Saturday Smorgasbord for Franciscan Sisters

The Franciscan Sisters at St. Francis began the morning on Saturday by attending a “Regional Faith in Action Workshop” here in the cafeteria. It is always nice when you don’t have to travel for a meeting! The session was sponsored by the  Diocese of Jackson and dealt with  the topics of Catholic Social Teaching, Parish Social Ministry and Advocacy. The Diocese is encouraging parishes to form “Faith in Action Teams” which will build on the existing social ministry programs so that Catholics can more effectively live the Gospel.

 

 

Following the workshop, a group of our parishioners gathered at the grotto of Mary next to our convent to pray the rosary and commemorate the 100th Anniversary of Our Lady’s apparitions to the children at Fatima.

 

 

Midday here in Mississippi gets very hot so we opted to pray in the shade of a magnolia tree. This involved moving chairs to a position beside the grotto facing the highway.  Fr. Cam elevated this logistical move by remarking, “This is good as we are now praying with Mary and not to her”.  He added, that by facing highway 82 we would be “praying for the people of the world, and including the needs of all who passed by.”

 

 

A moment to relax before the next event.

 

Next on the day’s busy agenda was our Fall “Meet the Sisters” gathering.  As the young ladies arrived, snacks were served and games “relaxed” everyone! “Heads Up”, using a tablet was first. This has become a favorite activity for the group. Then our guests were challenged to use a spoon to transfer ping pong balls from a full bowl to an empty bowl. Finally, with a sandwich cookie on their brow the young ladies had to try and get the cookie into their mouth using only their facial muscles!

 

Now all were ready for a craft activity. Being October, Sister Kathleen led the group in making  a decade of a rosary using cord and beads in the same fashion as St. Theresa beads.

 

 

Sister Kathleen carried the theme of the rosary a little further. All were divided into five groups.   Each fivesome was given a bag of miscellaneous items. From a list of the mysteries of the rosary, each group had to act out the mystery of their choice using all the items in their bag. This took some thought and led to a lot of laughter as the audience figured out which mystery was being portrayed.

 

 

Please excuse the clotheslines!

Can you guess which mystery they each acted out?

 

 

After the Mysteries of the Rosary were enacted Sister Elena had the hot dogs ready for the hungry crew. From the hot dogs to Sister Judy’s s’mores, the young ladies were perfectly content.

 

Finally, it was time to come together in chapel for a prayer planned and led by Sister Judy.

 

 

Here we prayed for world peace through the intercession of Mary. A decade of the rosary was included in this prayer service. It was a perfect time to try out the new craft decade each young woman had made.

 

 

We had a wonderful time together with our young Catholic ladies. Before we knew it, the parents were arriving to pick up their daughters. As goodbyes were said, the usual question was asked; “When are we doing this again?”