Story originally printed in the La Crosse Tribune or online at www.lacrossetribune.com
Published - Sunday, July 27, 2003
FSPA celebrates 125 years
 Lorna, left, and Donald Kirby of Onalaska spend one hour each Thursday in prayer at St. Rose Convent. Dick Riniker of the La Crosse Tribune |
Don Kirby of Onalaska tries to attend Mass most mornings, but on Thursdays he and his wife, Lorna, do their praying in the Perpetual Adoration Chapel of St. Rose Convent in La Crosse.
The Kirbys, along with one or more Franciscan Sisters of Perpetual Adoration, offer prayers for loved ones, friends, strangers, community leaders and government officials close to home and around the world.
The sisters have been offering their continual prayers day and night and around the clock since Aug. 1, 1878, and will celebrate their 125th anniversary of perpetual adoration next weekend. The Kirbys just joined them in 2000, becoming two of a select group of 80 lay people commissioned since 1997 to share in the sisters' prayer ministry.
Sister Clarone Brill, who oversees the prayer partner program, said the community decided in 1996 to open perpetual adoration to the larger lay community as a way of sharing what they believe is a spiritually enhancing experience.
"Here we've got this treasure, our perpetual adoration chapel, and it's just been us. Why not expand it and invite others to join us?" Sister Clarone said. "It's just been wonderful."
The Kirbys take the 7:30 to 8:30 a.m. hour each Thursday, with the first half spent in the FSPA's larger chapel, where most of the convent's resident sisters and staff attend daily Mass.
"It's something that I thoroughly enjoy. I look forward to it every week," said Don, who heard about the FSPA's prayer partner program through friends and decided it might be something he and Lorna could do.
"Every Thursday, after we leave here, we go to the Salvation
Army, so it's kind of our ‘holy day,' " Lorna said.
The scheduled prayer time gives her a set opportunity for prayer, she said. "Anybody can pray for an hour, but how many of us do that?" she said. "This is an opportunity that I can take for the hour."
Although a regular at daily Mass at his home parish of Blessed Sacrament in La Crosse, Don said the prayer with the sisters at St. Rose is especially meaningful to him.
"When you leave, you're just kind of relaxed and peaceful," he said.
Sister Clarone said the schedule is flexible enough to accommodate the prayer partners' other commitments. Many of the partners work full time, and some have children at home. The prayer partners are mostly Catholic, but a few non-Catholics also participate, she said. The prayer partners receive formal orientation before being commissioned in a worship service.
The prayer partners are included in many FSPA programs and celebrations, and each fall they are asked to attend an evening prayer enrichment program at the convent, Sister Clarone said.
The Kirbys, who are retired and participate in a variety of volunteer experiences including annual mission work projects on the island of St. Lucia in the Caribbean, exemplify the FSPA dual commitment to prayer and service to others.
The continual prayer in the chapel before the Blessed Sacrament of the Eucharist has become a way of life for the sisters, who count on the vigil to strengthen them in their ministries, Sister Clarone said.
"You come before the presence, so you can go out and try to bring Christ's presence to others," she said.
Sister Marlene Weisenbeck, the FSPA president, said the celebration next weekend is about more than prayer. It also is a celebration of the sisters' presence and service to the world.
"If it doesn't go beyond those chapel walls, we have not fully manifested what we are called to manifest in our lives and in our work," she said. "The church exists in the world, it can't exist by itself."
Gayda Hollnagel can be reached at (608) 791-8224 or at ghollnagel@lacrossetribune.com.
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