Search Results for label/Rite of Commitment
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Sister Mary Eymard Campeggio
...Alice Ann Rhinesmith asked her if she remembered Alice Ann’s favorite meal. “Liver, onions and mashed potatoes,” she replied. When Notre Dame played, Sister Mary Eymard’s voice carried down the hall as she cheered them on. On her 100th birthday, she received a letter and autographed picture from Notre Dame’s head football coach, Brian Kelly. Her birthday cake had a Notre Dame theme. Sister Mary Eymard never had any college or university degrees, but her heart was well educated by...
Saint Mother Theodore children’s book awarded
Mary Doyle’s children’s book, “Saint Theodora and her Promise to God,” recently placed fourth in the Children’s Book category of the Catholic Book Awards. Mary K. Doyle has written many books. But she had never attempted to write a children’s book. However, her first one, “Saint Theodora and her Promise to God,” was recently honored by placing fourth in a contest conducted by the Catholic Press Association. The book was published in 2013 in collaboration by the Sisters of Providence...
How relics became meaningful
...of a thought…..until my mother died! My brother and I were sorting through her things, deciding what to do with various items. Immediately I knew I wanted something she’d worn; something that had been close to her body, something she treasured. And so I have her favorite gold medal – she’d purchased it on her one and only trip to Italy. My dad and I waited patiently as she carefully deliberated between several styles while trying to communicate with the...
Palm Sunday
My question to Jean Brown, our administrative assistant: “If you had to write a reflection on Palm Sunday, what would you write?” Her instant response: “I’d start with the palms.” My response to her: “ Why palms?” Jean’s reply set me off on quite a few Google moments. (I’m always amazed at how much time I can spend on my phone going from one topic to another.) I first asked how many species of palm there are – 2600 across...
Pentecost 2015
A stained glass window in the Church of the Immaculate Conception depicting the Pentecost of the Holy Spirit. I’m often asked to write a blog for feast days or holy seasons — Christmas, Ash Wednesday, Easter; and I’m okay with those. However, I’ve been asked a few times to write for the feast of Pentecost. I dread it. My theology of the Holy Spirit definitely needs some development. When expressing this concern to my colleagues, the general councilors, we somehow...
Every day an adventure for Sister Betty Smigla
...her auditory and visual nerves on the left side of her face. To communicate with the doctor, I write large in Spanish, and she can verbalize the answer. The beautiful part of her is, here she is with all this – a rare hereditary condition and three of her siblings with the same type of tumor – and I get the privilege of being with her. She volunteers at Salvation Army three times a week. Can you believe it? For...
Intern life — part of a living ecosystem
White Violet Center for Eco-Justice Intern Jackie Schwenk planting peppers last spring. I was asked a while back to write a reflection on my internship, and it hit me today what I wanted to write about. As you drive into Saint Mary-of-the-Woods there is a quaint cemetery with hundreds of identical white tablet tombstones, but as you drive further you see tens of thousands of trees each full of diverse life. There are the stout maples and the bushy pines....
Sisters of Providence “employ” special education students
Thursday is my favorite day of the week. It peps me up knowing the weekend is still to come. But when my favorite day of the week includes inspirational young people, well, that’s just the icing on the high school graduation cake! Congratulations West Vigo High School seniors Dustin, Jordan, Erika and Jessica for completing the work training skills program! Last Thursday was extra special because I attended a celebration at Idle Creek Banquet Center in Terre Haute recognizing the...
From fashion to fiber arts
Said enjoys working with the alpacas. White Violet Center intern Sadie Laing comes to us from Madison, Wisconsin, where she recently completed a bachelor’s degree in textile and fashion design from University of Wisconsin-Madison. Sadie also has an associate’s degree in fashion design from the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York. I sat down with her recently to talk about her favorite textile pieces and life at WVC. Sadie’s portfolio show at UW-Madison featured textile pieces inspired by the...
Sustainability and social change
Isabelle McCurdy is one of White Violet Center’s newest interns. A recent high school graduate, she is making her first foray into sustainable farming. She arrived at the beginning of November and will be with us until April 2017. At her performing arts high school, Isabelle majored in dance. During her senior year, she developed a choreography routine that won a state competition. Improvisation is her favorite type of dance. Before coming to WVC, Isabelle worked for two years as...
December 10, Human Rights Day and This Little Light
...this current situation, I find comfort in Clarissa Pinkola Estes writing, “Ours is not the task of fixing the entire world all at once, but of stretching out to mend the part of the world that is within our reach.” Incredibly, that may not be as limiting as it seems. As Sister Rosemary Schmalz and I prepare to launch Amnesty International’s annual Write for Rights letters here at the Woods, we have the possibility of touching lives throughout this global...
Blessed and encouraged to act justly, love tenderly
My favorite Scipture passage is Micah 6:8: “Act justly, love tenderly, walk humbly with your God.” My parents, Lillian and Henry Gerardot, exemplified this passage by the way they lived. Mom not only cared for the ten of us but also her own mother during the last years of my grandmother’s life. Mom was very involved in the St. Louis parish where she played the organ and directed the adult choir for 50 years until the doctor forbade her climbing the stairs to the...