Maryknoll, NY

...Well, here I am a lowly college freshman!  Since you have read my letters, you know what courses I’m taking - the usual freshman classes.  I won’t bore you with a lot of details about my classes or what I’m doing ...

... I want to tell you a little about my English composition class.  Sr. Celine Marie is the teacher.  Our textbook is The Complete Stylist by Sheridan Baker.  She is really “with it”.  It is going to be a class where we will have to work, but it is worth it.  For our term papers we are to show “the climate of the gospel Spirit” in a modern novel by a contemporary author.  I’m going to do mine on Franny and Zooey by JD Salinger.  I don’t have any great insights to share as yet.

This is quite a place.  There are a lot of Sisters here, about 300 in all age categories.  There are many ideas and much thought provoking discussion going around.  (Excuse the faulty grammar, please - it is getting late.)

October 1,

Hi again!  I’ll finish this tonight and get it in the mail.  We had a Recollection Day today.  It was very relaxing to know you weren’t expected to study.  I slept in till 10:00 AM.  Nothing  too exciting has happened.  I was on a panel on Friday presenting the book Leisure, the Basis of Culture by Josef Peiper.  We also got our flu shots on Friday.  Last night, Saturday, we saw a movie at the seminary (a documentary) on alcoholic priests and how they can be cured at Guest House, a place in Michigan.  Afterwards a priest, a Jesuit with four degrees, a professor at Fordham, got up and told us how he had been cured at Guest house after 20 years as an alcoholic.  It was quite an experience to have a priest stand up in front of a group of sisters and priests and tell a story like that.  It was a real eye-opener for some people.

I’m sure a lot of other things have happened, but I can’t think of anything right now!

I go to Grasslands once a week.  It is a county hospital about fifteen minutes from here (driving time).  Our work consists in feeding the patients supper since the staff is limited in the evening hours. 

I haven’t been to the city yet, but our history class will be going to the Metropolitan Museum of Art later in the year.

This is a week of feastdays coming up, our first at the Motherhouse.  Tomorrow is the anniversary of Mother Mary Joseph’s death.  Friday is Mother Coleman’s feastday; both days are school holidays.  Tonight we all had recreation together in the professed sisters community room - all couple 100 of us.  (The total Motherhouse population is almost 400 at the moment).  We played games for a while and just talked.  There was a program planned for later in the evening.  About ten minutes before it was supposed to start, Sr. Margaret Ann came over to where about six of us were playing Chinese checkers and asked us if we could think of something real quick-like for the program.  They planned on having each country where our Sisters are sing a song or put on a short skit.  Well, the Motherhouse group disbanded at the last moment.  So, we sang our Maryknoll song that we wrote as postulants that goes to the tune of Camelot!

Tomorrow night we are going to have a guest speaker.  I won’t tell you about the rest of the week, because then I won’t have anything to write about next week!

(A Sister  Margaret from Peru just popped into our community room, and told us a little about her mission and the work she does there.

I don’t know of I told you about my evening class on Monday and Friday on Cooperatives and Credit Unions.  So far we have been learning about Credit unions and how to establish them, what they are, etc.  On Saturday evening, yesterday, some of us went to an introduction class for learning how to be ham radio operators.  It is going to be a ten week course, once a week on Tuesday evenings from 8-10 PM at the seminary.  There will be a joint class of professed, novices, and seminarians.  Paul - you’d better get a license so we can communicate!  We have a station here at the Motherhouse that is about 1000 volts and can reach just about anywhere in the world.  I still have my regular college classes with term papers, etc. to do; I think I may be busy.

On December 8, our Western Civilization class is going to the Metropolitan Art Museum.

On January 6, part of our Music class is attending a Leonard Bernstein concert in the city.  There are four days to choose from for the Leonard Bernstein concerts, so I chose January 6th.

Fall is approaching and the leaves are beginning to change.  We have a beautiful view from our little knoll here.

Today I went swimming at an indoor pool at Marymount College.  It really felt great.  Some of the Sisters go every Sunday morning for an hour or so.

