With Hearts Full of Gratitude

by Sr. Mary Thill, OSF

January 2024

Beginning in January of 2023 the Class of 1963 decided to gather every third Saturday in Serra Hall to talk about our 60^th Jubilee celebration scheduled for June of that year.  We also used this time together to share our life stories, our joys and sorrows, our blessings and burdens and to just simply share where we are at this time in our lives.  It was voluntary, we shared tea and sweets, and sometimes there were ten of us and sometimes there were five.  It was precious time for sharing and bonding again as we had not been so close together since our Juniorate days in 1968.

There was a lot of laughter and some tearful moments as we shared our life stories.  As I recall, we often spoke about how grateful we were for the many joyful and challenging experiences over the past 60 years.  We certainly have gained some wisdom over these years and are now able to see how God led us into many new and challenging ministries in our lifetime.  We also were very aware of how the Convent we entered in our younger years had changed significantly as did the Church (think Vatican II), our country and the world.  Ecology, sustainability and climate change were not even mentioned in the early days.  We have become very aware of the significance of our footprint on the earth these days.

We often expressed concern about what is happening to the Catholic Church these days especially with fewer vocations to the priesthood and religious life.  A sign of hope we shared was the call for all our brothers and sisters to be more involved in sharing and living the Gospel in these uncertain times.  This is, after all, our common baptismal call.

At our last meeting in December, Sister Geraldine Nowak, brought a unique piece of memorabilia from our 25^th Jubilee which was in October of 1988.  At the time, Sister Carol Ann Grace had someone make balloons for the table decorations at the Jubilee Dinner in the Franciscan Life Center.  They were rather large and contained each of the names of the Jubilarians, which numbered 15 that year.  We were surprised to see that the balloons had lasted all these years since, as you know, rubber bands and pencil erasers don’t last very long.  Sister Geraldine had kept them in a box in her closet for years and they stayed so pristine that we were able to blow them up and enjoy them 35 years later.

It’s the little things that remind us of how God provides for us even when we least expect it.  THANKS BE TO GOD!