Teacher Appreciation Day

Sister Callistus Arnsby teaching piano to a student at the Sacred Heart School of Music, London, Ontario. Sister of St. Joseph Archives.

As a very shy 12-year-old I knocked on the door of the most esteemed piano teacher I ever knew. The door opened and there stood Sister Callistus Arnsby welcoming me into her piano studio. A beautiful grand piano filled most of the room. A cushion carefully embroidered with musical symbols topped the chair beside the grand. Music scores and biographies of musicians filled the open shelves, and behind the closed cupboard doors were hidden more tools of the trade: music liners for the blackboard, chalk, manuscript paper, recital notes, exam requisitions. This was truly like stepping into another world.

Though I felt overwhelmed and in spite of my shyness this seasoned professional set me at ease and encouraged me to enter more fully into the contemplative world of sound. Sister Callistus knew how to call forth a presence to the experience of making music, not just reading the notes. She was sensitive to the ebb and flow of a musical phrase. She helped me realize that the weight applied to an individual key could vary so that a phrase would take shape, a melody would lift and fall, like one crescendos and decrescendos when singing a best loved song.

This music making was not only about performing a piece for a recital or the Kiwanis Music Festival, but it also was about building confidence, and a sense of identity. When memorization became a challenge and sometime failure, she would encourage and advise new techniques for calming nerves and send me off to the next recital opportunity.

Sister Callistus led our St. Joseph’s School of Music through the height of its success and then as time warranted, helped guide all who taught with her, to a new environment in collaboration with the Western Ontario Conservatory of Music. Sister Callistus is remembered by numerous musicians. I thank her for the extraordinary ways that she helped me grow in my love of music and music-making.

On this National Teacher Appreciation Day for whom do you give thanks?

-Sister Loretta Manzara, csj

NATIONAL TEACHER APPRECIATION DAY

National Teacher Appreciation Day is on the Tuesday during first full week in May as a reminder to show appreciation for teachers everywhere. We are using this National Day to say thank you to all teachers for their time and dedication to educate our children.

image: Geert Pieters Yanna Zissiadou/Unsplash

Shepherding Today

Good Shepherd Sunday, rooted in the Gospel of John and celebrated on the Fourth Sunday of Easter, reminds us of Jesus as the Good Shepherd—one who knows, protects, and lays down his life for his sheep.

Due to health challenges, I had to step away from my ministry with Good Shepherd MInistries in Hamilton, and move to London for care, but I recently attended a retirement gathering for a devoted worker from Good Shepherd Ministries in Hamilton.

What stood out was the remarkable work of three brothers—Terence, Justin, and Richard—who have built an extensive network of care across 26 homes, offering food, housing, clothing, medical, and psychiatric support, along with outreach programs.

The Little Brothers of the Good Shepherd, members of the venerable religious congregation founded by Brother Mathias Barrett, are now the Hospitaller Order of St. John of God – Province of the Good Shepherd in North America.

Like the Good Shepherd who knows each sheep by name, the brothers, staff, and over 600 volunteers extend deeply personal care to those they serve.

So on this Good Shepherd Sunday, let us proudly and gratefully salute the Hospitaller Order of St. John of God – Province of the Good Shepherd in North America!

Truly, Jesus the Good Shepherd continues to be with and guide the most vulnerable of His sheep, through the compassionate and loving Community of brothers, staff and volunteers in Hamilton, ON.

-Sister Rita Bohnert, CSJ

March Winds and April Showers

“MARCH WINDS AND APRIL SHOWERS” - A REFLECTION FOR EASTER MONDAY

A few mornings ago, as I was walking the grounds of Villa St. Joseph, our Ecology and Spirituality Centre on the shores of Lake Ontario in Cobourg, I realized that despite the persistent cold there was a hint of Spring in the air and in my footsteps too! Suddenly, I was reminded of the predictable words of my mother as Spring approached, “March winds and April showers bring forth sweet May flowers”; a traditional English proverb dating back centuries. The literal sense of the proverb refers to the necessity of the cold winds of March and the rains of April (typical early Spring weather in the U.K. and in Western Canada especially) for the moist conditions in the soil necessary for the growth of the fresh flowers of May.

