Thursday, April 9, 2009

One Hundred

April 1909.

One hundred years later, it is Holy Thursday. It is my feast day. (My religious name is Sister Deborah of the Eucharist.) We took a morning of prayer and reflection, and soon we'll enjoy a supper of lamb and a sort of Seder meal, thanks to Sr. Marion Agnes. Today is a beautiful day, a day of transition between winter and spring, transition in who lives and works here, transition in how we work with the lay missionaries here. A transition between the first hundred years and the next hundred years.

Father Judge said something right to those five women he called to St. John Perboyre Chapel one hundred years ago. Words were seeds that fell on fertile ground and were nourished. Today, we sit in our little chapel, still able to see across the land to the distant hills because the white birch in front of the window has not yet got its leaves. Today, we light a stub of an old altar candle given us by our dear parish church down at the bottom of Town Hill. This is the light we get from our parish, the light we get from our Church, and the light we fan into flame.

Next week, that stub flies to Holy Trinity Alabama in my suitcase. We will all toss our candles together, and the mingled light will melt them and reform them. Soon, in this little chapel, we will not be able to see beyond the beautiful spring leaves of the white birch outside the window. And burning here will be a new candle, for the next one hundred years, made up of all the wax of all the candles of all the missions.

What a wonderful thing to be a missionary.

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