Angels and Imps - Hope and Courage in North Minneapolis

Fall has come to North Minneapolis - no question about it now. The trees are almost stripped, it's cold (29 degrees F. Saturday morning. Sister Mary Virginia and I couldn't thaw the windshield, so had to walk to Fremont for morning prayer! And just as cold today. There are patches of blue sky, but more that's sort of a leaden grey.

Grass is yellow-brown, the skies are mostly grey or white. The thermometer's dropping. Most of the leaves are off the trees - a lacy pattern left, but every breeze sends down another cascade of yellow and brown leaves.

On the "cloister walk" from Fremont (1/2 block), across the street,
turn the corner,
 and another half block down to Gerard House.

Kids are wearing sweaters, puffy jackets, and woolen hats. The young men now have jackets or hoodies over their white T-shirts, and tend not to just hang out in the alley for hours at a time. Everybody is busy going somewhere to get warm and dry.

The garden at Fremont has been put to bed for the winter.
A whole group of friends from Edina came with yards of potting
soil, rotillers, and expertise to help with it.

Angels in North Minneapolis 

I heard a story yesterday from the "Chronicles of Visitation Monastery." (The Sisters have so many wonderful stories! I love hearing them!)


One time, early on in their life here in N. Minneapolis a workman was coming regularly to the house to accomplish some bit of restoration on their house.He was living at a half-way house in the neighborhood. The Sisters were asked by those running the agency  (which is called Turning Point) to pray for their clients, and, in exchange, they were told, they'd come and do whatever they could do to help. So this workman was a Turning Point guy.

As he worked, he listened to the sounds of chant coming from the chapel where the Sisters were praying the Divine Office. He went home to Turning Point and told his friends there, "There are ANGELS living in that house! I HEARD them." They pooh-poohed his claims.

The next day as he was leaving the property, he saw a curled white feather on the sidewalk! He picked it up and ran all the way back home! He burst through the door, saying, "I told you there are angels living there! And now I have PROOF!"

I think he was right - they don't look like the angels on Christmas cards, but there are lots of people in the neighborhood who think they are angels.


So much happens here: I watch and listen and pay attention. In the living room, I hear one sister with a woman who is weeping over the death of her mother. In the kitchen someone is telling a sister there about her husband who fell at work and broke his wrist. He has no insurance, and he was working under the table, because he's undocumented. They didn't come to ask for money. They came to ask for prayer. And they came to ask one of the sisters to go with their daughter to apply for the new "deportation deferment" that has been offered to young people who were brought here illegally when they were young.

I sat out on the front porch with two men who had come hoping for a grocery store card. They are staying at night at a shelter, but they had no food for the day. We were out of cards, but they were hungry. So I raided the refrigerator and pantry. I found four slices of rather stale bread left from the day before, and made a couple ham sandwiches with mayo and mustard and a piece of lettuce. I poured a couple cups of coffee left from breakfast and warmed them up in the microwave. I copied down the address and times when meals are served for the homeless at Loaves and Fishes, a ministry run out of a local protestant church. Then I grabbed a couple prayer cards that we keep on the shelf by the door. The card has a saying of St. Francis de Sales, one of the two founders of The Visitation of Holy Mary. 

It says,

• "Do not look forward to what might happen tomorrow; the same everlasting Father who cares for you today will take care of you tomorrow and every day. Either He will shield you from suffering or He will give you unfailing strength to bear it"

Then I took the sandwiches and prayer cards out onto the sunporch where the men were waiting. We sat and talked. I gave them the prayer cards, and we prayed the prayer. 

I told them,

• Your needs are huge. We can't do very much to help you. But we do what we can. These Sisters have nothing of their own. Other people support them with their donations - and we share what we are given. We get so many grocery cards a month, and when they are gone, they're gone. 

• But think about it. You were hungry. Now you are eating your sandwich, and you know where you can get a hot meal later today. I can't promise you that you won't be hungry tomorrow. I hope you won't, but maybe you'll just have to rely on that gift of unfailing strength. When you are down and discouraged, read that card and pray that prayer - and know that you'll either find help or you will find strength to go on.

We held hands and prayed together that they would not lose hope, that they would find the answers to their needs.

They were very quiet for a few moments - then they both said, Thank you, Sister! (I gave up trying to explain that I'm not really a Sister. It's not important.) 

One man put the card carefully into his jacket pocket and said, I'm going to take this and read it to someone I know who needs to hear this.

Then they went on their way.


Shortly afterward a friend of the Sisters came by to ask me to help her review her paper she was turning in the next day in her college class. She's recently returned to college to try to qualify for a better job.

Most days things are pretty ordinary -  people to come to pray or to ask for help, offer help, or to show off a new baby or introduce a new husband or wife or girlfriend.


