Franciscan Daughters of Mary at 1800 Madison Avenue, Covington , KY 41014 US - Newsletter Spring 2008

The Lord in His Goodness has given us a new sister. Sr. Pam experienced a radical re-conversion through the Sacrament of Reconciliation, and wanting to give back to the Lord in thanksgiving for the abundant graces He has poured out to her she began volunteering at the Rose Garden Mission.  She has been one of our most faithful volunteers over the past year, helping out at the Mission every day it was open.  It was through her generous gift of service that she felt drawn to give our Lord all that she had to give - her very self.  “All I want to do is God’s Will.”

            This is a second vocation for Sr. Pam, who is a mother of 2 and grandmother of one beautiful baby girl (Mother Seraphina’s Goddaughter), whose husband died about 5 years ago.  Her son, age 23, and her daughter, age 21, support their Mom’s decision to follow the Lord’s call to a religious vocation, and have come to understand that they don’t lose a Mom, but they gain a community. 

Loaves and Fish

Most Christians are familiar with the two events where Our Lord Jesus Christ multiplied the loaves and fish - one time when He was preaching on the Mount and once when He was preaching on the Plains.  We learn that a meager offering of loaves and fish by a generous person was multiplied to feed thousands of people to demonstrate the love the Father has for His children and His abundant generosity (the Father’s generosity is never outdone).  Below are just a few of the miraculous multiplications the Lord has been performing at the Rose Garden Mission.

• We had received a donation of about a dozen cases of lunchmeat, containing about a dozen packages of bologna and spiced ham in each case.  After giving food out to over 500 families that day, we realized that we had only just run out of lunchmeat! 

• Teenagers from IHM Youth Group made sandwiches to give to the people we serve.  We had been giving away 2 sandwiches for each person who came to the Mission for assistance and didn’t run out of them until about 3:30pm, after once again helping over 500 families. 
• Most Wednesdays cases of pizza are donated to the Mission to feed the poor.  On one particular Wednesday following Easter, we had been given enough pizzas to give 315 families 3 pizzas each.  Halfway through the day, Sister asked Mother if we should go to 2 pizzas each because we had emptied out one of the freezers (we have 3).  Initially she responded “yes,” but after about 20 minutes decided that we need to be as generous as the Lord had been to us, so we went back to giving 3 each.  At the end of the day, 553 families received pizza and we still had 1½ freezers full of pizza for Thursday.  One of our volunteers remarked that the only time she noticed the freezers being depleted of pizza was when we went to 2 per family!

Photo Gallery

    
Mother Seraphina with the Franciscan Sisters TOR of Penance of the Sorrowful  Mother at a Formation Workshop

  The sisters at the March for Life in Washington DC with Bishop Foys and Fr. Ryan Maher


A group of homeschool students visit our Mission


Mother Seraphina meets an old friend, Fr. Luke Mary, C.F.R., at the Vocations Day at Franciscan University


Visiting teenagers listen as sister explains what we say to women who come in for help


A group of Confirmation Students join us for prayer at our convent chapel