Looking ahead- a little Paschaltide knitting

Nicky Epstein's Knitting in Tuscany has a great Fair-Isle chart for a Paschal lamb.

Image source: planetpurl.com

Ladies' Guild Tea

A lovely time was had by all.

Notre Dame's Fighting Irish, Fighting for Life

Dear Members of the Notre Dame Family,

Coming out of the vigorous discussions surrounding President Obama’s visit last spring, I said we would look for ways to engage the Notre Dame community with the issues raised in a prayerful and meaningful way. As our nation continues to struggle with the morality and legality of abortion, embryonic stem cell research, and related issues, we must seek steps to witness to the sanctity of life. I write to you today about some initiatives that we are undertaking.

Each year on January 22, the anniversary of the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision, the March for Life is held in Washington D.C. to call on the nation to defend the right to life. I plan to participate in that march. I invite other members of the Notre Dame Family to join me and I hope we can gather for a Mass for Life at that event. We will announce details as that date approaches.

On campus, I have recently formed the Task Force on Supporting the Choice for Life. It will be co-chaired by Professor Margaret Brinig, the Fritz Duda Family Chair in Law and Associate Dean for the Law School, and by Professor John Cavadini, the Chair of the Department of Theology and the McGrath-Cavadini Director of the Institute for Church Life. My charge to the Task Force is to consider and recommend to me ways in which the University, informed by Catholic teaching, can support the sanctity of life. Possibilities the Task Force has begun to discuss include fostering serious and specific discussion about a reasonable conscience clause; the most effective ways to support pregnant women, especially the most vulnerable; and the best policies for facilitating adoptions. Such initiatives are in addition to the dedication, hard work and leadership shown by so many in the Notre Dame Family, both on the campus and beyond, and the Task Force may also be able to recommend ways we can support some of this work.

I also call to your attention the heroic and effective work of centers that provide care and support for women with unintended pregnancies. The Women’s Care Center, the nation’s largest Catholic-based pregnancy resource center, on whose Foundation Board I serve, is run by a Notre Dame graduate, Ann Murphy Manion (’77). The center has proven successful in offering professional, non-judgmental concern to women with unintended pregnancies, helping those women through their pregnancy and supporting them after the birth of their child. The Women’s Care Center and similar centers in other cities deserve the support of Notre Dame clubs and individuals.

Our Commencement last spring generated passionate discussion and also caused some divisions in the Notre Dame community. Regardless of what you think about that event, I hope that we can overcome divisions to foster constructive dialogue and work together for a cause that is at the heart of Notre Dame’s mission. We will keep you informed of our work, and we ask for your support, assistance and prayers. May Our Lady, Notre Dame, watch over our efforts.

In Notre Dame,
Rev. John I. Jenkins, C.S.C.

Notre Dame Receives $35 Million for Undergraduate Scholarship Program

The University of Notre Dame has announced a $35 million gift from alumni Mark W. and Stacey Miller Yusko to establish a new undergraduate scholarship program.

The gift will be used to create the Hesburgh-Yusko Scholars program, which is designed to attract talented undergraduate students and provide them with the tools to become transformational leaders in the image of former Notre Dame president Theodore M. Hesburgh, who led the university from 1952 to 1987. Twenty Hesburgh-Yusko Scholars will be selected annually based on their academic accomplishments, integrity and moral character, leadership abilities, and a commitment to a life of service embracing the values of Catholic social tradition. Scholars will receive $25,000 annually for four years as well as fully funded summer enrichment experiences, seminars and service-learning projects during the academic year, career advising, and alumni mentoring and networking.

Mark Yusko is the founder, president, and chief investment officer of Morgan Creek Capital Management, while Stacey Miller Yusko is director of Chapel Hill-Carrboro Meals on Wheels and a member of Notre Dame's advisory council for the College of Arts and Letters.

"On behalf of Notre Dame, I want to extend my most sincere appreciation to Mark and Stacey for this extraordinary gift," said Notre Dame president John I. Jenkins. "Their generosity is matched only by their vision for this scholarship program, and we look forward to working with them for many years to attract high-caliber students and nurture their gifts so that they might have an enduring impact on the university, the nation, and the world."

[full article]
[Cloche tip to Dad]

Long and short stitch lessons online

Needlenthread.com has been running a series of lessons for working a long-and-short stitch sampler in DMC floss. Why might this be of particular interest to Church Ladies? Despite the prosaic name (it's also known as needlepainting), long-and-short stitch is the basic technique used to produce, for example:

(Source)

(Source)

and, in a more modern example, parts of this:

(Source)

Have a look, and make sure to click on the source links for more pictures!

Happy Feast of the Assumption!