An old friend of the Sisters came to mass yesterday. The sisters have known her for 20 years. She's a woman who has suffered much, but she is an overcomer. She has been in jail and she has been homeless. 

In mass we were discussing the gospel of the day: the theme had been Hope. She told us how she had learned to appreciate what she had. When she hits a wall and is told No, she says, she says THANK YOU! because she knows when that door shuts, another will open. That's HOPE!

She told us what it meant to her some years ago to get moved into a motel room after being homeless - the luxury of having a stove and a refrigerator!

She has managed to raise her children in that kind of life-style to be successful adults. The three oldest are in college and are doing well.

She says she tells them, "You gotta PRAY!" 

They say, "Momma, we DO pray!"

She says, "No, you got to get down on your knees! You got to fold your hands and speak right into your hands because that's GOD'S EAR!" 

When she is asked how she's doing, she always answers, "I am BLESSED and HIGHLY FAVORED!" Today she said, "I'm blessed to have a birthday!  I'm blessed to be ABOVE the GROUND!"  

There is a custom here for one of the sisters to bake her a cake on her birthday.  This year, when she called to say her birthday was coming up, she asked for just a "cracker and a candle." But Sr. Karen baked her some cupcakes and they had a little party together over at Girard, just the two of them, before time for our mass at Fremont. Then she joined us for the liturgy.

From Angels to Halloween Imps!

That's the "regular stuff" that goes on every day. Some days are even more special. Once about 20 years ago a couple brought their little girl to visit the monastery in N. Minneapolis. Afterwards, she told her parents she didn't want any more parties. She had everything she wanted. She wanted her parties to be for kids who didn't have parties. So her mother, Vicki, has been giving 4 parties a year in her honor (that little girl is long grown up!).

Vicky arrived last Saturday morning with a van loaded with party supplies, games, prizes, treats and enough Halloween costumes for about 75 children.  About 60 kids came for games, treats, and a great selection of Halloween costumes. Some of the moms were bringing their children to an event that had been an important part of their own childhoods.

HALLOWEEN PARTY AT VISITATION MONASTERY 

Folks are arriving for the Halloween party at Fremont.

A neighbor lends his paved car park area for our use. Those are 
the costumes donated for the neighborhood children.
That's Girard house in the background across the street.

Everyone needs to register and make sure
names are on the invitation list.

Games are played on the sidewalks, yards, and alleys.

Intent competitors are under supervision of teen volunteers.

Sr.Karen greets one of the moms from the neighborhood.

Here we are in the backyard of Fremont House.

And competition continues on the sidewalk below.

There's a line-up for this one - but I can't see what they are playing!

Here's a basketball game in Bob and Sherrie's backyard.

Sr. Suzanne facilitates the registration with the help of Miss Linda.

This child is telling Sr. Karen, "Oh, I hope I get that costume!" They had time to look them over during the games, but must wait for
 their names to be called to actually claim the costume.

And then you get to show your friends!

One Mom looked at her son's choice - striped suit for a jailbird, and said,
"Now that's what I always wanted to see you in!" But it was the one he had picked out, so off they went.

Sr. Karen and a dear friend of many years from the neighborhood.

Moms and Dads are appointed caretakers for those precious
costumes while their owners are picking out sodas and treats at the end of the party.

Lots and lots of kids! And the little girl on the far left
did get the coveted costume

Marcus, one of the teen volunteers, and one of my favorite
new friends, helps Sister Suzanne check off the list.

There's good fellowship going on as the party concludes.

There were 20-25 costumes left over. The children in the neighborhood who didn't get signed up in time to be part of the party were invited to come over and find a costume for themselves. Within the next two or three days they were all gone. 

Sometimes it was a parent who came. One woman walked more than a mile to ask if there were any left in her children's sizes. She didn't bring the children with her. She said she didn't want to raise their hopes and see them disappointed. I would never have guessed that providing a little girl with a princess costume or a small boy with a pirate outfit could be part of ministry, but when you are struggling to avoid eviction because you can't pay the rent and your food-stamps don't carry you through the month, a little treat like that for your children helps make life less grim.

Sunday morning finds us back at church - Ascension for most of us this weekend. Sometimes some of the sisters like to go earlier to the Basilica.

Sister Mary Virginia and Sister Mary Mao shared the pew with me. The music is lively, the preaching is wonderful, and I know lots of people now. The gospel this Sunday had to do with the healing of blind Bartimaeus.  (Mark 10:46-52) 

There are lots of kinds of blindness. I think my eyes are being opened to a whole new way of seeing the world, a whole new way of living the gospel.


I've been here for four months now. 

It's a beautiful way to live! 

Monastic Immersion Experience suits me!!

