July 30, 2010: Offering the gift of patience, understanding & compassion, by Michaela Hyman

You have all heard of a thing called love, but most people have a different understanding about it. I am going to tell you my understanding about love.

Love can be found in many different ways, in many different places. For example, the love one has for an animal or an object may be totally different than the love one has for a person. Also, the way you love people may be different. Parents gives each of their children a different kind of love — all strong but all different. Even when it seems like they your siblings don’t love you, they really do; sometimes it just may not show. Someday, the love you have for a spouse is different again.

Some ways you can show love to all people is by offering patience. You can do that by waiting for people even if it is someone you don’t like; or helping someone with homework, finding something, or just plain explaining something without getting frustrated if they don’t get it at first.

When you someday have children you’ll have to be very patient with them also when you are first teaching them to use the bathroom. Also when you’re teaching them to read is a definite time one needs to be patient. All of these things require patience and understanding; which leads me to my next point of understanding.

You should always try to find a way to put yourself in someone else’s shoes. It will give you a better understanding of how they feel or why they act the way they do. Showing love to someone you just met  may be hard because you don’t fully understand that person. But you should still show love,  understanding and compassion. It may be a person you get to know rather well.

Compassion and understanding are sometimes viewed as they same things but they are not. People think to feel compassion for someone, they have to understand what that person is going through. But that’s not the case: All you have to do is know the main part of the story to feel compassion.

All these little random acts people do for each other — whether it is by offering peace, showing understanding or just giving someone the gift of compassion — create a thing called love. Everyone can show it.

If everyone would, the world would be a better place as lives are touched by showing just a little love.

— Michaela Hyman is a freshman at Concordia High School. She is the daughter of Dan Hyman.July 20, 2010

Sign up now: Sisters’ lives in troubled times

As both the Church and women religious face complex and troubled times, Manna House of Prayer in Concordia, Kan., has developed an intensive program for sisters who are earnestly searching for deeper meaning in their lives.

“I believe this program can make a significant contribution in awakening our awareness of both the mystical and the prophetic nature of consecrated religious life,” explains Bette Moslander, csj, who has helped develop “Deepening the Mystery of Religious Life” and who will be one of the presenters.

“Deepening the Mystery” is a four-week intensive retreat at Manna House this fall, designed for women religious who are “moving into a time when they’re thinking about the rest of their lives,” Sister Bette adds.

The program is designed specifically for women religious who entered their communities before 1990.

“Women get into their stride in ministry and works, and can lose sight of their original reasons for choosing religious life,” says Janet Lander, csj, another of the program’s presenters. “This is 30 days to step back and refocus.”

It is also an opportunity to see the “traps of complacency and workaholism,” adds presenter Marcia Allen, csj. “We get so caught up in what we do that we forget who we are.”

The presenters and spiritual directors — all staff members at Manna House — want to give participants the opportunity to remember, and to feel again the love that grasped each heart in her original consecration. To that end, the subtitle of the program is “A Renewal of Heart.”

Questions at the center of the program include:

• Are you competent and successful and yet feel there’s something more to be gained from your life?
• Has your work these last 20 or more years dampened the fire of your passion for God?
• Are you at an impasse in how to live your religious life?
• Are you yearning for a deeper relationship with God?

For the last dozen years, Manna House has hosted the “Sarah Sabbatical,” a much-recognized program for women religious making the transition from active ministry to retirement. Most of the sisters who developed the new program have also been leaders in the Sarah Sabbatical.

But “Deepening the Mystery” is not simply a Sarah Sabbatical for younger women; rather, says Carolyn Teter, csj, “This is about our lives, as we live them today, and the mystical and prophetic nature of religious life. This is about the questions we ask ourselves.”

“The substance of this program pertains to all women religious,” Bette adds. “This is about the passion that brought all of us into religious life.”

The program is from Sept. 13 through Oct. 10, with an optional 10-day directed retreat following it. Registration is $500. Room and board at Manna House, a nationally recognized spiritual retreat center in northwest Kansas, is $1,400 for the four-week program or $1,900 for the program and directed retreat.  The maximum number of participants is 38, and the registration deadline is Aug. 15.

For more information on “Deeping the Mystery of Religious Life,” go to www.mannahouse.org or call Manna House at 785-243-4428. You may also CLICK HERE for a printable brochure.

