MARCH 20, 2009 – NEW BEGINNINGS

Today is the first day of spring! Katie appropriately described our experience as a new beginning in more ways than one. We have been blessed with “new life” emerging all around us – from new insights, new inspirations, new zeal, new paint, new flower garden, clean carpets, shiny windows, exquisite workmanship (?!), and new friendships, however, we can’t say that for our bodies – new in the sense of discovering new muscles?! What is REALLY new is the new life we hopefully are helping to create for MISS MINNIE, who wants to move in today. She has been waiting TWO years to come back home. We quickly discovered that MISS MINNIE can teach us a lot about patience!

Besides new beginnings, March 19th is St. Joseph’s Day. This is second in popularity next to Mardi Gras here in New Orleans. We began the day with Mass at Mater Dolorosa Catholic Church. Four from our group helped the Sisters at the Lantern Light prepare for their St. Joseph Table. They helped serve over 300 guests!

Then the rest of us went to the worksite. We all were very busy putting the final touches on the house. We will only put in ½ day on Friday. Therese continued to till the soil and then planted many beautiful flowers and bushes in front of the house. Pegge continued to pull hanging vines from the fences in the back yard and helped Kathy spot, vacuum and shampoo the carpets. Katie was the “Detail Queen for the Day”, painting the lattice between the stained glass windows ALL DAY!!!

So then, after another loooooong day, we all headed to the Catholic Charities site for an appreciation dinner – St. Raymond’s Catholic Church. We prayed in the “upper (class) room” before we prayed and presented Kay and Tom with the Nano Lantern because they so beautifully lit up our lives with their inspirational lives and deep faith. Their prayer before we started our work this day, for example, inspired all of us. They talked about working together and used the image of two hands interlocked together, bringing together the strengths and weaknesses of each person, where one person’s strength cancels out another person’s weakness. The supper was nothing to write home about, however, the fact that we could be there together with 250 other volunteers and to honor Kay and Tom was more than rewarding. Each person from each group then put a hand print on a wall to add to all the many other volunteers.

Then we returned back to our apartment and prayed some more, always sharing from our hearts about what touched us and how we saw Jesus in our lives that day. We prayed our farewell over Sr. Mary Catherine from New Windsor, who is on her way back earlier than the rest of us because of a Community Discernment.

What better way to top of this wonderful day than to go down to the French Quarter. The three of us and the Presentation Sisters took a stroll down the bustling streets that lined the French Quarter. We stopped into some souvenir shops, coming out with new relics to show our friends back home. To end our evening rendezvous, we made a stop at the Café du Monde where we indulged in Beignets. For anyone who isn’t aware of what a beignet is; it’s a delicious French doughnut loaded with powdered sugar. Let’s just say at the end of the night we all looked like we took a powdered sugar bath. It was an evening filled with so much laughter, happy moments and memories that will last much longer that our beignets did!