Have you ever thought of "trying on" religious life to see if it might be right for you?
http://www.visitationmonasteryminneapolis.org/

Saturday morning in the neighborhood-North Minneapolis

Visitation Monastery follows a regular schedule: we gather together four times every day to pray the Divine Office. Morning prayer on weekdays is at 7. On Saturdays it's at 8, and on Sundays 8:30. We either have a mass celebrated here at the Monastery or we go out to a neighboring parish. On Saturday mornings we generally have a Communion Service. Dinner is at 6:15. But in and around those regularly scheduled practices, all sorts of other things happen. THIS Saturday, August 25, was one such day!

So this Saturday morning, we gathered at 8, and several neighbors and friends joined us. We had a busy morning planned since the annual Back-to-School party was scheduled to begin at 1 PM.

Urban League Parade comes down Girard Street!

But there was more! The Urban League sponsored a community parade which came down Girard Street where I am living. It was a great little community parade - with lots of young people from drum groups, dance companies, politicians leafleting the neighborhood as their supporters marched in their support.
A couple of car clubs drove their cool cars, filled with family members and friends, past our house.

Neighbors followed the parade course down the sidewalk past our house.

Brian Mogren and friends followed Mary Johnson, riding in a truck, carrying signs for the Death to Life group, led by the Mad Dads. (The Mad Dads are very large African American men who wear bright green T-shirts say MAD DAD! They hear some trouble is brewing on the corner of 18th and whatever, they tend to just be there. Just looking at Mad Dads takes a lot out of a group of youngsters looking for trouble!) 

This float featured a young Native American dancer.

This one's a high-stepping drill team.

Congressman Keith Ellison and his contingent were at the very end of the parade, passing out campaign literature as they paraded along. Ellison is the only Muslim member of Congress, and he's a dear friend of the Visitation Sisters. He stopped for a visit with them. I was pleased to meet him. He told me that his mother had been raised a Catholic, and "she loved those Nuns!" So we had someone take a picture of us all together.

But that was just in the morning. There was more to come!

The Back-to-School Party

Many years ago a family from the suburbs visited North Minneapolis. A young girl in the family took it all in. Later she told her parents, "I already have everything I want. From now on, I want to give parties for kids who don't have everything they need instead of having more parties for myself." She meant it, and her parents cooperated. That was 17 years ago. She's grown up now and living her adult life. Her mother continues the tradition. She gives four parties a year for the children of North Minneapolis in our neighborhood, and they are done through Visitation Monastery. In the fall, it's the Back-to-School Party.

Saturday afternoon, about 75 invited children and their parents arrived at the Monastery for the annual party. Some of the parents were children themselves who came to this party when they were small. It's not just a give-away. It's a PARTY! There are GAMES! Lots of games! Jump-rope and miniature golf, bean bag and ring-toss! Something about little ducks floating in a bowl of water - and ping-pong balls being thrown into tiny gold-fish bowls. Dice, bowling, and more! In 17 years it has never rained for this party. This year it did. So at the last minute, the games - most of them - had to be moved into Girard House. That was interesting! A team of teenagers who ran the games had a training session in the morning. 

And then the invited guests started arriving at neighbor Bob's garage to register, and then pick out a back-pack from the dozens of brightly colored ones available. Then, on to Girard House where they packed into the downstairs and the basement below to play games to "win" the supplies to fill them up (in these games everybody wins!). Notebook paper, binders, pee-chees, ball-point pens, erasers, pencil sharpeners, crayons, marker, calculators, protractors - there were enough school supplies here to stock a Costco's! 

And the teen leaders encouraged them to keep trying to land those purple beanbags into the purple cereal bowls, or take one more try at landing all three ping-pong balls into their little gold-fish bowls. Little boys swung unfamiliar miniature golf clubs at little plastic golf-balls.

 After all the games were played and all the prizes won, the whole group was called over to Neighbor Bob's for treats and door prizes - and a prayer together.

And THEN it was time for the teen helpers to get their reward! Backpacks, school supplies - and gift cards for Target for school shopping!  

And then they were all gone, and there was a bit of cleaning up to do. Our wonderful donor and her adult helpers took off and the rest of us went to Evening Prayer at Fremont House!  And then dinner. And then downstairs to watch a movie in the TV room in the basement. Something about saving whales. I was tired. Had trouble keeping awake. Life here is always interesting, stimulating - exhausting!

 But I love the way the day is framed and punctuated by prayer. It's a wonderful way to live.

p.s. there were enough school supplies left over - and enough school back-packs - for us to pack up 35 more of them which we handed out today to those who had not registered in time for the party yesterday. I spent Monday handing them out and checking them off the list. It was a great way to spend the day!

This is my "Monastic Immersion Experience." Priceless!

For more information on the Back-to-School Party, click here.

http://www.visitationmonasteryminneapolis.org/about-us/photo-gallery/album/72157630552792708/summer-family-olympics/