In this Issue:

Peak of the Week!

Tribute for Maria Cecília Bandera

Gift for Brazil

Rejoice for Mass in Bolivia

Stations of the Cross

Miami Associate Retreat

Sr. Gloria Featured in IASJ News

Sr. Marita's Pineapples in Jamaica

A Time to Care

Farmers Market Season!

"Pathway to Peace & Inner Freedom:

Reflections on the Twelve Steps"

June 18

International

Picnic Day

International Picnic Day is a made-up holiday that is celebrated annually

on June 18.

So, pack your picnic basket, hop into the car, or walk to a park or a picnic area and enjoy an outdoors meal by yourself or with your family and friends to celebrate this

unofficial holiday.

International Picnic Day is a day to commune with nature and enjoy a lovely summer day if you are in the Northern Hemisphere. For those of you in the Southern Hemisphere, who says you can’t picnic indoors? Just spread a blanket in the middle of your living room. Maybe even create a pillow fort and enjoy some time with your family!

June 26

Chocolate

Pudding Day

June 26 is Chocolate Pudding Day. This unofficial holiday celebrates everyone's favorite lunch dessert snack - the chocolate pudding.

Pudding is a dessert enjoyed by people in many parts of the world. In the United States and Canada, pudding is a custard-based dessert that is usually made of milk or cream, eggs, and sugar. The dessert is thickened with gelatin or starch and then cooled before being served. While many flavors of pudding exist, chocolate pudding is one of the most popular flavors and is commonly eaten as a lunch time snack.

July 3

International

Plastic Bag Free Day

On July 3, when you go to the grocery store take a cloth or paper bag with you because it is International Plastic Bag Free Day.

Created by Bag Free World, a “global initiative that aims to eliminate the use of single-use plastic bags,” International Bag Free Day is an unofficial holiday that promotes environmental conservation by encouraging people to reject plastic bags. The holiday also raises awareness of the harm that plastic bags do to nature and to animals and marine life.

To see where we found these fun holidays and check out more from around the world, visit: www.timeanddate.com/holidays/fun

Born: Florismar Bandeira, July 23, 1937, in Nova Aurora, Goias, Brazil

Died: May 9, 2023, Anapolis, Brazil

Daughter of: Joao Alves Bandeira & Alipia Alves Pimento

MY GOD AND MY ALL!

Here I am!

Singing

You called me to walk through life with you,

I decided to follow you forever, not to go back.

You put a coal in my chest and an arrow in my soul,

It's hard now to live without remembering you.

Day of joy at the residence of Mrs. Alípia Alves Pimenta and Mr. João Alves Bandeira, today forming part of the triumphant Church in the Father's house. Nine months passed in anticipation of a child born in the embrace of love that had united them since the yes, given to each other in the Sacrament of Matrimony. It was the twenty-third of July, one thousand nine hundred and thirty-seven. Then came the crying and the surprise: a girl! What is her name? Perhaps because of the child's beauty, they named him Florismar Bandeira. The city, a small corner no less beautiful than the flower that was born: Nova Aurora, Goiás. At the age of seven, the parents came to Anápolis, starting the intellectual preparation of the child at the Santo Antônio Parochial School, where the Franciscan Sisters of Allegany worked. The Gymnasium was with the Salesian Sisters at Colégio Auxílium. She couldn't stop there. She enrolled at the Technical School of Commerce in Anápolis, where she studied Technical Accounting. That young woman was prepared for the profession and her first job was at a Dairy Industry in Anápolis. It was certainly another moment of great joy for the parents, whose stage of life leads to the assumption of responsibilities that will guide the young person's path forever. There she was ready for life's surprises.

Singing: 

One day I heard your call, a divine message beating in my heart.

I left the promises of this world and went very quickly towards your hand.

You are the reason for the journey, you are my road, my guide and my end.

In the cry that comes from your people, I hear you calling for me again.

The first call was at the baptismal font where her parents took her into the family of Jesus Christ. There, the seed of the vocation to which she had been called since her conception had been confirmed. Responding to the call, she rushed to understand those signs that made her uneasy and found them with the Franciscan Sisters of Allegany. She began another journey there and, after a few months in the Postulancy at the Mother House Santa Elizabeth, Allegany, NY, on August fifteenth, nineteen fifty-eight, she was received into the Congregation, starting the Canonical Novitiate and, as usual, received the name of Sister Maria Cecília Bandeira with which she built her consecrated religious life. After her first profession on August 16, 1959, returning to Brazil, she embraced another professional path: Education. On this path, she added up her gifts and built the web of her relationships. Many missions came. In the State of Goiás: Convento Imaculada Conceição, Ceres; Our Lady of Fátima Convent, Porangatu; Sacred Heart of Jesus Convent, Pires do Rio; Admirable Mother Convent, Anápolis. State of Tocantins: Convent of Our Lady of Divine Providence, Araguacema; Santa Inez Convent, Goianorte; Santa Clara Palmas Convent. Crowning this path in Education where he left marks of skills and commitment to the formation of youth, she skillfully carried out his mission by meeting the needs of the Church with the clergy under the guidance of Bishops Dom João José Burke whom he called “my prince” and Dom Philip Eduard Dickens who happened to be "his son". Along with her sisters of religious ideals, she sought to respond to the calls of the Congregation, masterfully using the gifts received from God for the good of the people and their fraternity.

Singing: 

Come walker, the path is to walk.

Go pilgrim, my love testifies.