...It must be a mid-semester slump or something, but I’m getting a little tired of school, too, except I have a long time ahead of me yet.  I’m writing this between Math and History.

Last Saturday the local candidates from Ossining came up to give their campaign speeches.  We had representatives from both sides.  I didn’t go because I can’t vote in this local election. 

This Sunday I will be going out (Rah, rah - at last!).  I’m not going into the city.  We have been invited to a Teen Challenge Center at Garrison, which is about half an hours drive from here, I think.  I guess I’d better give you some background so you know what I’m talking about.  The novices in St. Louis this summer met many people and one group they came into contact with was the Pentecostal Church and a special program called Teen Challenge.  Volunteers work with teenagers who are having problems with drugs, gang fights, etc.  It is hard to explain in a few words.  The teen’s life, or anyone’s life, because of the Spirit.  It is a deeply religious movement.  Anyway, at Garrison there is a home for girls, most of whom are trying to break the narcotics habit.  That is a sketchy and I hope not too misleading picture....

...I hope you can get out of the enclosed booklet the ideas I had in mind when I made it.  I was in an unusual mood that night, having just read a lot (actually only two things) by Sr. Corita.  Most of the things have some significance, but I’d like to hear from you on how they struck you before I explain them.  The idea of missionary is the one of Vatican II.  Everyone is a missionary, not just priests and sisters.  It is not a plug for the priesthood!...

...It seems that I must do something with my time around here that I could tell you about!!  There is a lot doing with our own pre-chapter planning groups (you wouldn’t believe the various groups and committees in this house - there is a group for a group within a group.  One could spend her life just attending meetings.)  One group that I am in is discussing the apostolate of all the Maryknoll Sisters.  Our goal or aim is to come up with definite proposals regarding our work in the apostolate for the chapter delegates to consider and maybe vote on. ...

...  I’m sitting in the library studying for a test - it’s about 11:30 PM - I’m wide awake, so I thought I would write to you.

Your last letter has set me thinking along many different lines.  I can’t give you a definite proof or answer because that can come only from God.  I can’t explain it because God is God and no one can fully understand Him.  I don’t know how to put this exactly - but lately Christ has become so much of a real person for me.  Maybe my new experience of ‘community’ has added to my own realization of love within the Trinity.

I think we all go through different stages of belief and unbelief.  I don’t remember having ever lost my belief in God entirely.  Maybe my crises of faith has not yet come.  For some, the dark hours are longer and darker than for others.  If you ever have a chance to get the book Prayers by Quoist, he describes in a very realistic way how it feels to love and sin and fall - but God has not forgotten!  Sometimes we ask and ask and it seems that he never hears - but he does - we just don’t always see the results right away.  How long must we wait?  I don’t know.

I want to tell you about something I prayed for a long time - to show you He hears.  Remember how we always prayed for Dad, even in our night prayers together as little kids.  I guess that I really didn’t know what I was praying for.  I’ve thought about it a lot more since I’ve been in Maryknoll.  I guess the older I get the more I appreciate and love you all.  “When I was a child I thought as a child...” and now I must think and be a mature, Christian woman.  It’s quite a challenge - and I wouldn’t be human if I didn’t admit that I don’t always live up to it.  Anyway - back to my former trend of thought - after going to all these Pentecostal meetings with their highly emotional responses and expressions, it naturally affected me, too.  In the Cross and the Switchblade, the book about Teen Challenge, they lived on faith.  Skeptical me was a little skeptical to say the least!  In the gospels it says that a certain woman had faith and believed that if she but touched the hem of His garment, she would be cured.  I prayed in chapel that Christ would help Dad to stop drinking.  I had to pray for faith, too - for a real faith.  It is hard to say “I believe” that God will work a miracle and then walk away and realize that He has heard.  Paul - I think we have seen a little miracle.  I’m going to be realistic enough to allow Dad to be human, too - but God has heard our prayer.