Sisters honor longtime Development Director

Sisters of St. Joseph gathered today to thank Sister Carmel Garcia for nearly 10 years of “makimg friends for all of us” as the congregation’s Development Director.

Sister Carmel is retiring Friday, and called her work in the Development Office her “last ministry.” But, she told the sisters gathered to honor her, she has  worked since she was 6 years old and so may have to learn how to take it easy.

Before returning to Concordia as Development Director in 2001, Sister Carmel was the director of El Refugio, a shelter and counseling center for abused women and children in Silver City, N.M. She was responsible for funding and engineering the building of a new facility and then was director of it for several years. When she moved to Concordia, the people affiliated with El Refugio renamed the Center “Casa Carmel” in her honor.

In her role as Development Director, Sister Carmel has been primarily responsible for fundraising for the congregation, and has created numerous public events and worked behind the scenes to ensure the success of those events. As Sister Marcia Allen, president of the Sisters of St. Joseph, noted today, Sister Carmel is well known for the warm relationships she has built over the years with contributors and how much she cares for the friends and supporters of the congregations.

In late 2008, Sister Carmel was joined in the Development Office by Martha Bryant, a veteran fundraiser who has worked for a number of nonprofit organizations. She will continue as executive development director.

During the simple ceremony during dinner at the Motherhouse today, Sister Marcia thanked Sister Carmel for her service, and for her genuine caring and concern for the friends and supporters she has worked with over the years. Sister Lucy Schneider wrote the lyrics for a song — titled “A Gift of Song to a Gift Giver’s Friend — which she performed with Sisters Therese Blecha and Beth Stover.

Community Garden of Hope flourishes!

With the abundance of rain we have gotten this summer, the Concordia Community Garden of Hope is a beauty to behold! On land provided by the Sisters of St. Joseph in the northeast corner of the Motherhouse property, 26 plots are being cultivated with love and pride — and a good dose of hard work to keep up with weed control. The new sign on West 13th Street identifying the garden adds to the wonder of it all!  People in the community are enjoying their produce and the enjoyment of working the land.  Come see!

July 23, 2010: A lesson in love and sacrifice that leads to peace, by Virginia Anson

“To love and to cherish, from this day forward, until death do us part.”

He peered into her eyes and the love of 54 years of marriage passed between them. Straightening the sheets beneath her chin, he allowed his hands to gently frame her face.  A lone tear escaped her eye. Wiping it free, Dad leaned forward and tenderly kissed Mom’s forehead.

My mom, a vibrant woman who attended daily Mass, spent her last year as an invalid from the stroke that paralyzed her right side and left her essentially speechless. Yet within this devastation, as throughout my growing years, I learned the greatest lessons in marital love from my parents.

Month upon month, Dad made the 140-mile roundtrip journey to be with Mom in the rehabilitation center in Cheyenne, Wyo. — at least three times a week for eight months until a room opened in a facility near their home.  His visits to Mom then became his daily ritual for the last two months of her life.

The post-World War II culture that witnessed my parents’ courtship and marriage regarded their relationship to be an unlikely match. Mom was the product of a German-Catholic family, the 10th of 12 children. Dad is the only child of Baptist parents. Yet they grew a love that time and death could not extinguish.

My parents’ example revealed that marital love — marital peace — flourishes in an environment of mutual respect. Marital peace stagnates within a win-lose mindset. Marital relationships diminish if spouses must yell to prove their sides of a disagreement. Conversely, a spouse does not grow if he or she bows to the other’s wishes just to avoid an argument.  A loving marriage requires respectful communication.

Love and peace within my marriage thrive because I willingly give up a little of what I want because I love my husband.  And I gain a little of what I want because he loves me.

Peace within marriage means striving for unconditional love.  It means tolerance for the annoying idiosyncrasies of a person who is not me.  It is holding hands after 37 years of marriage just to feel him near.  It is consciously remembering that I love him at the very moment that he is driving me crazy.  It is loving my spouse as God does — in spite of human flaws.   Marital love is evident in the small acts that say “I love you.  You are the most important person in my life.”  It means saying “I’m sorry” when I humanly mess up.

True love within marriage allows each spouse to grow as a person and as a child of God. Within this love, one spouse willingly gives up his desires so that she may fulfill a dream that is integrally important to her. Yet, from that sacrifice comes immense reward. We need only look at the cross of Christ to see our model: the ultimate sacrifice that led to an ultimate reward — our salvation. That is the love to which God calls married couples. And working toward that love leads to marital peace.

