OK - here is that other article I promised to post about what all has been happening here at the monastery. On May 1st we had our Marian Procession to begin the month of May which is traditionally devoted to Mary.  If you are one of our non-Catholic friends and think a May Crowning ceremony a bit mysterious, here is a post you might like to read.  Tihana, our wonderful friend and a young woman who was discerning Passionist life, was here for her live-in at this time, and had the honor of crowning our Lady a the end of the procession.

Next on the agenda we had one of our famous "Gaudeamus Days" in honor of Mother Catherine Marie's feast day.

On a Gaudeamus day ("Let us rejoice" day) we are dispensed from keeping silence throughout the day. We move the tables in the refectory into a big circle and have festive meals with talking and after the noon meal we had some “After Meal Entertainment” consisting of the younger sisters chanting a “homemade” version of psalm 136. This mentioned the funny and more serious things that have happened in the past several years while Mother has been our Superior. She absolutely loved it and was in stitches the whole time.

One this day those sisters who had been working on craft items to give her as gifts for benefactors and friends presented these to her. Since I work in the kitchen (and have access to the candy stash) and know she likes the Kentucky Trappist Bourbon Fudge, I gave her a small box of that.  We also got her some bought gifts – these were some more CD/DVD courses on spiritual topics to help us delve more into the Year of Mercy and Scripture (DVDs by Dr. Brant Pitre), and Dante’s Divine Comedy (nothing but the best - a course by Dr. Anthony Esolen).  We also got a couple of entertaining videos that look wholesome – “War Room” and “Joan of Arc”.

Mother took us on a “tour”, via a power point presentation, of some of our Passionist holy sites in Italy that she visited last fall during the International Meeting of the Superiors of Passionist Nuns. More about this meeting in an upcoming blog post.

Another blog post is on its way to share more of what's been going on in our cloister.