Life Lessons from Scrabble

       I love word games and Scrabble is one of my favorites. Most Mondays I play with Sisters David Ruschmann, Margaret Mary Dressman and Estelle Schulte who reside in our infirmary. It is a community-style game, meaning we are free to help each other if the tiles we draw are too challenging.

      As everyone will tell you I’m quite competitive and like winning more than anything. I also like to use good letters, even if they are someone else’s. While we don’t share the points we do share the glory of valuable words.

       So, what are some life lessons I have learned in my recent Scrabble games?

 You don’t always know what you will get in life. That might be people-related or job-related. You might have a day full of vowels (one point values) or a day with the right mix of vowels and consonants (some higher point values). Whatever the combination, you have to make the most of it. Sometimes you can draw from others suggestions; sometimes you are on your own.

           What you plan may have to be adjusted to the circumstances that you don’t control. You have a word in mind but another player takes your spot. I can’t tell you how many times one of us has exclaimed, “She took my spot” before re-examining other necessary possibilities.

Your way is not always accepted as the best way. I’m always looking for the highest scoring spots for myself and the other players. Even when I’ve found a place for someone to use a Q without a U on a double letter space that person will decide to make a four-point word instead. I don’t get it, but she does it. Each of us makes our own way, with or without others' help.

       I’m sure other Scrabble players can think of many other lessons to be learned from their games. I just know I enjoy my time with the sisters and learn from them, whether during Scrabble or at other times.  

            Sr. Nancy Kordenbrock, OSB

A New Beginning for Peace

       September is my month. I have always loved it and looked forward to it even as a child, although it meant the end to summer vacation. My birthday is in September. So to me, it feels like the start of another year, another cycle of living, of leaves falling and warmer clothes donned, a new beginning. Incidentally, the Jewish feast of Rosh Hashanah meaning “Head of the Year” and the Islamic New Year  Muharram are observed this year as September 21-22 and 23.

       Among the new beginnings I pray for is a renewed dedication to World Justice and Peace on the part of all of us. Have we ever needed to pray and work for this more? The response to the hurricane damage in our country showed us what harmony we can achieve when we work together for the good of all in need regardless of our differences. But we also have the recent memory of violent clashes between factions of our society who both experience being wronged or threatened by the other. The moral cost is too high when we regard each other as enemies.  Hate and fear cause us to lose a piece of our humanity. We humans have such potential for goodness, truth and love and we have a responsibility that comes with the gift of life to maximize that potential and encourage others to do so.

       Please join me in observing September 21 of this year as the International Day of Peace. See info at http://internationaldayofpeace.org/ . And participate locally in the United in Prayer event 6:00-6:30 PM Covington, KY’s Goeble Park. It is hosted by the Catholic religious women of Northern Kentucky: Benedictine Sisters, Congregation of Divine Providence and Sisters of Notre Dame. (see picture)

      Sr. Dorothy Schuette, OSB

Inspired by Psalm 90

To you, O God, I cry.  You are our refuge, age after age.

You are God from all eternity and forevermore.

You, who can turn us back to dust in a single second,

hear our prayer,           

  …for all those…

driven from their dwelling places, plundered by enemies,

swallowed up by the seas, splintered by raging winds  -

For your people of Myanmar, Mozambique, Egypt, Peru,

Kashmir, Darfur, South Sudan, Somali, Afghanistan, Ukraine,

 Iraq, Syria, Texas, Mexico, Florida, the Caribbean Islands, and more…

Up, cry out in the night-time, in the early hours of darkness!

Pour out your heart like water before your Creator,

Stretch your hands to God for the lives of your children.

Little ones and old ones are lying on the ground in the streets;

Virgins and young men have fallen by the sword.

Huge as the Sea is our affliction, who can possibly cure us?

 You, alone, O God.

Open our eyes, ground us in love, and strengthen our will.

Inspire us to act.

 Renew our lives as in times past. 

Then, at sunrise, filled with your mercy,

We will sing your praise and rejoice in your loving kindness!

      Sr. Sharon Portwood, OSB

The Nativity of Mary

The New Testament does not give much of a biography of Mary, Mother of God. Seldom does she speak:

• ·         Be it done to me…
• ·         Magnificat (from the Canticle of Hannah)
• ·         Why have you treated us so?
• ·         They have no wine.

For centuries the Church has filled in the gaps in our understanding. What is fitting and suitable and honorable as we choose words for apt praise of Mary? What just has to be true about Mary? e.g., If Jesus grew in wisdom and stature in their Nazareth home, he did so in the midst of a healthy, loving family. A reasonable assumption.

Mary’s life is celebrated in the liturgy, in dogma, in art, music and poetry, and the homilies and writings of men and women. All these means have entailed making reasonable assumptions about the gaps in the scriptural accounts. Mary now has a wealth of titles and roles, and is shown in many cultural forms. All races and nationalities claim her. Through the work of translators, the storehouses of writings about Mary are open to us.

Anscar Vonier, d. 1938

There will always be the danger for our mind to place Mary’s divine role in a totally unearthly sphere of things, to think of her motherhood as of something belonging to quite another world. With Mary’s motherhood closely related to Elizabeth’s motherhood, we see that Mary is truly a mother in the ordinary human, real, created mode of maternity.

Nicholas Cabasilas, d. 1390

            Just as [Mary] had bestowed her flesh and blood on [Jesus] and had received a share of his graces in return, so in like manner she participated in all his pains and sufferings…And so, after our Savior’s death, she was the first to conform herself to the Son who resembled her and hence she shared in his resurrection before all others.

Thomas of Villanova, d. 1555

For a long time I have been at a loss to understand why the evangelists should have…told us so little about the Virgin Mary, who in life and distinction excels them all…The most important fact of her life, that Jesus was born of her, is enough to tell her whole story.

Ronald Knox, d. 1957

Let us ask our blessed Lady to win for us that continual renewal of strength and holiness

which befits our…destiny. Fresh graces, not soiled by the memory of past failure, fresh

enterprise, to meet the conditions of a changing world; fresh hope, to carry our burdens

beyond…this present world into the changeless repose of eternity.

      With Mary’s birth God’s plan for our salvation came closer to fulfillment. We pray that through her intercession, the Church is renewed in holiness and grace, and in the new life of Christ that grows within.

              Sr. Christa Kreinbrink, OSB