There is a little secret I have yet to divulge. You see, in my parents’ marriage as in mine, there is a third partner — an all-perfect love that guides my marriage. This partner is our most loving God, without whom deep love cannot grow. Marital love is God loving my husband through me and sacrificing a part of myself so that my spouse can grow in God’s love. God must be a part of every marriage.

All too soon, God called my mom home to be with him. Although her passing relieved my dad of his marriage vows, his heart could not. He visits her grave often, and I’m sure she visits him. The wedding ring she gave him still graces his finger, the symbol of love that even death could not extinguish.

Marital peace, marital love. God’s peace, God’s love. They are one and the same.

— Virginia Anson is a member of the Secular Franciscan Order and a freelance writer who serves as Writing Center Coordinator at Cloud County Community College.

Helping military families: ‘Do what’s in your heart’

When Sister Loretta Jasper spoke to the members of a Salina service club recently, she had the same message she’s been delivering for a year and a half: Reach out to the spouses and children of people serving in the military, and “do what’s in your heart.”

Since January 2009, Sister Loretta has been serving as a family counselor under a program ­designed and funded by the U.S. government. In that role, she has been to military bases in Germany, Alaska and the South, and has just completed the school year working with the children of military personnel at a Midwest Army base.

But, she told the members of the Salina Sunflower Lions Club — many of whom are retired military — the troops serving in Iraq and Afghanistan today include nearly a third National Guard members and Reservists, and those families face different challenges.

Unlike military families who either live on a base or close to one, and have the support of other similar families and the base structure, members of the Guard and Reserves are “isolated” all around us, among people who may not understand what they’re going through.

“These are people in your community,” said Loretta, who has been a member of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Concordia for more than 45 years. “These are people sitting next to you in church or who are in school with your kids and who you run into at the grocery store.”

Her job — and the challenge she posed to the Lions Club members — is to “help the kiddos and spouses who are left behind move through that time, when Mom or Dad is deployed and away and then when the parent comes back.”

In her June 14 talk, she urged the club members to “be a friend, a neighbor, a member of your church… Be aware that these families are in your community, and just be willing to be there when they need you.”

That, in fact, describes Sister Loretta’s job.

“I ‘support and assist,’ ” explained the Catholic sister with more than 25 years experience as a mental health counselor. “Sometimes that means doing nothing, just listening, just being the one who’s there all the time.”

Other times, it means organizing informal sessions for high school students, like she did at an off-base school from January through March. Some 30 teenagers from military families came to talk every day.

As part of those sessions, Loretta helped the teens create quilt blocks, that she described as “small snippets of visual history — that depict the effect war and multiple deployments have upon teenagers and families who have a caregiver in and out of the battlefield.”

One block, in particular, sums up the mixed feeling experience by these teens, she said: “I love the Army; I love the USA; I hate the war.”  Other blocks in the quilt include issues related to changing friends and schools; learning how to deal with the returning soldier/parent affected by the war; assuming the role of surrogate parent either by absence of the one parent; or inability of the remaining parent to tend and juggle the multiple levels of need in the household; and, the teenager re-directing personal anger related to all of these issues.

Two of Loretta’s family members volunteered to piece the quilt blocks together, and it now adorns a hallway at the school where it was made.

The names of the teens who created it are not part of the quilt, though. Loretta explained that confidentiality is an important part of her work with military families and children.

“We don’t do any documentation, we don’t write reports on people or even keep track of their names, and that’s pretty unusual in the military,” she notes. “But it’s important because in the military, you don’t want to be a wimp or a wuss, you don’t want it to look like you need help. So when they talk to us, no one knows about it — there’s no electronic record.” (That confidentiality also explains why details about Sister Loretta’s location have been intentionally omitted from this story.)

That privacy, though, can sometimes have the unintentional result of more isolation, particularly in the small, rural communities the many Reservists and Guard members call home, she said.

“That’s why you need to pay attention,” she told the Lions Club members, who included her brother-in-law, John Hunt of Salina. “There are families around you who need you to just be there for them. Do what’s in your heart — that’s all I can tell you.”

