We were blessed to have a visit from the Missionary Image of Our Lady of Guadalupe!

The Solemnity of All Saints – what an awesome day!  The Sisters and I just finished our Feast Day dinner and festivities.  It’s our tradition, on this day, to choose a Saint to be our patron for the year.  With only five of us here, we’ve gotten in the habit of choosing SEVERAL Saints each year to make it interesting! 

This year, we each chose 6 different Saints from different historical eras.  Beginning with Apostolic times, then Church Fathers, Middle Ages, Renaissance, Baroque, and finally Modern times.  It was a bit like bingo!  Each sister chose a number corresponding to a page number for each era.  Then I read a description of the Saint from a Lives of the Saints book to see if we could guess who he/she was.  It was a lot of fun and the end result is that we have 6 new patrons for the upcoming year.  It was interesting to read the different descriptions of the Saints and try to figure out why they chose that particular Sister to pray for.  Yes, that’s right: why THEY chose!!!  We don’t choose the Saints, THEY CHOOSE US!  In my devotion to the Saints, I am more and more convinced of this truth. 

As the day winds down, and we inch closer to All Souls Day, let us remember to pray for the Holy Souls in Purgatory – the Church Suffering!  Eternal Rest Grant Unto Them, O Lord, and Let Perpetual Light Shine Upon Them.  May They Rest In Peace.  Amen.

Each year we enter the St. Henry’s Chili Cook-Off.  This year our chili name was: Lord of the Harvest – a butternut squash and chicken sausage chili.  We won ‘Most Unusual Chili’ – not sure if that was a good thing or not! 🙂 
We were blessed, AT LONG LAST, to have a visit form our good friend Fr. Blake, from Louisiana.  It’s been several years since we last saw him – but it is amazing that between friends it is as if no time has passed!
A great big thank you to all of our Phoenix Priests who make HEROIC sacrifices to be sure that our Sacramental needs are cared for.  Our dear Priests make many early morning treks to our far-away little slice of heaven in Tonopah to offer Mass for our Community.  Their generosity will not go unrewarded!