Friday night we all went to Holy Cross Cathedral in Boston for a Mass of Blessing for the new community the Daughters of Mary of Nazareth. Dom has worked with Sr Olga Yaqob, the new Mother servant of the community. It was a beautiful, beautiful Mass. (Read a bit more about it here and here.)
It was also a fun outing for our family. We left early and took a picnic dinner because the Mass was at 5:30. We ate our dinner in the Cathedral basement while Dom and his colleagues set up their equipment to tape the Mass and post photos to a set on to the Archdiocese’s Flickr stream.
Our picnic dinner in the cathedral.
I believe the room we ate in was the old sacristy. It felt funny to be dining in such a space.
The Holy Family watching over us as we ate.
Awe and wonder as we examined the cathedral while we waited for Mass to begin. Bella had never seen any place so big and so beautiful.
Anthony and Ben were impressed too.
(Photo credit: George Martell/The Pilot Media Group) May not be reproduced without permission. All rights reserved.
Bella and I ran into two of the candidates adjusting their veils in the bathroom before Mass. We chatted for a minute. Aren’t they just beautiful?
(Photo credit: George Martell/The Pilot Media Group) May not be reproduced without permission. All rights reserved.
None of them were especially tall but all of them were almost a head taller than tiny Mother Olga.
(Photo credit: George Martell/The Pilot Media Group) May not be reproduced without permission. All rights reserved.
I was nursing Anthony in the back of the cathedral during Mother Olga’s renewal of her vows. I cried.
(Photo credit: George Martell/The Pilot Media Group) May not be reproduced without permission. All rights reserved.
The children were very tired by the end of the evening. We left the reception early as they were all too tired to even try the cookies and cakes. Sophie and Anthony screamed themselves to sleep in the car on the way home. But it was all worth it.
(Photo credit: George Martell/The Pilot Media Group) May not be reproduced without permission. All rights reserved.
How often do you get to be present at the beginning of something that you know is going to be very special? A new religious order! Dom and I are convinced that someday our children will be able to say proudly: “We were there when it all began.”
And who knows what seeds were planted in the imaginations of two young girls? Bright lights and beautiful art and fancy treats and lovely music but Bella said the best part of the evening was when Mother Olga said her vows. She goes back and forth telling me that she’s heard God calling her to be a mother and that she’s heard God calling her to be a religious sister. The important thing to me is not that she’s discerned a call at the tender age of five but that she’s developing the habit of listening for one.
My maternal grandmother’s parents emigrated to the US from Sicily and her maiden name is Santa Lucia…and yet somehow I did not realize St Lucy was a Sicilian saint. Of course, being a family patron, we have sought refuge in her intercession and make a big deal of her feast day.
And now that we are fairly sure some Swedish Vikings were way off course and ended up in Sicily (as evidenced by my blond haired, blue-eyed , pale skinned son) it gives us even more of a connection. Thank you for sharing Melanie.
GeekLady, That’s just what I was thinking. The recipe could be halved. At least until we have teenaged boys. Then I’ll double it.
A haze of quilt piecing sounds like perfect bliss to me. I need to carve out some time for sewing soon.
Katherine, Thank you. That book has been on my wish list for a few years but there are over two hundred picture books on my wishlist. Almost 50 Advent/Christmas season-themed picture books alone that I’d put on a list because of various recommendations. Sigh. The life of a bibliophile! Still, this year I think I’m bumping Lucia up to the top. I definitely want it for next year.
Beautiful bread, Melanie.
I was thinking along the same line as the others – perhaps making 2 smaller rings then freezing one (before the glaze). You could pull it out for Christmas morning or New Year’s or some other feast during the season. How nice to have something special ~almost~ ready to go on another day!
You know, there are two eggs, so I bet the recipe is halvable, and that if you made the traditional backwards S buns you could freeze them and stretch out the eating.
It would never work in my house, David is a little bread eating fiend. But I forgot Saint Lucy’s feast this year, and spent the day in a haze of quilt piecing.
There’s a beautiful book on St. Lucy for children that my children love. It’s called Lucia, Saint of Light by Katherine Bolger Hyde. She tells the story of how St. Lucy delivered food down into the catacombs to feed the Christians, and how in order to fill her hands with more food, she wore candles on her head to light her way. It’s really wonderfully told.
(My family is from Sicily too…I love this saint.)
Joyous feast!
http://www.amazon.com/Lucia-Saint-Light-Katherine-Bolger/dp/0982277040/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1323841766&sr=8-1
Melanie, what great pictures! So happy you had a great day and yes, I think the bread recipe could easily be halved. (We just don’t have that problem around here and yet I still eat too much of it.)
Happy, happy Advent!
[…] with the order. Dom worked with Mother Olga before Cardinal Sean asked her to start a new order and we were at the cathedral the day for their first Mass of blessing with the Cardinal. We also attended the first Mass in the […]