Is Rhubarb Franciscan?

It is rhubarb season in Minnesota! Recipes for rhubarb desserts are abundant in Franciscan cookbooks. Here is my favorite Rhubarb recipe (which I've prepared twice already this week.) This comes from a cookbook Sister Pat Zangs facilitated when she served as Administrator at St. Francis Hospital in Breckenridge, a hospital known for its excellent cooks. S. Pat is one of the reasons I love our Franciscan Community; Sisters Janice Wiechman and Paula Pohlmann are two other reasons: here they are preparing rhubarb from our garden. Here is the recipe by an anonymous baker:

RHUBARB DESSERT

CRUST: 1/2 cup butter, 2 cups sifted flour, 2 tablespoons sugar. Mix like pie crust. Pack in 9 x 13 or 10 x 14 pan and bake 15 minutes at 350 degrees.

FILLING:

5 cups chopped rhubarb

1/4 teaspoon salt

6 egg yolks

1 cup cream of evaporated milk

4 tablespoons flour

2 cups sugar (too much for me - use 1 2/3 or less)

Place rhubarb on hot crust. Mix other ingredients well with beater and pour over rhubarb.

Bake 45 minutes at 350 degrees.

TOPPING: Beat 6 egg whites with 1/4 teaspoon salt until stiff. Slowly add 12 tablespoons (that is 3/4 cup) sugar and 1 teaspoon vanilla. Beat well. Spread on top of baked filling and bake an additional 15 minutes at 350 degrees.

I Knew This Would Happen Someday!

Here I am, following myself. I thought I was signing on to follow someone else who is following this blog, and it turns out, I'm following our own. I wonder if this is how a dog feels chasing her own tail? This is not a good trait for a Franciscan. . . though it does encourage humility and a reminder of the need to be watchful.

We are gathering this weekend to celebrate the 80th birthday of our Sister Rose Mae Rausch. Rose Mae is one of our community treasures - a leader in all things good and beautiful. What a pleasure to be associated with her. You don't see her running around in circles. Her eye is on the goal. I recommend her blog: franciscanthinplaces.blogspot.com

On the other end of the age spectrum, we have little friends who delight us when they come to see our chickens at Clare's Well Retreat Farm. Here they are, presenting the eggs they gathered in our barn. There is no pretense in how they feel about having their photo taken. Such unvarnished expressions! They share this with S. Rose Mae - not that she pouts - but you always know where she stands on matters of concern to her. She is a wonderfully transparent human being. Happy Birthday, Rose Mae!


.

Transforming Tension, Choosing Love

This Living Franciscan post is written by Michelle L'Allier, OSF


Holy Week is filled with the unexpected: from the jubilation of Palm Sunday to the suffering and death of Jesus on Good Friday; from the darkness of waiting and uncertainty of Holy Saturday to the joy of Easter Resurrection. In Mathew’s Passion narrative, we hear Jesus praying in the Garden of Gethsemane “My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me; yet, not as I will, but as you will.” Jesus, fully human as well as fully divine, transformed his anguish into acceptance. Ronald Rolheiser speaks of Jesus purifying sin and tension by absorbing and transforming it…taking in hatred, holding it, transforming it, and giving back love…taking in fear, holding it, transforming it, and giving back freedom.

The Sacred Path

We as Franciscan Sisters of Little Falls are on our own journey of transformation. This blog post began long before Holy Week when I was walking on the Sacred Path at Clare’s Well (shown above), remembering the Legislative Session of our Delegate Assembly. This is once-every-five years gathering is a time when we come together as Franciscan Sisters to consider in a spirit of prayer God’s call and our response to the needs of the times. At our February Legislative Session we wrestled with the opportunities and challenges we face as we consider our limited resources, wide-ranging experiences and rich spiritual heritage. Blessed with faith and gifted companions for the journey, we vision and plan together for the future with hope. At our February meeting we also affirmed our call to continued conversation of community life in the 21st Century and to explore forms of governance that more fully reflect values of collegiality and shared responsibility.