Raphael, The Crowning of the Virgin

Last night I attended services at an Eastern Orthodox Church. They commemorate the Assumption (Dormition) of Mary in a beautiful way. If you have ever attended All Souls' Day Mass in the Extraordinary Form, you might have seen a catafalque. This coffin symbolizes the souls of all the dead commemorated at that requiem. Likewise, the Orthodox decorate an image of her dormition with flowers to commemorate Mary's empty tomb and her entrance into heaven.

Neither the tomb, nor death, could hold the Theotokos,
Who is constant in prayer and our firm hope in her intercessions.
For being the Mother of Life,
She was translated to life by the One who dwelt in her virginal womb!

Nuns, Interrupted

WASHINGTON—Some were nurses. Many were educators. Still others cared for orphans, the elderly, the mentally ill. But all were women religious enduring the communist regime in Eastern Europe after World War II.

Their story is told in “Interrupted Lives: Catholic Sisters Under European Communism,” a one-hour documentary distributed on Sunday, September 13 to ABC-TV stations and affiliates (Check local listings. Scheduling is at the discretion of the local station.)

Interrupted Lives explores the experiences of Greek and Roman Catholic Sisters of Eastern and Central Europe sisters who at the end of World War II were trapped under Soviet domination as Josef Stalin seized control.

[Full USCCB article]

Burglary suspect bolts, but nun gives chase

Sister Catarina da Silva glanced out the window as she and Sister Connie Boulch prepared to go to morning prayers just before 7 a.m. Thursday at the St. Francis of the Holy Eucharist convent in north Independence.

There, in the middle of a soybean field, was a man carrying a rifle, a handsaw and a pair of boxing gloves.

It didn’t look right.

“People just don’t drive up there unless they know where they are going or unless they are lost,” said Sister Connie, a 59-year-old Sugar Creek native who has been a nun for 33 years.

They jumped into Sister Connie’s white Honda Civic and drove down to the field, which is convent property, to see whether the man was lost or maybe hunting illegally.

“He thought he was in trouble with two nuns coming towards him,” said Sister Catarina, 49, a native of Brazil.

The man was out of breath. When Sister Connie asked him what he was doing in the area, he said he was cutting through the field from a friend’s house.

That didn’t sound right. There are few homes in the area, and the man could not come up with the name of his friend.

He dropped the rifle, handsaw and boxing gloves and ran.

Sister Catarina, who was wearing her brown, ankle-length habit and favorite pair of plastic flip-flops, ran after him. The pursuit stretched across the soybean field and covered about a quarter mile.

“For whatever reason, we were not afraid of him,” Sister Connie said.

Sister Catarina said she was up for the chase.

Sister Connie, who by then had pulled out her cell phone and dialed 911, said: “I thought she might catch him because she is a good runner and he was already tired.”

Police arrested the man in a wooded area just east of the convent in the 700 block of Dickinson Road.

“It was a great effort on everyone’s part, the community coming together,” said Officer Tom Gentry, a spokesman for the Independence police. “They did what they felt was a positive thing, but we certainly don’t want folks to confront criminals.”

Afterward, the nuns said they planned to pray for the burglary suspect, who had not been charged Thursday afternoon. He is thought to have broken into a nearby house.

“I will pray that his life changes so that he doesn’t come to the point when he needs to steal or he needs to break into people’s houses,” Sister Connie said.

Kansas City Star article
Video

What Our Grandmothers Knew

Every woman is unique and possesses her own set of physical attributes that set her apart and make her shine. This is just as true today as it was then. The difference, I believe, is that the women of my grandmother’s generation knew how to play to their strengths and do so without sacrificing their self-respect.

My grandmother and her friends seem to have mastered that art form and I fear that with each passing generation some of their secrets are being lost. While I imagine it might take a lifetime to learn all the tricks they had up their sleeves, there are three simple skills—Selection, Quality and Care— that are easy to learn and will take us far in our pursuit of dignified dressing.
[full article]

Betty Beguiles at Faith and Family Live

Belated Reflections on St Martha

Christ in the House of Martha and Mary, Vermeer

"The Nun" by Dame Felicitas Corrigan, OSB
Nevertheless, there is a difference in the roles of parent and nun- they are complementary and need each other. If a young woman feels called to make a radical and exclusive renunciation of all subordinate goals, however lawful- and notably the joys of husband and home, she does so in the name and for the sake of the entire Church; at the same time, common sense points out that without fathers, mothers, and family life, there would be no potential priests, monks, or nuns. So the score is 50-50. One the one hand, Mary witnesses to the Absolute, to God's unchanging transcendence; on the other hand, Martha applies all her energies to building on earth the City of God.

Jamie on The Feast of St Martha
Sometimes in my kitchen I get these glimpses of what holy hospitality is like. Sometimes I realize that my ego is getting in the way again, making it about the food and not about loving service. Always, from Edinburgh to the Midwest to the East Coast and back again, St. Martha with her basket of bread has been nearby as a gentle reminder to keep on choosing the better part. [full post]