Gee, I really rambled there, didn’t I!  Can you take another section of my ramblings?  About life and goals - We all have a place in the world, doing a certain thing at a certain time.  Even our wanderings from place to place and from goal to goal have a place in the whole plan of our life.  If we all did the same thing - e.g., Peace Corps work, the world would be unable to function.  What matters is that we truly “Be” with the people we are with.  We have to respond to each moment as it presents itself.  Live life from miracle to miracle!!  Take time to notice the little things.  Is the sky blue today?  Is there a flower growing outside your window?  Is someone laughing?  Is there job amidst the suffering of this world?  YES!!!  After winter comes spring and new life!...

....  It is now Monday morning and I am sitting in our room looking out over the trees.  It is a beautiful day - with a bright blue sky. ...

...This weekend we had a prayer workshop.  A Fr. Dupay from Ohio conducted it.  He gave two conferences a day.  The schedule in the house was adjusted a little so that work and school went on as always, but almost everyone was free at conference times.  He presented some ideas on prayer, especially referring to Vatican II.  I wouldn’t say he was extremely liberal or conservative, just kind of balanced.

We also had a basketball game on Washington’s birthday.  There were only two novices on the team, but about ten were cheerleaders.  It was a relaxing way to spend an evening.

Sr. Charlotte Anne, who was in our little dorm section, left for home yesterday.  She is from Detroit.  There are thirty-six in our group now.  Both Maryknoll as a whole and the individuals in Maryknoll are having a difficult time at this point in history.  Profession is less than four months away.  Since we will be taking our vows and becoming even more a part of Maryknoll, we are very much concerned with how Maryknoll, and I guess, the whole Church, will be going in the future....

Tuesday, February 27

...Gee - here it is - almost March... and to think I’ll be “legal”.  I hadn’t thought about it too much ... but since you asked!!  ...  There are really very little restrictions on what we may receive as gifts, outside of cigarettes and liquor.  It really makes more sense this way.  We have been discussing poverty along with the other vows.  There is so much more to it than just not owning a lot of things.  At least to me, it is more of an attitude we should have in which we really use everything that we have as best we can.  I guess, we should be free enough to take ‘em or leave ‘em, as the circumstances call for.  Anyway - I guess that is a little of my expounding.  Gee, we are meeting so many new ideas from other people and from within ourselves, that I just want to share some of my ideas and reactions with you.  I don’t think that those 3,000 miles should hinder a real communication. 

.  It was almost like Spring one day this week.  Sr. Shirley and I got ambitious and did a little Spring cleaning.  We washed out the blinds in the bathtub and hung them on the deck to dry.  We are lucky we didn’t decide to wait another day.  The following day we had a couple of inches of snow!!  Last night a group of us went out for a snowball fight.  The snow was too soft to make good snowballs, but we had a good time anyway.  Today, the snow has almost all melted....

...The rest of school is going along okay.  We have mid-terms from the 25th to the 30th....

...Sr. Shirley and Margaret planted flower seeds in our window box in our dorm.  We should have flowers for Spring!!  In the meantime we have some pretty pink, plastic roses on our table, that Sr. Shirley’s Mom sent for Valentine’s Day....

.... We are taking mid-term exams next week... birthday ...Sr. Kathryn and Shirley had a party for me in the music suite.  After the party broke up, Sr. Kathryn and I stayed down there till about 12:00 AM, listening to records and talking.

My pre-chapter discussion group presented a panel to the community.  We presented three papers members of the group had written on:

 1) Leadership Formation, 

2) Culture and Anthropology (how to use Anthropology to help us be better missionaries - so we don’t all make the same mistakes!), and 

3) Apostolate and Retirement.  

We made certain proposals with each paper and will refine them and submit them to the chapter delegates for next Fall.

Well, there are only three more months till profession.  It is a time for serious thinking and consideration.  One of the hardest things is taking our vows within the context of a community that no one is too sure what it will be like a year from now.  There are very few aspects that aren’t being questioned...