Sister Mary Philomena and I returned home yesterday from visiting MN – the land of 10,000 frozen lakes, the land of the free and the brave, the land overflowing with milk and honey. Or so all the Minnesotans think! 🙂 Although I have to admit, Minnesota has the tendency of growing on you. 🙂
We had the privilege of staying at St. Paul’s Seminary and had the gift of meeting priests and seminarians who seek to live a life totally given over to the Lord. Beautiful. It was truly beautiful and edifying.
To go through our entire weekend would be wonderful for me, but probably long for you. All in all, in the different events we attended our experiences spoke clearly of a Catholic culture, a culture open to life, open to vocations. It was such a joy to be a part of this. To be a part of this in sub-zero weather no less. 🙂 I’m going to see if I can attach a couple of pictures – although if I recall correctly, the only time pictures were taken were when we were playing in the snow. Well…I suppose playing in the snow for a Californian is part of being immersed in the Minnesotan Catholic culture. 🙂
Picture to left: “Toboggan-ing” or at least pretending to.
Picture to right: Line-dancing with some of the students at the University of St. Thomas
It looks like all we did was play! Rest assured we did some work too. 🙂
Carmelite Sisters's Blog 
Glad to see you had fun the in the “Norwegian state”! 🙂
I’m joyed to hear about the Priests and Seminarians, and glad that you and Sr.Mary Philomena had fun going over there in Minnesota! Tobogganing! You’re so lucky! :o)God bless!
I am sorry to have missed the both of you! I didn’t realize you were going to be on campus until you were gone. (I work at the Center for Catholic Studies at St. Thomas).I’ll have to get over to California sometime soon so that I can escape some of these frozen lakes!Theresa Klein(Sister Marie Estelle’s sister)
If/when you get a chance to return, you must make a mini-pilgrimage to St. Agnes Church!AMDG,-J.P.S. Floridians do the same thing when confronted with snow. As a transplanted Michigander, I know better.
Sisters-I just found your blog and was very happy about it! It was so funny to be able to read about your time with us-what a joy and blessing and how FUN it was to be with you and line dance even!Thank you so much for your prayers. Make sure Sr. Mary Philomena knows that I am accepted and will be going to Rome for the entire year next year. Thank you so much and please pray for me, especially my time in the Eternal City!God bless you!In Christ and Mary,Sam (RA of the Catholic Women’s Floor)