‘Make Someone Smile’ bouquets work on sisters

ABOVE: Sister Susan Kongs, left, smiles with surprise as director of nursing Alfreda Maley delivers “Make Someone Smile” bouquets during lunch at the Nazareth Motherhouse today (July 21, 2010). As part of the 10^th annual national Teleflora event, all 45 of the retired Catholic sisters who live at the Motherhouse of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Concordia received the flowers. They were part of the 125 “Make Someone Smile” bouquets delivered Wednesday by The Flower Gallery  in Concordia. The other sisters at the table are Sister Margaret Ann Bucher, right, and Sister Barbara Bader, with her back to the camera.

RIGHT, top: “Make Someone Smile” bouquets dot the dining room at the Sisters of St. Joseph of Concordia Motherhouse Wednesday (July 21, 2010) as nursing and housekeeping staff ensure that each of the retired Catholic sisters who lives here receives one. The bouquets were part of Teleflora’s national Make Someone Smile Week, now celebrating its 10th year.

RIGHT, bottom: Sister Jane Guenette, who at 95 has been a Sister of St. Joseph of Concordia for 76 years, reads the “Make Someone Smile Week” card included in her bouquet of daisies and carnations delivered during lunch at the Nazareth Motherhouse Wednesday. Sister Jane was one of 45 Sisters of St. Joseph to receive the bouquets as part of Teleflora’s 10th national “Make Someone Smile” event.

Author focuses on lessons Gandhi found in Jesus’ life

The message Dr. Terrence Rynne offered this afternoon combined a history lesson, a detailed biographical sketch, more than a little Christian Scripture and a touch of theology — and provided the audience at the Nazareth Motherhouse with a thougthful reflection on Gandhi, Jesus and “The Saving Power of Nonviolence.”

That, in fact, is the title of Rynne’s 2008 book as well as the weeklong series of lectures he will be giving at Manna House of Prayer in Concordia beginning Monday.

He is the founder of the Marquette University Center for Peacemaking. Previously he has served as a parish priest in the Archdiocese of Chicago, on the faculty of the Mundelein Seminary in Illinois and later as a hospital administrator. He retired as founder and president of Rynne Marketing Group, a nationally recognized consulting firm that has served more that 600 leading hospitals and health care organizations, to earn a Ph.D. in theology and pursue his passion for peace.

In this afternoon’s talk to an audience of nearly 70, including members of the Concordia Year of Peace Committee, he detailed the life of Mohandas Gandhi, who was born in India in 1869. After studying law in London, Gandhi went to South Africa to work as a lawyer. But it was there he began to see the injustices done to the Indians living there, and he began to take increasingly public roles in resisting government policies that discriminated against non-whites and women.

It was also there, in 1906, that Gandhi changed his lifestyle from that of a British-educated barrister to the dress and behavior of an Indian Hindu. He started an ashram and in both the Boer War and the Zulu Uprising organized ambulance corps to serve the wounded soldiers.

By 1914, when he returned to his native India, he had already developed his philosophy of satyagraha, or nonviolent action. “But,” Rynne noted, “the opposite of nonviolence is not violence; it is cowardice. To practice nonviolence, you have to be capable of violence.”

Rynne explained that satyagraha encompasses four basic principles of resistance:

• Satya, which means truth
• Agraha, which means firmly holding on
• Ahimsa, or refusal to do harm
• Tapasya, or self-suffering, or the willingness to face the consequences of one’s actions

The fifth principle of satyagraha is one of building, Rynne said. “It must be a constructive program.”

For Gandhi, that meant ultimately addressing the three core problems he saw in Indian society: Relations between the Hindu and Muslim Indians, the elimination of “untouchability” in the Hindu caste system and “village uplift,” or solving the poverty and dependency of the rural poor.

Rynne said that Gandhi called Jesus a “prince of the satyagrahis” because his teachings and life so clearly reflected all those principles.

He said Gandhi particularly appreciated Jesus’ concept of “the Kingdom of God,” which showed Jesus saw himself as both a political and religious leader. And, Rynne noted, Gandhi believed that Jesus’ “Sermon on the Mount” perfectly captured his belief in nonviolent resistance to the political powers of the time.

That belief also gave the Hindu Gandhi a special appreciation for the Christian cross, Rynne said. “People killed (Jesus) because he was standing up; he died faithful to his life.” Gandhi was assassinated by a Hindu nationalist less than six months after he led India to independence from Britain.

Rynne’s book, and the lecture series at Manna House, include much more detail on the two leaders separated by nearly two millennia, as well as Rynne’s definition of nonviolence and its power.

