The purpose of Reflective Moments is to offer you a way to incorporate the spirit of Saint Angela Merici into your own lives. We hope that it enriches you spiritually.

Reflective MomentsReflective MomentsUrsuline Sisters of Mount Saint Joseph August 2012

By Sister Annalita Lancaster, OSU

The poet e.e. cummings makes reference in one of his poems to things we “cannot touch because they are too near.” Many of the

things we hold dear – life, love, people, God – fall into that paradoxical category. Living life we overlook it; finding love we take it for granted; Christ looks back at us from the eyes of someone across the table, eyes we meet sometimes with only a casual glance.

A mark of our strange and wonderful human condition is the need for signs and reminders. So, somebody invented anniversaries to remind us to look at all of life and see its actions and interactions pointing to a reality and making it happen.

Life is made of minutes and hours. Time measured like that is ordinary and daily. There are other kinds of measures. Some moments come like gifts and have no place on clock faces or calendars. This year, 2012, the Ursuline Sisters of Mount Saint Joseph are commemorating such moments as we celebrate our 100th birthday as an autonomous Ursuline community. It is the quality of life shared during all those moments over all those years that we celebrate and revere.

This centennial is a mosaic of moments when all ordinary things become special, giving new meaning to life. This mosaic mirrors persons who lived life to the full because they held the ‘secret of seeing.’ They knew, and shared with others, that from the core of a raindrop, from the heart of a candle flame, from the eyes of a child, from the underside of a leaf swinging in the breeze, the face of Christ smiles back at us. They nurtured that fullness of life; spread that sense of wholeness; reflected that depth of holiness.

Anniversary celebrations point to meaning and memory, the two things that take away our blindness

to life. Those who persevere long enough to celebrate anniversaries are people who make symbols out of ordinary things and label them holy. Because anniversary people see meaning in all creation, they have eyes to read the wind; to see the stars in each other’s faces. They find meaning in mud and sunrise, in neon and concrete, in a weed-grown

field and a carefully nurtured vineyard. That meaning is Christ who said, “I have come into this world so that those without sight may see.” In the mystery of that message anniversary people realize that we do indeed see in broken bread, for instance, that our small shatterings are mended by love; that we see in water our biggest thirst is for becoming, that we see in the thousand caring acts of one day of loving

what healing really looks like. It is not just by accident that each time we celebrate Mass we are able to more fully understand transition from drinking fountain to baptism, between wheat field and Eucharist. “Do this in memory of Me” means everything is related, is shared and special, celebrated again and again for the sheer wonder of it.

Anniversary people value memory as the gathering force of the fragments of meaning. Ursuline Sisters living and deceased, associates, alumnae, family members and friends join together celebrating Centennial 2012 hoping to keep the memories from rusting, the meanings from scattering. Looking deeply and seeing beyond the obvious, all life becomes a living sacrament. We become what we see -- the Spirit of God playing over the face of the world.

Send your prayer requests for friends and loved ones to the Email Prayer Network. Write the Ursuline Partnerships office, 8001 Cummings Road, Maple Mount, KY 42356Call 270-229-2006 • Email associates.msj@maplemount.org • www.ursulinesmsj.org

An Intentional Minute...Stop and focus your attention for one

INTENTIONAL MINUTE.

In honor of the Mount Saint Joseph Ursuline Centennial Celebration, the Louisville, Ky., Associates chose the Sister Visitor Center for our Centennial Service Project. Throughout the year we collect and donate toiletries and personal need items which are used to help low-income people and families in the Louisville area. We feel a special attachment to the Sister Visitor Center as a number of Ursuline Sisters of Mount Saint Joseph work there on a daily basis. Sister Michele Intravia - “Sister Shellie” - is their manager of operations, and she served as our hostess and tour guide on Thursday, July 19. We toured their recently renovated facility. Sister Shellie updated our group regarding a significant grant from Thornton Oil Co. The grant will provide for additional shelving and its construction, new equipment, etc., allowing the Sister Visitor Center to increase its capacity and productivity. The Louisville Associates are very proud to partner with Sister Visitor in serving some of our fellow Louisivillians in need of help.

“May God give you…For every storm, a rainbow,For every tear, a smile,For every care, a promiseAnd a blessing for each trial.For every problem life sends,A faithful friend to share,For every sigh, a sweet songAnd an answer for each prayer.”

~~~ An Irish blessing

Join us as we pray for one another!

By Suzanne Reiss, OSUA

Louisville Associates visit Sister Visitor Center

Louisville, Ky., Associates gather for a picture in the Sister Visitor Center’s new food distribution area.

Associates Chris Denniston, left, and Di Ann Jenkins restock some of the shelves with donated items. RIGHT: Associates Marilyn Beam, right, (with her grandson Jackson) and Suzanne Reiss helped unload a donation of laundry detergent.

Owensboro Centennial Book ProjectUrsuline Sister Rose Jean Powers, left, and Ursuline Associate Marianna Robinson are surrounded by children’s books in Sister Rose Jean’s office at the Brescia University Bookstore. The Owensboro Associates have

been collecting books to distribute to the Catholic schools in Owensboro/Daviess County this fall as its Centennial Service project. The goal is to collect at least 100 books.