And the Beat Goes On

And the Beat Goes On...

July 2, 2007 1:47am Today
It was a strange and wonderful weekend for me. Joe and I spent it in Syosset, L.I. where my own personal history came flooding back into my mind and heart.

We were there for the ordination to priesthood of Maura Bernard. +Joe and +Katherine Kurtz, and +Peter Brennan were there together to lay hands. Right there is a historic group, when one considers each bishop, and his and her contribution to Church reform.

Maura asked me to preach at the ordination and it was a very odd feeling being back in Syosset, as a priest, preaching at the ordination of another woman in the CCC, in an Episcopal Church! Had anyone told me this would eventually happen, that this would be my life, when I was living in Syosset as a Sister of Mercy, I would have slapped them! How unique, how tailored our personal journeys are when we walk with Christ. If I had walked alone, it would have been a very different path.

The Sisters of Mercy have a huge convent and academy on Convent Road in Syosset. It used to be the novitiate building too. However, when I entered I was the only novice, and a building able to house a hundred novices was not the place to house one. So the novitiate formation program was moved to Brooklyn NY. I was the first one to enter the newly setup novitiate in Little Flower Convent on Ave D in East Flatbush. It seems like a million years ago, but today, when Joe and I visited Our Lady of Mercy Academy in Syosset and chatted with Sr Monica, it seemed like yesterday. Names flooded back. Memories flooded back. History was present. The past 40 years were a blur, and there I was back amid the Sisters who were, for a short time, my family. I missed them. I had loved them so much.

Sr Monica told me where some of the Sisters were now living. All retired in what used to be the motherhouse, until the community recently merged with other Mercy communities forming the Mid-Atlantic Community. So much change. So many dead or old. Oh, but that meant...

Yes, I was no longer that young sister. I thought, "but I feel the same, in a way." Sure, I have walked a different, but somehow similar path. My faith was still my faith... yet here I am an ordained priest outside the Church of my youth, and far from where I expected to be at this point in life.

And here I am--aging, So much older... Looking tonight at the pictures of some I knew way back then, as they celebrated their 50th jubilees this year, I thought, "oh how they've aged!" Then, it hit me...I had aged as well. How strange. How strange to be older. Yet how wonderful to have the dream of serving Jesus Christ still in my heart of hearts. There's that song...Forever Young. I love that song.

So much of this was in my heart as I preached at Mother Maura's ordination. Yes Maura, there is enough sap in these old trees to go around!!! Praise God that we are able to respond NOW. Praise God that age is meaningless and there is only the eternal NOW.

That knotwork of life is strange and beautiful, and I am deeply grateful to God for creating the art and beauty in our lives.

May God bless Maura as she continues her life in this new role, serving in a new way. God bless the Sisters who touched my life so deeply and profoundly, and who in many ways, set me on a course toward my own priesthood.

Being with others in the Celtic Christian Church, and other Old Catholics this weekend was wonderful. I thank God for my life, for Joe and Rose, and for the Faith that binds my extended family in Love.

Good night God, and thanks.
Cait


PS 1972 I was known as Sister Dominic Marie, RSM and this is my dear grandmother, Nellie Farrell. She was 90 yrs old and danced a jig when I left the convent.