This week

In so many ways, I'm in the usual "day before" state - slacks and shirts ironed, customs permissions and paperwork in hand, the to-do list and the to-bring list checked over.  I'm just about ready to go meet our eye surgery mission group at the airport tomorrow night.

And at the same time I'm feeling - along with a lot of U.S Catholic Sisters - like I've been punched in the stomach (to paraphrase the elegant words of Simone Campbell, SSS, poet and director of NETWORK, the Catholic Social Justice Lobby).  The Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR), to which my Sisters of St. Joseph of Peace belongs,  has been ordered to reform its statutes and is being put under the direction of Archbishop Peter Sartain for five years. 

It's personal to me because I was a member of LCWR when I was on the Leadership Team of what was then our Province.  And it's even more personal because Pat Farrell, OSF, the current President of LCWR, lived here in Suchitoto for many years, and is a friend to Peggy, Margaret Jane and me.  I've been going about the daily work and the extra work of getting ready for a mission, and I've been feeling kicked in the gut and I've been praying for peace, a prayer that feels necessary right now. 

I'm glad to have a week ahead that will keep me running all day, glad I have a mission to do and work that will help some people to see more clearly.  And I pray to see clearly myself, and to be peace-filled.