Search Results for label/Sister Denise Wilkinson
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New designs from a tree’s former fullness
...It was empty. Empty but not useless. One of the sisters came out to find pieces of wood suitable for making wooden flutes. A local woodcarver arrived to find wood to create hand-hewn bowls and crosses and angels – all sorts of wooden objects. Workers will saw the tree into pieces and then make woodchips to use in landscaping on the campus. In all these ways and more, the mighty white oak continues its life and usefulness. Usefulness isn’t everything...
Musings on Kleenex and ‘Kin-dom’
Our Marketing and Communications director, Diane Weidenbenner, asked me to write a blog. The topic could be anything I wanted. Given the freedom to write about anything, I could think of nothing until I was ironing my clothes the other morning. I was really annoyed because I was ironing and picking a million miniscule pieces of Kleenex off my slacks. Obviously I had failed to empty my pockets before throwing everything in the machine. So aggravating! It’s even more aggravating...
HOME, a place to nurture the well-being of others
Well-Being Coordinator Katie Harich, third from left, spends time with sisters and others at the Woods, during a HOME activity. It is rare that a Sister of Providence going to Saint Mary-of-the-Woods doesn’t say, “I’m going home.” It is rare that visitors to Saint Mary-of-the-Woods campus don’t remark on the beauty, the peace and comfort they experience on the campus. It is rare that the Woods isn’t described as a special place or as welcoming. What better place, then, for...
Advent 2018: So many possibilities in the waiting
Just a sec! I’m almost finished. You just missed the bus. Next one comes in 10 minutes. She said she’d get back to me in a couple of weeks but I still haven’t heard. This won’t take long. Please take a seat. The doctor will be right with you. The baby’s due date is two weeks from now. I can’t wait. We’re used to waiting. We do it so often, we’re not surprised when it happens. We know how to...
Reflecting on Palm Sunday 2019
I’m having a terrible time writing a reflection for Palm Sunday. I’ve been trying to come up with a good idea, but everything I come up with seems trite, too “pious.” Consequently, all kinds of unhelpful things are cluttering up my mind. Like what? Like: When I was a kid and the Mass was all in Latin, was the Gospel read in Latin? Was that why it seemed so l-o-n-g? Like: Why, when the Gospel is read by several people,...
Day by day with Saint Mother Theodore Guerin
...fragments from her letters that shine with Mother Theodore’s humanness. For example, Sister Maria (referenced earlier) received this rather crisp response from Mother Theodore. “You are very foolish, my dear Sister, to be tormenting your imagination with the fear of losing your mind. …Believe me, my daughter; we cannot lose what we never had.“ In moments of annoyance and crabbiness, I can hear Mother Theodore saying to me: “There are some among you who are like old Bouraux. This was...
Reflecting on the United States through the writing of Saint Mother Theodore
...sisters have not the tender piety of the French, but there is no hypocrisy … among them. They are … full of uprightness, of devotedness and of simplicity, Voyages, which are an image of life, are generally accompanied by a crowd of contradictions, These misfortunes of daily occurrence are not the only ones that afflict our unfortunate America. We hear of nothing but fires and murders … The explosion costs the lives of several persons, but of this scarcely anything...
Providence Prayer
My life, with all of its ups and downs, I gently place into your hands, Provident God. My loved ones, those here and those living in the fullness of your life, I gently place into your hands, Provident God. My daily work and all who come into my life through it. I gently place into your hands, Provident God. Our Church and all of the people of God, I gently place into your hands, Provident God. Our planet and our...
Movies that stay with you
...to the detriment of her nation and herself. The storyline of “The Descendants” is one of relationships; we Sisters of Providence would say of “right relationships.” Set against incredibly beautiful Hawaiian landscapes, a father and his young daughters cope with the dying of his wife, their mother. All sorts of other characters come into play – the teenage daughter’s boyfriend, the parents of the dying woman, the man with whom the dying woman had had an affair, that man’s wife...
Be kind. It’s bumpy out there.
...frequently here at St. Mary’s it’s hard to think of them as random and not as part of the energy of the place and the people here. Sister Laurine Haley, left, and Sister Adelaide Ortegel enjoy the kindness of Sister Joanne Golding when she brings puppies and kittens to visit the Sisters of Providence living at Saint Mary-of-the-Woods. Feb. 19 is Random Acts of Kindness Day. Last evening, as I walked home, one of our college students was ahead of...
Gifts of relationship, friendship
...of a card or letter received having just returned from seeing our sisters in Taiwan. Sister Jenny Howard and I traveled there to conduct a Congregation meeting and to be present when our novice from Asia moved from canonical to mission novice year. We brought with us letters and notes from sisters at St. Mary’s to sisters in Taiwan. It was heartwarming to see our sisters’ faces as they opened and read greetings and expressions of love and support from...
String pulled on the Ginkgo tree this week
My favorite tree – and I have hundreds to choose from here at Saint Mary-of-the-Woods – is the huge Ginkgo tree in front of Corbe House, where I live. The tree is huge! Sister Rose Ann Eaton and I just went out to measure the circumference of the trunk – 205 inches! While engaged in this pursuit, Rose told me a story she had heard from Sister Marceline Mattingly now in her nineties. Marceline remembers when the Ginkgo tree had...