CHRISTMAS MEMORIES

                   Let's have some Christmas fun and stroll down

Memory Lane of Christmas. 

Some answers below to get you remembering.

What is your earliest Christmas memory?

Memories of ‘the Tree’

Christmas Traditions:

Worst present?

Best present?

Biggest shock?

Weirdest present?

Biggest let down:

It wouldn’t be Christmas without…

Traditional Feasting: Christmas Eve       Christmas Day

Best Christmas album/cd/song?

Best Christmas movies?           

What is your Christmas like now?

SOME ANSWERS :

What is your earliest Christmas memory? 

Falling asleep behind a chair when I was 4, to ‘catch’ Santa.

We always had an Advent calendar and an Advent wreath on the dining room table and the youngest lit the first candle.

Memories of ‘the Tree’

Dad used to put up the tree while we were asleep on Christmas Eve so it was a magical sight to behold when we came downstairs Christmas morning.  He used to put plastic stars or foil flowers around the colored bulbs so they would shine.  And every strand of tinsel was placed just so!  

Christmas Traditions:

Writing our letters to St Nick Dec. 6^th and leaving it in our shoes and getting a little gift in exchange.

Painting St Nicholas Cookies.      

New PJ’s Christmas Eve 

Jan 5:  We put out straw and water by the fireplace for the 3 Kings’ camels, and getting a little trinket in retrun.

Worst present?

Underwear – a necessity but wrapped up and placed under the tree?!  

Weirdest present?  A bag of cough drops

Best present?

Child: A Tressy doll: a Barbie look-a-like with (retractable) hair down to her toes

Biggest let down:

First time to Midnight Mass was in our elementary school gym/auditorium, the priest fell asleep.

One Christmas we went to visit relatives and they took the tree down on Dec 26!

The first Christmas in the monastery EVERYTHING was different, unfamiliar. Midnight Mass, at midnight, was nice, and the refreshments that followed were nice but everyone was so pooped the next day no one was around.  We opened a few small presents at night.

Feasting:  Christmas Eve: It seems to me at home it was a pick-up, nothing special.  Christmas day was a rerun of Thanksgiving except more cake and cookies than pies.

Best Christmas album/cd/song?

Amahl and the Night Visitors and the Kingston Trio. 

Hearing ‘O Holy Night’ sung by an ex-Marine who played Santa at the  Mall.   We were waiting for the stores to open and he just sang it, spontaneously, beautifully, making the mall a Cathedral.

What new Christmas Traditions are you creating
for your family?

             MERRY CHRISTMAS FROM THE RED NUNS

CHOICES

The choices we make this Election Day will affect our lives for years to come. 

In the beginning, the Creator choose to make a covenant with the human race: (Gen. 9: 12-15)  
God said: This rainbow is the sign of the covenant that I am making between me and you and every living creature with you for all ages to come. I set my bow in the clouds to serve as a sign of the covenant between me and the earth. When I bring clouds over the earth, and the bow appears in the clouds, I will remember my covenant between me and you and every living creature, every mortal being.

As citizens of the United States, our vote is a covenant with each other to stand together as a people created in God’s image.  God chooses to see all of us as His beloved no matter what creed, race or ethnicity, age or gender.  All are loved by our Good, Merciful God.

As we pray for wisdom, listen to the words of Chronicles.     (see 2 Chronicles 1:7-8a, 10-12a)    That night God appeared to Solomon, and said to him, “Ask what I should give you.”   Solomon said to God, “You have shown me great and steadfast love.  Give me now wisdom and knowledge to go out and come in before this people, for who can rule this great people of yours?” God answered Solomon, “Because this was in your heart, and you have not asked for possessions, wealth, honor, or the life of those who hate you, and have not even asked for long life, but have asked for wisdom and knowledge for yourself that you may rule my people over whom I have made you king, wisdom and knowledge are granted to you.”

May the God of wisdom and light help us choose leaders who hear your Word, live your love, and keep in the ways of your truth as we follow in the steps of Jesus.  Heal our hearts and country of all conflict and division as you guide us to your kingdom of justice and peace.  

FUMBLING TOWARD HEAVEN

 I woke up with this phrase in mind, ‘fumbling toward heaven.’  It didn’t seem to be connected with a dream or anything – it just was there.

But it got me thinking about football. A fumble is when someone on the opposite team makes you drop the football and recovers it for their side.  I am going to stretch this metaphor so run with me on this one. 

Jesus is the football we carry through life tucked under our arm close to our heart.  We are advancing through the game of life toward our goal: heaven.   When certain circumstances of everyday life dislodge Jesus from our heart and make us drop the ball, how do we get it back?  In the second letter to Timothy St. Paul writes, ‘God did not give us a spirit of timidity, but rather a spirit of power, and love and self-discipline.’

