Wow! This week is flying! On Tuesday, friends and I had a guided tour of the Gesu, the Jesuit Church of the Holy Name of Jesus, and of the rooms in which St. Ignatius Loyola lived. As you can see, the church was designed in the awesomely garish Baroque style of the sixteenth century. The vision of the Holy Name of Jesus, surrounded by angel choirs covers the ceiling and appears to spill down to us humans on the earth below. I was moved by the painting of Jesuit superior general, Pedro Arrupe at the foot of the cross –...
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October 16, 2023: My First Full Day in Rome!
Ciao from Roma to everyone in the Cranaleith community! My first full day here in support of the Synod on Synodality involved travelling to the headquarters of the Christian Brothers, the LaSallian Consulate, to co-facilitate a workshop for young adults studying in Rome. The aim was to give them an experience of the synodal process of deep listening to the Spirit in themselves and in others. (Sounds familiar to all us Cranaleith folks, que no?) Eleven students from Fordham, one from Notre Dame and two from St. John-St. Benedict’s, MN, attended. Cranaleith’s own Maureen O’Connell, who is currently working on...
An Interconnected and Sacred Creation
When Cranaleith first opened our doors as a spiritual center, we had experienced very little rainfall over the Spring and Summer. The pond was nearly dry. The vegetation around the pond was dying, and the surrounding trees were languishing. One of our first visiting groups were women from a Mercy ministry in North Philadelphia who reflected on the pond in the course of their retreat day. They saw it as an image of their own spiritual thirst. They learned that the pond was fed by only one weak stream, flowing through the pond and into the nearby creek. They heard...
Listen to the Space Between
“Be still, and know that I am God.” Psalm 46:10. Dear Friends, At Cranaleith, the crickets chirp loudly in the meadow behind the historic house, in the space we are actively turning “wild,” crisscrossed by winding pathways Fred (core volunteer) has mown into the deep, tall grass. In 1897, Amos Dolbear found that the rate of the crickets’ chirping directly correlates to the ambient temperature of the air. Cold? Slow chirps. Warm? Faster. Try it for yourself. Count the number of chirps in 14 seconds, then add 40 to find the temperature in degrees Fahrenheit. You will find that...
A Wellspring of Mercy
Dear Friends, Stepping out barefoot on the warm boards of our back deck, my younger daughter and I crane our necks to watch in amazement as hundreds of black birds, Common Grackles, fly through the trees in our woods, sliding between the branches, wings rustling, forming and reforming in synchronized groupings, swooping across the sky, settling briefly on the branches. We marvel at their silence and occasional soft chattering. My daughter tries to capture it happening on video. She wants others to see it–see what’s happening. At Cranaleith, we are preparing to celebrate Mercy Day on September 24–a day set...
If These Walls Could Talk
Dear Friends, “Negative space” is a term used in art to describe the space surrounding a subject–that essential and important “empty” space surrounding the positive space in a composition.I am thinking about that concept while standing with Sr. Ellen Murray in the impossibly crowded, narrow hallway of Sr. Helen David Brancato’s art studio. Ellen and I are there to preview Helen’s #BlackLivesMatter art exhibit, scheduled to be hosted at Cranaleith this September. Surrounded by the layers of Sr. Helen’s framed paintings, I listen to Helen’s quiet, soft voice as she describes the profound beauty and dignity of every person’s story...
The Deep Springs Within Us
Dear Friends, Members of the staff have been watching closely the water of the pond, worrying about several ropey, green strands of algae.Because the waterfall has been temporarily blocked, the bright orange goldfish gather around the submerged bubblers, gills flashing as they gulp for oxygen. At our staff retreat, Sr. Maria begins by reminding us of the time when Cranaleith’s natural springs were once thought crushed, lost–until those digging the pond uncovered two fresh springs–sudden, gushing geysers of water. She pauses her storytelling and invites each of us to pour water from the clear glass pitcher into the round bowl...
Where Hope Can Be Found
Dear Friends, Over the Memorial Day weekend, I trip on the broken sidewalk and fall, face-forward, on the concrete.I hear a woman in the distance gasp, “Are you alright?”.My husband kneels beside me in the street.I sit up dizzily and feel with my tongue the jagged edges of four, broken, front teeth.Bart and I had been walking in the small college-town of Lawrence, KS, celebrating our 34-year wedding anniversary at the restaurant that opened the year we married.In the car on the way to the emergency room, I close my eyes and listen to Bart’s short, panicky, rapid breaths.The CT...
Be Amazed, Be in Awe
Dear Friends, When I am at Cranaleith, I find my breath deepens, my mind quiets. Walking from my car to the office, I turn to the left so that I can reach for the soft blossoms of the wisteria spilling across the driveway. Seated at my desk, I watch the rain sliding across my window. Bernadette (Director of Programming) lets us know that the men and women of CATCH will not be working in the garden this morning. It feels as if I completely disappear into this space, into these words, into this moment. The peace of this place opens...
A Change of Mind
Dear Friends, This past Sunday, we were supposed to install three, new queen bees into the hive boxes at the far edge of the meadow. Volunteers were standing at the ready to help, my oldest daughter agreed to provide the video documentation, Gene (our beekeeper) had the protective beekeeper suits at the ready. The weather, however, didn’t cooperate. The bees are from the warm, southern state of Georgia, and Gene said he couldn’t bear the thought of putting them in the cold wooden supers. We waited until the warm weather of Monday before installing them in their new homes. Gene...