Happy Advent!

Happy Advent! We took this pic to put in all our Christmas Cards this year. You will be most likely seeing it soon :) It's only fair since everyone else sends me their pics of their babies and pets and such (not that I'm complaining. I'm just realizing this is now the point we are at in our lives!). This is our version of the "family" Christmas postcard!

Giving Thanks for Christ the King!

Everyone wants to know, what's Thanksgiving like with the nuns?

Okay, so maybe not everyone wants to know, but some of you do, right?

Well, Thanksgiving with the nuns is very enjoyable, and maybe not too unlike your Thanksgivings. We eat alot, then eat some more, rest and watch TV, pray, and then eat again.

My sister Janet shared the experience with me which I was very grateful for. It brought a little bit of home to my new home! She also brought some of the "Polish" foods which are tradition for us, though we're pretty sure even though the Polish cookbook says it's Polish, cauliflower with cornflakes melted on top is kind of universal. Or maybe not. What do I know about cooking?

Though everyone had to contribute and make a dish and I was asked to make the stuffing. Not from scratch, mind you, because Jesus loves me and knows me! He and Sr. Agnes were merciful and let me make it from a box. And turned out very well, I must say!

So we began our morning with Mass and prayer as always. And it's nice because even thought Thanksgiving isn't technically a religious holiday (you can argue about that, though...why did the pilgrims come here after all? religious freedom!) being with the Sisters made it a religious feast and I felt that I was able to give thanks to God all day- as it should be!

And it made me think- every day should be Thanksgiving where we just give thanks to Him all day! I mean, Eucharist means "thanksgiving" in Greek and I receive the Eucharist each day in Mass. Every day can be Thanksgiving!

The Eucharistic table is our 'feast' and Jesus gives us many 'feasts' in His own way. With family, friends, His Word, His Church, His Sacraments.

Okay, enough preaching.

So we prayed, then we cooked and got ready. Janet came over a little before 1pm. We ate around 1ish. And just had a leisurely table conversation about Thanksgiving traditions. Janet and I noted that it is tradition in our family to have "Blue Nun" wine at the table (which I never liked, btw- too sweet!) and now we were sitting at a table of Blue Nuns!!!

The highlight of the day was Sr. Agnes gracing us with her "Turkey Song". A song she learned when she first came over from Italy and barely new English. It's pretty amazing that she remembers it! But once you hear it, you will know, 'how could you forget it?' We have it on video documented ;)

Janet hung out for a while and we called the fam on her cell and they passed the phone around to each person twice- once to talk to her and then to me. She left before our evening prayer and then after evening prayer we (too full from the afternoon) made some popcorn and played "Apples to Apples" as a community.

That game is hilarious anyways. But when you play with nuns its even funnier. And then when you play with 2 70+year old nuns with English as their second language- forget it. It's hysterical.

So I have much to be thankful for. You reading this blog just to name one! I got sick the day after Thanksgiving- too much fun, I tell you! So I am recovering from a bad cold that knocked me out for the weekend.

But today is the feast of Christ the King!!! And that means next Sunday starts ADVENT??? I can't wait! HA- and the irony of that IS that Advent is all about WAITING ;)

Today is a pretty great FEAST in itself, speaking of feasts. And one of the great things we've learned so far here in our formation classes is that we have a KING who uses His power to empower the powerless. Take the Gospel for today- it is Jesus on the Cross, dying for us. The soliders are taunting Him. The sign INRI above Him is meant to mock Him- but the Truth is, that is OUR KING! He, the suffering servant, is our KING. And that is the beauty of our faith. That our King makes Himself powerless to save us. As a good King should!!!

Thank You, Jesus!!!

God bless you all! Enjoy the FEAST! And let the waiting begin ;)

Peace,
Julia

My Big Break

So this week is completely crazy, but I wanted to tell you about it! :)

Starting with Sunday, my free day: I met up with my former roomate from Leesburg's friend (did you follow that?) who lives in the Lou for brunch. She was sweet to treat me! As I am finding many do now since they realize I don't have an income and that is appreciated! There is an international film fest in town so we caught a very, very important and moving flick at the art museum. It was called: We are Together. It is about a South African family who are orphaned and suffering from the effects of AIDS but keep hope alive with their gift of song. So beautiful and inspiring. I recommend it!

Then I met my sister for dinner and we both met up with one of my friends from CUA for drinks. All in all another great free day!