Relying on the Spirit of Jesus we gain the power of the practice of self-discipline to scoop up the ball of Love and continue to carry it to our final destination. If we are called to be Jesus to each other and the world, then it shouldn’t be so hard to stoop down to lift up Jesus, ourselves and one another.

Sometimes, we feel like we drop the ball constantly but thank goodness we have fans to cheer us on whether we are in possession of the ball or not.  Who are our fans?  Family and friends, co-workers, and all the angels and saints are cheering us on!  Not only are they fans but also our team!   They offer prayers and lend support, especially when the everyday cares and set backs get us down.  In our most desperate hours, we throw a ‘Hail Mary’ forward pass to our Lady and she is there to help us.

To all eyes, Jesus’ death on a cross seemed like the biggest fumble ever.  But those who gathered below his cross: his Mother, John and Magdalene, believed and hoped in Jesus who came to save and bring them to heaven. And we know their hope was not in vain. 

So, let us not be like Lucy who whips the football away just as Charlie Brown comes up to kick it.  Let us be like Charlie Brown who, even though he fumbles, he always believes and hopes.  Let us never ever give up hope.  Let us continue to fumble our way to heaven believing in Him who comes to save.

Blessed M. Celeste Crostarosa ~ Feast Day ~ Sept 11

This stained-glass window of Bl. Maria Celeste, Foundress of the Redemptoristine Order was originally installed in Our Mother of Perpetual Help Monastery in Esopus, NY in 1960.  This was the first Redemptoristine monastery in the United States.     

When we moved from Esopus in 2013 to live with the Discalced Carmelites in Beacon, NY, we brought her with us and the window was enthroned in their gathering space.

Again, we have moved.   This time to live with the Dominicans Sisters of Sparkill, NY.  Because we were moving to a smaller personal living space, we photographed the window of Celeste and had it framed.  It now graces 'Celeste Hall,' our community room.

Description of the window:

Jesus is the Sun/Son of Love!
He revealed to Celeste the Plan of Love for the salvation of souls by giving her a Rule on which to build a new religious Order based on his life.  Particularly his Incarnation and as a Wayfarer on earth.

Celeste is kneeling upright because, though she is humble, her faith and trust in God makes her a strong instrument of God. 

The background setting is the town of Scala, meaning ladder, above the Amalfi Sea not far from Naples, Italy, where Bl Celeste was born.

We celebrate her feast day on September 11^th.

 Dear Family, Friends and Benefactors,                                       June 27, 2024

          Life is a circle.  As Redemptoristines, we have lived in mid-Hudson River area since 1957 when the Sisters arrived from Ontario. We were blessed to have lived in Esopus for over 50 years, close to our brother Redemptorists at Mount St. Alphonsus.  Twelve years ago, we were equally blessed to come share life with the Carmelites in Beacon. 

Like our Foundress, Bl. Maria Celeste Crostarosa, we have moved many times. Did you know that Bl. Celeste spent the first five years of her religious life as a Carmelite? After that monastery closed, she was instrumental in founding the Redemptoristine Nuns in Scala, Italy. Yet a few years later, due to liberty of conscience, she could not stay in that monastery any longer and moved a few more times before finally settling in Foggia, Italy.   

Presently, we find ourselves preparing to move again due to significant changes affecting us, and the Carmelite Sisters, in our ability to maintain the day-to-day functioning of our life.  Nevertheless, our life of prayer, praise and intercession endures.

We began exploring options in the New Year and quickly found the Dominican Sisters of Sparkill, New York. Their openness and welcome were most heart-warming. The Dominican Community was delighted to extend to our four Sisters a place to continue our life of prayer with the ability to age in place.  In April, we definitively decided to join them. 

The Dominican Sisters of Sparkill live their mission as joyful women of prayer and compassion who proclaim the Reign of God through ministry for justice and reverence for all creation. 

We are so pleased to be able to live with another religious community. We are saddened to be separating from our Carmelite Sisters in Beacon and their beautiful, peaceful surroundings.  We Red Nuns thank the Brown Nuns profusely for opening their door to us: it has been enriching and beneficial to both our communities as we shared our contemplative lives.  We feel the Lord certainly had a hand in guiding our search to a new home.  We pray that our sharing living space with the Dominican Sisters of Sparkill will be another source of enrichment for both communities.

Amazingly, we discovered that each of us had a Dominican connection sometime in our lives. In Redemptoristine history, even Bl. Celeste Crostarosa had a connection.  She was influential in reforming a Dominican convent that ran an orphanage.  God-coincidences are everywhere: we learned that the Sparkill Dominicans’ foundress, Mother Alice Mary Thorpe, began her religious life with setting up orphanages.  Life is a circle.

Blessed Celeste speaks about the circle of life, “Immerse all that happens to you in life within the Circle of Pure Love.”  Our life is a never-ending circle set in motion by the Redeemer’s Pure Love drawing us ever deeper and closer to our loving God under the protective care of Our Mother of Perpetual Help.