Off retreat, but on...encounter

Our summer program isn't complete just because our retreat is made. Either before or after the spiritual exercises we usually have four or five days of community updating, which we just call "Encounter." The theme can be a hodgepodge of issues, or maybe just one: community, vows, mission, theology, spirituality, Pauline charism, St Paul's writings... This year's Encounter focuses around our mission, specifically the call to the "New Evangelization." 

It started yesterday with a kind of "show and tell" visit to the motherhouse. Several of the departments in the publishing house gave us presentations on their current and upcoming projects. (Actually, I am pretty excited about two projects that just came out--I'll write about them separately--and about one that is waiting in the wings and needs just a bit more prayer....one I proposed several years ago!) 

Perhaps my favorite part of the open house was an unscheduled visit to a new "department" which goes by the name of "mini-media department." I just call it the senior sisters' workshop. This is where CD jackets get fitted into the jewel box, and the CD popped in place before going to the shrink-wrap machine. It's where the rosaries and rosary bracelets are made for our book centers and our First Communion sets, while the sisters pray the rosary out loud together. It's where Sr Lorenzina is filling a Christmas order for her plastic canvas creations, and where Sr Susan Helen (when she's not helping in the Dedham book store) can be found slipping matching tassles onto bookmarks. (Kind of makes me wonder if I should take up a useful craft now, so that I will find employment in the workshop in my golden years!) Pictures coming soon!