But there is one central element he shared with his audience this afternoon: “The key to power is that it rises,” he said as he gestured upward. “It never comes from the top, it always has to flow from the people to the top.”

Rynne’s lectures at Manna House make up the 2010 Theological Institute, held each summer and now in its 19th year.

His public lecture at the Motherhouse this afternoon was sponsored by the Concordia Year of Peace Committee, and was the latest in a number of activities dedicated to peace and nonviolence.

For information on upcoming Concordia Year of Peace events, click on the “Year of Peace” tab above or call Sister Jean Rosemarynoski at 785/243-2149.

July 16, 2010: Love has many definitions, by Christi Guzlow

What is love? Is it an ice cream bar in the middle of summer? Or the ocean breeze blowing through someone’s hair while he is walking along the shore?

Although the definition differs from person to person, I think that many will agree that love is the deep expression of our feelings toward another person. There are various divisions of love, such as the love of a mother towards her child, the love between a husband and wife, and the love between siblings. But in the end, it all boils down to the same thing: Love is love.

Love is a funny thing, because it happens when least expected. People can find love anywhere — at the store, on the bus, at school, or even at the pool. It all depends on being at the right place at the right time.

Personally, love’s first sign for me was the butterflies. Everyone has had them at some point or another; the warm fuzzy feeling that occurs in the stomach when you meet that special someone. A little over a year ago I got those fluttering butterflies when I met my fiance, Daniel Steele.

After 365 days, our love for each other is still going strong and we added a dog, Caelon, to our family. By no means is love easy, though; it comes with a lot of listening and compromising. In our relationship we had to learn that we are two people rather than one and had to adjust ways we did things in order to make both of us happy, rather than one over the other. For example, in the morning Daniel is hard to wake up, so instead of being angry when he doesn’t become conscious, I make him a cup of coffee. After he is coherent he makes me an English muffin to show he appreciated the coffee. Love is very complex and sometimes causes heartache, but we are still going steady and cannot wait until we get done with college and can make additions to our family.

In my 19 years of existence, I have not witnessed greater love and appreciation than that between my father, Joe, and my stepmother, Becky. Their love is unconditional and still strong after being together for 13 years.

Their love story seems like a fairy-tale when I reminisce on it.

Becky, who lived in Salina, was friends with my dad’s older sister Juanita. One night, when my dad was still married to my mother, Juanita introduced Becky to my dad at a country club. He said, “Hi, nice to meet you,” and walked away. Becky was instantly hooked but soon discovered Joe was married, and she asked, “Why are all the good-looking men always taken?”

But not long after this first meeting, and as the result of unrelated marital issues, my parents divorced. Becky ran into him again and they hit it off right away. Although my father drives a semi truck and is hardly ever at home, they compromise by talking on the phone everyday while he is away. The distance is hard on them, but their bond is very strong. They are a prime example of how love can be sacrificing.

In the end, love has many definitions — beautiful, complex, funny, sacrificing and compassionate. Now it’s your turn: What is your definition of love?

— Christi Gulzow is 2009 graduate of Salina South High School. She is currently a sophomore music major at Cloud County Community College where she is a member of the Great Society, the North Central Kansas Community Band and the Rolling Thunder Pep Band.

Brazilian sister celebrates Silver Jubilee

Veinte cinco anos! Sister Joseleide da Silva Neves celebrated her 25th anniversary as a Sister of St. Joseph of Concordia with family, friends and fellow sisters July 10.

The special eucharistic liturgy for Irmã Joseleide — as she is called in the Portuguese of her native Brazil — was celebrated at St. Joseph the Worker parish in Teresina, the community in northern Brazil where the Sisters of St. Joseph founded a mission in 1963. The other sisters from that mission community were present and renewed their vows during the liturgy.

Also celebrating with Irmã Joseleide were four young women who are aspirants in the Brazilian community and Sisters Anna Marie Broxterman and Rosabel Flax, two American sisters currently visiting the Teresina community.

“I didn’t understand one word spoken but the presence of the Spirit was tangible,” Sister Rosabel said after the celebration.

The Mass was followed by a festive meal served in the pavilion at the main house of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Concordia in Brazil.

Irmã Joseleide is one of 18 Sisters of St. Joseph celebrating jubilees in 2010, and this was the final of three special services honoring them for their love and service to God and the dear neighbor.

For more on the two other jubilee celebrations, CLICK HERE.

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