Yesterday we had to give presentations as a project for one of our classes. We each had to gear our talk to a certain audience. Shocking- I chose teens as my audience :) I kind of felt bad because I had a slight advantage over the other girls :) but it wasn't a competition and we weren't graded. It was actually really interesting to see the different angles we took on the same topic- which was our congregation's devotion to Jesus as the Divine Master, Way, Truth, and Life (if you ever care to know more about that particular devotion, just ask me ;) I can tell you complete with movie clip and power point ;)

So that was yesterday. Today, I was on the radio!!!! Albeit Catholic AM radio, but it was a my big break on the airways. One of our Chicago sisters had told me she thought I had a voice nice for radio, so I think I may have a future :) I called to plug our 2 events this week- one which was tonight. Our Sacramental Theology teacher came to give a talk on the return of the Latin Mass at our Book Center. He is always very entertaining and informative and gives a straight forward approach which I appreciate. What was the result of the talk? Well, the Motu Proprio that the Pope gave pretty much just says the same thing as we had before- bishops and priest have the OPTION to do the 1962 Mass if they want at some Masses. Which was the case before with JP2, too, Benedict's just trying to encourage it a little more, it seems.

So that's today. TOMORROW and this weekend we are going to be exhibiting our wares at a Christian Brothers Conference in which our famed Media Studies Sister- Sr. Rose- will be speaking. I'm excited to meet her and hear what she has to say....since I want to BE her someday :)

Friday is our Faith and Film night, too! We are showing Spiderman II, and I was surprised in the message of the renunciation of will that is displayed in the film. I can relate to that theme!!!!

Thanks again for reading!!! you are in my prayers!

peace,
Julia

Grapevine Article

The week that I entered, someone at St. Jude's back in Elyria asked me to write an article about my vocation for the parish newsletter, "The Grapevine". Here is the link to the newsletter:

http://www.saintjudeelyria.org/grapevine/grapevine2007-11.pdf

(I didn't come up with the title- they wanted me to use that title for some reason. I had just turned off my cell phone)
Peace,
Julia

MEDIA!

Shout out, Kilner (now Sousa) and Stiggity!

Ah, the battle cry of the Media Studies major circa 1999-2003 and our friends who loved us:

Media!

After the week of Apostolic meetings, we've been assigned "Apostolic Projects" each having to do with a facet of our "apostolate". (Get it?) What's an apostolate? It's our mission. Like some nuns have teaching as their apostolate. Some have nursing. Ours is MEDIA!

Charism is another fun word people don't understand often about religious orders. So the apostolate is more the work we do. Charism is the way we pray or our spirituality. For example, our Charism involves lots of reading of the SCRIPTURE (the Gospels and St. Paul's letters in particular, obviously :) EUCHARIST because Alberione (our founder) received the mission from Eucharistic Adoration, and MARIAN because Alberione entrusted us to Mary, Queen of the Apostles. Does that make sense?

Anyways, so a lot has been going on apostolic-ly, so I haven't been able to write as much. We had an exhibit last Sunday. Exhibits are an important part of our apostolate. It's a way to take our mission outside the Book Center and more to the people directly. So it was a Pro Life conference for the diocese and we set up a table and met lots of lovely people from the diocese. And I was actually surprised at how many people we already knew! Our next exhibit coming up this month I'm super excited about because our Media Studies expert Sister- Sr. Rose- is coming in to give a talk at a Christian Brothers Conference. So we are going to set up an exhibit with some of her books and we also get to go to her sessions on Media Studies. Yeah!

In other apostolic news- I have been given the apostolate of organizing our Faith and Film nights (all of us postulants and Sr. Carmen have a say in it and collaborate, but I just keep up with the details). I'm soooo happy to do this! I research the possible movies we might show and help to promote the event.

Our Faith and Film night, by the way, is something some of our Book Centers do. Once a month, we show a movie at our center and invite the public and then we lead a discussion afterwards and complete the night with prayer. Last month we watched "Hotel Rwanda" which is such a powerful movie. Sadly, we only had 3 people come, but hey- my experience with youth ministry has taught me not to be discouraged :) It's quality, not quantity :)

But we are trying to recruit a little more quantity, so I've also been asked to help our superior with promotions, advertising, and marketing, which I also feel at home with. Since we have NO budget practically for advertising (we do some radio spots on local radio and have some ads in local Catholic papers, parish bulletins- that consumes most of our budget) we have to do a lot more FREE stuff. So my latest task is to make some personal contacts via email, campus visits, church visits, and let people know one-on-one about our center and events since all those means are FREE :)

I really love to talk about our mission. There are so many cool things we are trying to do here. Not only do we have our Book Center (book store) our St. Louis community hosts monthly lectures with guest speakers on various topics open to the public, the Faith and Film nights, and we have a women's book club that read a book each month. And in December, we have a Baby Jesus Birthday Party :)

