant recipients and their communities together with excerpts from their greetings. This is perfect material for this blog as the goal is to give our donors and friends a glimpse into all the vocations made possible by the MEFV.

I think it's also a great way to spend Christmastide. That's right: it's still Christmas until Candlemas on February 2nd. We have the Christmas trees still up in our house to prove it. I simply love it when we get some of these cards January. One year we got a card from a religious community on the very day of Candlemas!

(Okay, I have been corrected. It is not actually Christmastide now. That ended with the Feast of the Baptism of the Lord on January 13th. It is now the third cycle of the Christmas season: the time after Epiphany. But traditionally, it is understood that Christmas ends with Candlemas, so the trees will stay up until then.)

As usual this sort of thing turns out to be more work than expected, but our new (and very cute) portable Canon P-215 scanner will help make things easier. And taking it slow will provide plenty of posting fodder. I had a momentary pang of concern about the copyright holders of the cards, but if I keep the resolution low, I think I'll keep within the confines of fair use.

First up is the card from Sr. Ann Dominic, novice with the Dominican Congregation of St. Cecilia (more commonly known as the Nashville Dominicans).

She writes: Merry Christmas from St. Cecilia's Convent! I hope this Holy Season is filled with many graces and blessings. Know of my continued prayers for you and of my gratitude for all the support you have given me. The gift of my religious vocation brings me such joy and I pray that this time of formation will allow me to go out to all the nations and preach the Good News. With Prayers!
In Mary, Star of the New Evangelization,
Sr. Ann Dominic.