Today, I drove over to Villa Julie near Baltimore to pick up Sister Natalie (formerly Sr. Anne Christine) SND and we went to Villa Assumpta, which is the motherhouse of the School Sisters of Notre Dame and has recently become the residence of a number of Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur who need nursing assistance. For the last few years, those sisters had been in a wing of the infirmary of the Daughters of Charity up in Emmitsburgh but that recently changed. Sr. Natalie and I went to visit Sister Gerry (formerly Sr. Geraldine) Meyers. She worked at St. Bernard’s in religious education and broke her leg in October and is doing rehab at the Villa. We also went and visited Sister Claire Corr, who told us proudly that she was 94 ( others say she is 95 – but I feel it is a woman’s perogative to shave a year or two off!). When a paish has a Notre Dame nun working in their parish, one of the elderly sisters becomes the parish “prayer”. In my time as pastor of St. Bernard’s, we had three sisters ministering there and Sister Claire was our “prayer”. I use to write her and saw her occasionally to assure her of our gratitude and our feeling the effects of her prayers. It was great to see her still vibrant and prayerful. We visited for over two hours until it was their lunch time.
Then Sister Natalie and I went to lunch at The Peppermill on York Road. After returning her to the Villa, I came home in time to expose the Blessed Sacrament at 3.
Then I came and wrote yesterday’s blog and I’ve been trying to catch up at my desk and prepare a homily for today – the readings are not inspiring me! – at the 5:30 pm Mass.
Then we have supper and at 7:30pm, we are having 5 priests join us – for a total of 9 confessors for the parish penance service. I really enjoy confessions but I think I will be glad to hit that bed around 10pm.