So I'm promoting these things to you all, even though you are most likely not in St. Louis or going to be anytime soon. But if you know of anyone here, now you can spread the word! :)

Another cool thing that happened this week: we went to see Leonardo Defilippis in his play about Maximilian Kolbe. You hardcore Catholics will know him and his company, Saint Luke Productions. They produced the movie Therese that came out a couple years ago. Anyways, he came into town to do the play for Catholic schools in the diocese and we went to one of the shows. Then he came into our Book Center today so we got to meet him and chat with him. I got my picture taken with him :) I don't have the digital copy, though, so I can't post it ;( But he stayed for like an hour 'cause he really understands our mission of evangelizing through the arts and media, obviously. We were trying to convince him to do a play on our dear Blessed James Alberione next :)

Oh! And we got to go to an Extreme Life Teen event last week (XLT) and that was sooo nice. It felt like "home", but made me sad 'cause my teens weren't there. I ran around promoting our next film night, though. We are showing Spiderman II, so that is pretty kid friendly. We'll see if some show up!

So it's Halloween, huh? It doesn't feel like it, but rumor has it Sr. Caritas is gonna dress up tonight. She's one crazy 71 yr. old Italian/French Canadian. But I love her. She told me she usually dresses up as Gandhi because "all you need is a sheet". Hmmm...we shall see what tonight entails.

Don't forget to honor the SAINTS with MASS tomorrow :) Holy men and women, PRAY FOR US!

Peace,
Julia

blogs and more blogs

Hi, friends! Sorry it's been a while- let me update you!

First of all, the postulants have started their new official blog:

http://fsppostulants.blogspot.com

you can check that out, though my blog here will probably be more detailed as the other will need to be appropriate for the Daughters' website :)

us postulants are also featured on our fellow sister from Chicago's blog:

http://hellburns.blogspot.com

I should explain the title-it's a play on the Sister's name- Sr. Helena Burns but the other conotation certainly applies!

Sr. Helena was actually just here in St. Louis visiting us! Sr. Helena and Sr. Thecla came from Chicago for a training session that Sr. Margaret Charles from Boston came down to lead. It was kind of like a sales rep training to train us for potential future promotion of our Center or future callings within the apostolate.

I am always so impressed with how the sisters love Jesus SO much and how He is first and foremost, but then run meetings like business people (though our meeting was in our living room with many coffee breaks in between :)

So that's been this week, meetings, meetings, class, formation, meetings....I actually kind of miss working in the Book Center!!

In Strukely news, I should brag a little about my family. Terry (dad) is currently pursuing his dream of being a folk music singer and has made an appearance on the Elyria coffeehouse circuit. Not kidding. Look out- this is how stars are made. So what if he's gonna be 57 next month? And Jeannette (mom) is making the business cards so you can book him at an open mic near you. He may have to open for my 3 cousins Emily, Hannah, and Olivia (ages 9,7, and 5) who are already doing the late night bar circuit. You think I'm joking?

Mom and Dad are also now OFFICIAL Rock and Roll Hall of Fame dossients and can take you on a tour officially. They had to write papers and take classes but hey, when you are talking about John Lennon and Bob Dylan, you can't mess around. Mom and Dad are also going to Bruce Springsteen and Stevie Wonder next month....how is it that their 26 year old daughter is removing herself from the culture and her 56 year old parents get more into it?? God is hilarious.

FREE SUNDAY on Sunday!!! Janet has a performance/benefit, so since she came to mine, I'm gonna go to hers :) And then we shall relax in non-nylon attire ;) Since we both wear nylons everyday now!

Hope that blog was worth the wait- love you and miss you all! Especially missing the teens at St. John's lately :( All the talk of mission and ministry this week with training makes me want to get back out there!

Peace,
Julia

Benefit Dinner

Our Benefit Dinner to help support our Mission was held last night here in St. Louis. Not every community has such an event to raise money, but our community here in St. Louis is blessed to have a Board and enough patron support to host such an event. So we shmoozed and wined and dined...being a sister isn't a bad gig! :) People want to talk to you and it's a great way to evangelize the Word and our mission.

We honored the Bishop last night and a doctor and his wife for their work and advocacy against embryonic stem cell research. My sister Janet was able to come because we had some extra spots at some tables last minute. So needless to say, it was a very blessed event! And a big night for our community!!

Pictured above: Alina, Emily, and I (the postulants!), my sister Janet and I, me and the Sisters at the head table, and then the Bish.