This faithful journey, committed to the Kingdom of God, present in the journey of the people, was only possible thanks to the graces received on a daily basis. Her spirituality led her to the Tabernacle and, in participating in the Eucharist, she daily received Jesus who strengthened her soul and actions, always swift as if time was too short to carry out what she wanted to do. What was Sister Cecília, some friends of the heart left her testimony.

Testimony of some people: Friars and Sisters

Yesterday, after a long time of treatment, Sister Cecília gave her final YES in the Father's embrace. She left serene for mission accomplished. Sister Cecília, all of us her sisters, we praise God for the time together that they had happy moments, of overcoming, of enthusiasm and of difficulties. We take in our hands everything that was a failure and surrender to God's mercy, leaving only the good you did in this path of surrender to the call. We love you and give you to the Father.

Thanks to the family and God's blessings to all, and may they be comforted in this time of pain.

Go in peace, because the mission was accomplished!

Tribute translated from Portuguese and all context kept to honor the beauty of Brazil's culture.

The Stations of the Cross project at The Franciscan Center in Tampa is complete with the addition of this beautiful wooden box that holds the laminated prayers for the Traditional and the Social Justice Stations.

Thanks to Craig Niebauer for the gift of his craftsmanship.

On Sunday May 21, 2023, the Miami Franciscan Associates experienced “Invitation to the Transformational Journey” - a retreat facilitated by Sr. Colleen Brady and Linda Dees – co-Directors of the Associate Program.  

We had long awaited being together for an in-person retreat and the timing of this one was perfect, as we were introduced to the CARE program – Congregational Approach to Relational Effectiveness - which the Sisters have been immersed in. We began with prayer and song and were then invited to reflect upon and share Moments of Beauty in our lives.  

In the process of learning the Five Elements of Transformation and how these might revitalize our small community of Associates, we became aware of the inner, heart centered, mindful work that begins with each of us individually. To that end, a core group of four of us met the next week to share from our hearts, envision possibilities, plan and set goals for the future of our group. 

Sister Marita Francis Lee is a farmer. With an academic background in botany, she enjoys finding ways to use outdoor space to produce food. Her current project is a grove of pineapple plants that she has established outside the back door of Immaculate Conception Convent in Kingston, Jamaica. 

Her two original pineapple plants have multiplied, and Sister Marita now oversees a grove of more than 100 plants. The plants are given natural fertilizer in the form of wood chips, horse manure, and compost. Marita mainly grows sweet "Sugar Loaf" pineapples, although she is expanding to include other varieties. 

Pineapples take two years on average to produce a single fruit, at which point the original plant dies, leaving behind a small sucker that can be replanted to produce a new pineapple. 

Nine days after Sr. Maureen Clare died the Franciscan Outreach Ministry, which was very dear to her heart, produced a new shoot. Leesa and Regina, past students at Immaculate Conception High School in Jamaica, fulfilled the promise they made to Sr. Maureen Clare a few months earlier: to bring a medical team to conduct medical screening and consultation for the 180 elderly people who are beneficiaries of the Ministry.

Leesa could not forget her five years of volunteering one weekend a month (from 2013 – 2017) preparing food parcels on Friday evening, and often staying overnight at the Immaculate Conception Convent so she would be there at 5:30 a.m. to start preparing the hot breakfast which was offered by Sr. Maureen Clare to her beloved elderly. She particularly remembered being mentored by our late Associate Donna Haynes who was the Campus Minister at Immaculate Conception High School at the time and working closely with Sr. Maureen Clare who so compassionately tended to the needs of her “visitors.”

Regina met Leesa when she attended ICHS to complete 6th Form (Grades 12&13) after which they entered the University of the West Indies to begin studying to become doctors. In 2021 during the COVID lockdown they decided to launch their own non-profit organization, Giving Jamaica, with the aim of providing medical attention to the poor and marginalized served by Roman Catholic charities in Kingston. They raise funds for the non-profit from their own resources, as well as partnering with a large food distribution company, an established supplier of medical products and other personal contacts.

On Saturday May 20 they mobilized a team of 25 people consisting of eight current students and members of ICHS Medical Club who conducted the registration process; 12 past students of ICHS and current UWI medical students who conducted the medical screening for blood pressure and blood sugar; and five medical doctors who provided consultation for patients and wrote prescriptions. They were Dr. Brittania Morgan a past student of ICHS, and four male doctors who Leesa described as being part of the “ripple effect” of volunteering and doing good work.

Leesa and Regina hope to continue their outreach by conducting quarterly team visits for medical screening of the beneficiaries, some of whom are no longer able to access medical care in the communities where they live.

We give thanks for Leesa, Regina, Brittania and all those who so willingly give their time to provide compassionate care to the elderly persons served by the Franciscan Outreach Ministry.

It’s Farmers Market season and Canticle Farm is one of many vendors at the Olean Farmers Market in Lincoln Park on Saturdays through October. 

Shopping with Canticle Farm helps feed people in need, allowing them to cover the fixed costs of farming and commit to growing more than 8,000 pounds of food for area food pantries through its Franciscan Food Pantry Program.

Each year Canticle Farm partners with the Olean Food Pantry, Warming House, Cuba Cultural Center, The Friendship Table in Bradford (PA), Portville/Sacred Heart Food Pantry, and Connecting Communities in Action.

For more information on the market:

www.oleanfarmersmarket.com

To purchase a copy at $5.00 each, please send a check payable to

“Franciscan Sisters of Allegany” and mail to:

Franciscan Sisters of Allegany; Attn: Claire Majot; P.O. Box W, St Bonaventure, NY 14778.

Or if you are visiting the St. Elizabeth Motherhouse cash can be accepted.