Earlier this month we had the Election Session of our Delegate Assembly during which we elected a new Leadership Team. We listened to the movements of God’s Spirit in our midst and in our own hearts and chose a team of four Sisters who will be entrusted with leading us as a community for the next five years. Of this time, Jan described a metaphor of the kitchen  for our community, the hearth of the home is where we prepare food to nourish one another and others; it is where we sip from comforting and at times contentious cups of coffee, all the while staying at the table. It is a pertinent image for these times. Whether considering choices regarding the future of a community such as ours or perhaps significant personal and family decisions, or whether it means moving forward in the midst of a polarized political climate, the model of listening deeply and staying at the table until tension is transformed is an example of fidelity to love.

May we in this Holy Week follow Jesus as he shows us the way to absorb, purify and transform tension and sin rather than simply transmit them.

 Spring’s new life transforms remnants of fall and winter.

How is it in your kitchen?

We Franciscan Sisters of Little Falls gathered April 8 - 10 to elect new leadership. Our choice of leaders for the next five years was grounded in understanding we have a lot of work to do at this time in the history of our world, church, and religious life.

See the FSLF website for election results.

As we met around tables discerning who God might be calling to lead us from 2011 - 2016, our facilitator, Sister Marie Chiodo, said we reminded her of a kitchen. A kitchen connotes warmth, nourishment, sharing everyday basics, looking out for each other, tending the farm, arguing over cups of coffee which keep us at the table through contention and through comfort. "Is that roast done yet?"

"Stay in the kitchen," Marie said. We must stay at the table together. We are at the time of "not done yet." Doing the master planning that we must do is only setting the table. For the main course, we need to continue to grapple with the deeper meaning of religious life -- the deeper meaning of obedience in mission and community together. The kitchen table holds our prayer, memories, struggles, doubts and hopes for the future. How is it in your kitchen?

Where is it that we gather with equal voice sharing in decisions? It is right here. Staying at the table, we will arrive one day over cups of coffee at a table now set, the elusive master plan having grown organically from who we are. Will that roast be ready to serve?

I Thought of St. Francis Today

There is hardly a day goes by that I don't think of Francis -- living with Franciscan Sisters brings many reasons to remember him. Our shared prayer includes readings either from his writings or from someone writing about him. Living in the beauty of rural Minnesota is another way of connecting with this saint's unique appreciation of the natural and wild. Another attribute of Francis is his faithfulness. Once he turned his face toward God, he never turned back. Speaking of faithfulness, the return of spring speaks to me of fidelity - God's and Earth's. No matter how long winter is and how deep the snow, I know spring will come again. And, sure enough, it has. It's here! This gift of seasons cycling around with such predictability and refreshment brings a certain recovery of that spiritual ability to see and hear what Francis (and Clare) saw in their ecstacy when they considered the wonder of God incarnate on Earth. God is faithful. My heart feels more joy than it has since January. The trees are full of noisy off-key red-winged black birds and Francis is right there playing his two-stick violin with them.

Hungry for Light?

I don't know if anyone has noticed, but this blog hasn't been updated for a long time. My excuse is low energy and some negative feelings about winter: this winter has been exceptionally dark. The lack of light, the many days in a row of overcast skies would put me in the poor house if my living depended on writing.

Have any of you also been hungry for light? You know how we sometimes say things are as different as night from day? Night's not so bad. Night is supposed to be dark. The lack of light in daytime is something else.

St. Francis sang a Canticle to the Creatures, beginning with gratitude for Brother Sun. He must have longed to see light even more than I do: he was blind when he wrote:

Be praised, my Lord, by all your creature world,

and first of all by Brother Sun,

who brings the day and light you give to us through him.

And beautiful he is, agleam with mighty splendor;

of you, Most High, he gives us indication!

Amen.