Where I went to Mass on Sunday

I told a couple people and their jaws kind of dropped.  So before I tell you, I'll give you a bit of background.  I had been making a weekly holy hour at Blessed Sacrament church in La Crosse.  Hmm, that reminds me, I forgot to post some pictures for laurazim and the Madison folks who have a fantastic chapel.  So after our second child I've been getting there very infrequently.  I had been praying and felt like I should look for a new place to make my hour; I'm not a member at Blessed Sacrament anyway.  So I thought, why not go where they've had adoration for a couple years.

For non-La Crosse folks, the Franciscan Sisters of Perpetual Adoration(FSPA) in La Crosse have had adoration around the clock for 150* years.  Their foundress promised our Lord that if he provided for them the order would adore Him perpetually around the clock.  I was just hoping to go pray with them informally, but the sisters have a Prayer Partner program began in 1997 that lay people can join the sisters in prayer at an assigned hour.  *Unfortunately this program also meant the end of perpetual adoration by the FSPA order themselves.  At times only lay prayer partners are present in chapel.  So the 150 years is now asterisked, still a good for the city though.

Now I have been highly critical of most aspects of the FSPA.  To understand the order in a nutshell we need but two items from their history:

1970-80s: FSPA worked to adapt its Constitutions based on Vatican II documents, the advice of theologian and canon law consultants, and the discernment of the sisters.

1973: Fifty-five FSPA left to form a new community — the Institute of the Franciscan Sisters of the Eucharist.

That confusion has lead to the order almost ending.  The last I heard there are about 200 sisters in the retirement home and 100 sisters still at St. Rose Convent in La Crosse.  Almost all of the 100 sisters are at or near retirement age.

With that said, the FSPA built this city and this diocese.  The hard working women of the order have done countless good for my city and my diocese.  And it was in their poverty that they were able to accomplish so much.  They could not afford candles for a sanctuary lamp and had to make candles out of lard at the beginning.  This is the same order that built a college and a hospital.  Okay, this is getting long, but long story short.... I will not give up on them.  I know the kinds of things that may be whispered about in the halls there.  I know they have a spirituality center that propogates new age and pagan thought.  But I am compelled to go there and pray with and for these sisters.  And I do it with what Tolkien calls "a fool's hope."

Tell me, is there any hope? For Frodo, I mean; or at least mostly for Frodo.

There never was much hope. Just a fool’s hope, as I have been told.

Pippin and Gandalf—Return of the King (The Siege of Minas Tirith)