Some photos of the main church(Credit Peter Sieger @ Flickr):Since 1878, the Franciscan Sisters of Perpetual Adoration have been praying nonstop longer than anyone in the United States.
The practice began after Mother Antonia Herb, then leader of the congregation, made several requests to the local bishop for permission to begin perpetual adoration. Concerned it would impose too great a burden on the sisters, he refused.
Determined to establish perpetual adoration, the sisters tried it out, praying two at a time for two hours. They demonstrated they could do it, and on August 1, 1878, at 11 a.m., the congregation—then called the Sisters of St. Francis—began praying around the clock and soon thereafter became the Franciscan Sisters of Perpetual Adoration.
Two people have prayed before the Blessed Sacrament ever since. In recent years, members of FSPA's lay community have joined in the vigil, and the congregation today has more than 120 prayer partners.
Here are a few photos of the Adoration Chapel:
It's amazing that an order that has adored our Lord for 130 years nonstop could fall so far with some of their work, like the Reiki training. It seems some of the sisters forgot the Man to whom they are wed.
4 comments:
One observation...in the first picture they're on their knees. In the fifth one they're sitting down.
I took a tour last year of the Chapel and it is a remarkable and beautiful place.
But it has had some ugly wreckovations done to the altar area. The removal of the altar rails, the ugly pinkish carpeting, the reorientation of the pews in front of the Mary and Joseph statues, the removal of some of the kneelers, and other small things really disturbed me when I had my tour.
My mother told me that in the 1970's the Sisters got rid of a lot of antique furnishings during the first wreckovation after Vatican II.
Don't get me wrong, the chapel still with make you stop and gaze in awe but how great it must have looked in the early 1960's.
Another thing one cannot help notice is that the average age of the nuns in the chapel had to be about 75 years old.
And not all of the Sisters in the fifth picture were praying when I was there. I think that 2 were sleeping.
The tour was both inspiring when you see what was built but also maddening when you see the modern changes that were made.
One can only hope that a new young group of orthodox nuns will be able to take the Chapel over sometime in the future and return it to it's original splendor.
Steve: From your mouth (or keyboard!) to God's ears...I fear this is going to end soon...and you're right, Matt, consorting with alien spirits (=Reiki) and all the other nonsense going on at the spirituality center (drum making??...or is that at St. Anthony Retreat Center, Marathon? I can't keep them straight!), plus the lack of the "essential elements of religious life" for many of the Sisters (I pity the elderly Sisters, many who live a very devout religious life) only spell doom for this religious congregation.
Yes Steve, it has that 70's feel especially the carpet. Bishop Callahan being Franciscan himself might just have some sway with them before the end. I'm afraid when the sisters go, that it's not going to end up in the hands of Catholics. That's just my gut feel.
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