The Heavens are telling the glory of God

and all creation is shouting for joy!

Come dance in the forest, come play in the field!

And sing! Sing to the glory of the Lord!

Canticle of the Sun

Have you ever experienced a day when everything seems especially blessed... It's beautiful outside, you're doing things you enjoy and spending time with good friends?? That was this past weekend for me...

Before I launch into bragging about my weekend, I suppose I should say a word about where I've been the past few weeks! Crazy busy doesn't even begin to describe life... but it's not overwhelmingly busy... or even un-healthily so.... perhaps full is a better word.

So... first our community schedule... We have morning prayer together on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday at 7:45am. Typically, I work out before hand at the Univ. of Dayton at 6am and shower there before morning prayer. On Monday evenings we have dinner at 6pm followed by prayer and a community meeting that usually lasts until 9pm. Tuesdays we have Eucharist at 5pm followed by dinner. Wednesdays we have prayer at 5:15 and eat left-overs together at 6pm, however, I have a class at UD from 6-8:30, so I usually eat peanut butter and jelly and fruit during class. Thursday evenings, we do not gather as a community, which works out well because I have a standing Thursday night commitment at 9pm (which I'll explain below). Friday evenings we have dinner at 6pm followed by prayer. ....

On Mondays, Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays I work at Catholic Social Action here in Dayton. I believe I wrote more about this office in a previous blog... I'm there from 9am - noon, however recently I started going in about 10 minutes earlier so that I can leave in enough time to make it to 12:05 Mass at the UD. There are some days, typically a Wednesday, that are a little longer because of Archdiocesan gatherings/meetings in Cincinnati. In fact, for a few weeks I was in Cincinnati every Wednesday until around 3 or 4. Last week, I got lost trying to find my way home... I ended up in Northern Kentucky for about 45 minutes trying to figure out what highway would get me back to something I recognized! How aggravating!!! *sigh* But... it worked out well in the end...

The Catholic Social Action office just finished a course called "Salt and Light" at a parish here in town. The course was on Tuesday evenings at 6:30pm... which is why I don't go into the office on Tuesday mornings - I was at S&L in the evenings. It was a course for adults in the parish to learn about Catholic Social Teaching in order to begin a parish Social Justice Committee. Great course! Anyway, now that the course is over, I'm not picking up those hours in the office because I really need that time for a few other things...

My Wednesday evening class is keeping me busy. My small group is doing oral histories of 4 people in the neighborhood with which we are working. That's a very interesting project... a little on the time-consuming side, though.

Thursday evenings are great. At 9pm I meet with a group of UD students (along with a Lay Marianist married couple) who will make a commitment at the end of the semester as Lay Marianists. We are helping them through the formation process. It's been good for me. I think it's also been a very valuable way for me to work with students on a deeper faith level than I would have the opportunity otherwise.

My weekends... have been FULL! Last weekend I was in Scottsdale Arizona for meetings (I'll explain those in a future blog!), two weekends before that I was back at Governor's Island for a discernment retreat, and the weekend before that I was in Pennsylvania for the Intercommunity Formation weekend I wrote about in my last post. Then... next weekend we have our Come and See weekend here in Dayton and two weeks after that I'll be in Miami for Marianist Formation Weekend!!

So... what about the weekend just past? See the picture at the top of this post? That's where I was ALL day yesterday! How incredible is that??? Of course, silly me didn't have a camera. That picture is from the website (http://www.hockinghills.com/). But, let me start at the beginning...

On Friday evening my very good friend Dawn came in for a visit. She's working on her masters at Catholic Univ. in DC... finished mid-terms last week and took a break. On Friday evening we had dinner with the community and then we just sat out on the porch swing and talked... and talked... It was a beautiful night, too. Saturday we drove to Cincinnati to visit a friend of ours who is a retired Franciscan priest with whom we used to work back at St. Mary's Catholic Center at Texas A&M. We had a great day with him! He took us to his novitiate and out to lunch. He told us stories about some of the people who have impacted his life, he gave us each a book of Mother Teresa quotes, a other assorted gifts. Then, Saturday evening we joined in the 10 year anniversary celebration of one of the Marianist Lay Communities. Well, it's more of a Family of Mary community because there is one Mariansit sister, a Marianist brother, a Marianist priest, and one of the male Marianist novices... however, most of the people are Lay Marianists. We had a great time. The Eucharistic Liturgy was small, but nice. Then we had dinner (a PLETHORA of good food!) and ended the night with contra dancing. We didn't get home until nearly 11pm, but we had a great time....

Then yesterday Dawn and I took part in our annual tradition... hiking. We went to a BEAUTIFUL state park about 2 hours from Dayton called Hocking Hills. We walked... and talked... and laughed... and shared... all day. What a great way to spend the day. Being on the edge of a cliff more than 200 feet up staring out across beautiful multi-colored trees is amazingly awe-inspiring. There's really nothing like it.

Really, I have a ton more to say, but now I'm running late. So, I'll end here and write again soon... I hope.

Many prayers for all who read this!

Sr. N