Finding a Voice
Sunday, February 04, 2007
who are the sisters?
I realized today that an earlier post, "unity week," is not entirely self-explanatory.
To understand it, you need to know that I live with my parents in a 9000-sq-ft former convent, built in 1953. It is down the street from Spiritwood's Catholic Church and across the street from Rivier School, a Catholic school named for Sister Marie Rivier, founder of The Sisters of the Presentation of Mary. A few months ago, Mom and Dad heard that Spiritwood's resident nuns had sold their house and were hoping to stay in town if they could find a place. My parents have a lovely apartment downstairs, where my grandfather lived until May. After prayer and deliberation, my parentes decided to offer the apartment to the Sisters, and on January 23rd they moved in.
The convent was also a boarding school for many years for children who lived further north in Saskatchewan. It sits on land that used to belong to the Searle grain company, for which my grandfather was a buyer. Grandpa was involved in the transactions with the Catholic Church to buy this land. As a child, my mother took piano lessons in a little room that is now the apartment office, and sometimes she would join the boarders for study hall, which room is now divided between the apartment and my dad's carpentry workshop.
When Srs. Therese and Bernadette joined the Presentation of Mary, their vocational choices were two: cook or teacher. Sr. Bernadette thought she would like to be a cook, but her superiors steered her towards teaching. Sr. Therese was also a teacher, a profession they both loved, particularly their four years each in Spiritwood. Each of them has had a teaching career of more than 30 years. But profession was not as important to them as devoting themselves completely to God. Now their work is parish ministry with seniors, especially visitation and taking the Eucharist to shut-ins.
For Sister Therese this move was a kind of homecoming. A teacher at Rivier School in the early 1950s, she was among the first nuns to live in this building when it was built in 1953. It's good to have them home.
To understand it, you need to know that I live with my parents in a 9000-sq-ft former convent, built in 1953. It is down the street from Spiritwood's Catholic Church and across the street from Rivier School, a Catholic school named for Sister Marie Rivier, founder of The Sisters of the Presentation of Mary. A few months ago, Mom and Dad heard that Spiritwood's resident nuns had sold their house and were hoping to stay in town if they could find a place. My parents have a lovely apartment downstairs, where my grandfather lived until May. After prayer and deliberation, my parentes decided to offer the apartment to the Sisters, and on January 23rd they moved in.
The convent was also a boarding school for many years for children who lived further north in Saskatchewan. It sits on land that used to belong to the Searle grain company, for which my grandfather was a buyer. Grandpa was involved in the transactions with the Catholic Church to buy this land. As a child, my mother took piano lessons in a little room that is now the apartment office, and sometimes she would join the boarders for study hall, which room is now divided between the apartment and my dad's carpentry workshop.
When Srs. Therese and Bernadette joined the Presentation of Mary, their vocational choices were two: cook or teacher. Sr. Bernadette thought she would like to be a cook, but her superiors steered her towards teaching. Sr. Therese was also a teacher, a profession they both loved, particularly their four years each in Spiritwood. Each of them has had a teaching career of more than 30 years. But profession was not as important to them as devoting themselves completely to God. Now their work is parish ministry with seniors, especially visitation and taking the Eucharist to shut-ins.
For Sister Therese this move was a kind of homecoming. A teacher at Rivier School in the early 1950s, she was among the first nuns to live in this building when it was built in 1953. It's good to have them home.
Labels: family; home, vocation, work
posted by Colleen McCubbin at 7:52 PM
2 Comments:
I didn't know you lived in a convent - that sounds so cool. So out of 9000 sq feet, how many do you call home? It sure beats my 450!
It's hard to say how many sq feet I actually call home. I might have 200-300 for my bedroom and office, but right now I'm sharing my parents' kitchen. In the next couple of months my dad is going to put in a kitchenette upstairs for other renters (we have two Mexican women moving in on March 4th), so I'll likely share that with them. So ... my space is kind of fluid.
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