The phrase is often used to encourage those experiencing temporary hardship of the possibility of better times ahead. It has been expressed in various ways, including music. An example is the song, composed in 1935, by Walter G. Samuels and performed, in typical music hall fashion, by American singer, Ruth Ettings. The song and the various articulations of the proverb imply that growth and transformation can result from a certain dying, struggle and rising cycle – a cycle that points to hope and new life. The whole process as we experience seasonal change and as we celebrate the beautiful hope of Easter reminds us that the Paschal Mystery is writ large in the natural world and has been from the very beginning of God’s creation.

The Paschal Mystery encompasses the passion, death and resurrection of Jesus, just celebrated with gratitude and joy in our churches. That mystery is revealed and echoed in nature as a cosmic pattern of life, death and renewal. We are aware of it as we plant Spring seeds with hope for a flowering yet to come. In nature and in faith we can begin to grasp the life and promise that arises in patient waiting for “the gifts of God for the people of God” as the Anglican a book of Alternative Services reminds us. In both faith and in nature we see a revelation of divinity - the divinity of the risen Christ and of the emergent pattern of hope in the natural world. In both we discover an invitation to touch God – to enter fully into the sufferings, joys and beauty of the world. In it all we are called to lifelong transformation.  

The Jesuit priest and paleontologist, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881-1955) put this beautifully when he wrote in his great Hymn of the Universe: “Bathe yourself in the ocean of matter; plunge into it where it is deepest; struggle in its currents and drink of its waters. For it cradled you long ago in your pre-conscious existence, and it is that ocean that will raise you up to God.”

May we be raised up to God and encounter joy, hope and rejoicing in the emerging world of Spring as we continue to celebrate together the great season of promise beginning this Easter Monday!

-Sister Mary Rowell, CSJ

Images: Sabbra Cadabra/Photogitthi/RODOLFO BARRETTO | Unsplash

An Easter Message from the Sisters of St. Joseph in Canada

This Easter, we share a blessing that speaks to renewal, wonder, and the sacred connections that hold us all together—with each other and with the world around us.

On this day

the blessings of heaven.

On this day

the blessings of earth.

On this day

the blessings of sea and of sky.

To open us to life

to ground us in life

to fill us with life

and with wonder.

On those we love this day

and on every human family

the blessings of heaven

the blessings of earth

the blessings of sea and of sky.

- Easter Greetings by John Philip Newell

May you be blessed with wonder this Easter as you greet the Resurrection….and may the blessing of peace be upon our world.

- The Sisters of St. Joseph in Canada -

Image courtesy of Unsplash

As Morning Breaks...

I received an email from a friend in the United States two days ago.

Some days I awake, simply ready for the new day. Other times, like today, I wake up feeling “old” or a certain fatigue. For sure the terrible stuff going on in the country and world are part of it. A sense of how long it will take before the “new” begins to reveal itself. So many conflicting values are still in the way.

Yesterday, early morning, the sky did its ordinary magic colouring the sky in pinks and fuschias.

Today, everything is blanketed in thick fog with no noticeable sign of lifting.

This pattern of sun and sky seems to mirror my friend’s personal human experience. And this alternating experience is common to us all. In fact, we might say that it helps us know we belong to each other. More deeply, we belong to earth.

I am reminded of a hymn that we sing on Holy Saturday, that “hold one’s collective breath” day between Good Friday and Easter Sunday in the Christian tradition. That immobile space between tragedy and hope. The words of the hymn go like this:

As morning breaks

I look to you

I look to you O God, to be my strength this day

As morning breaks.

Perhaps this moment of our experience on the planet also calls us to look to each other to be our strength this day. Perhaps we can also look to sun and sky, to river and ocean to be our strength this day. Perhaps in these discouraging days, we are more surrounded by what might give us strength than we have imagined.

As morning breaks…

-Sister Margo Ritchie, CSJ

IMAGE: Zetong Li/Unsplash