March 2020
Dear Friends of Maris Stella
Maris Stella is closed until after Easter due to the Coronavirus. We hold all of you and your loved ones in our prayers during this crisis. We are praying most especially for those who are sick, all health care workers in hospitals and nursing homes and government leaders and health care experts working to control the spread of the virus, here in our country and in the world. Please keep us in your prayers as well. Thank you for your faithful support and ongoing prayers for Maris Stella now and throughout the years. Your caring presence has been a blessing to us.

We share the following beautiful reflection as you meditate on God’s presence in the midst of this tragedy.

Pandemic by Lynn Ungar
What if you thought of it as the Jews consider the Sabbath-
The most sacred of times?
Cease from travel. Cease from buying and selling.
Give up, just for now, on trying to make the world different than it is.
Sing. Pray. Touch only those to whom you commit your life.
Center down.

And when your body has become still, reach out with your heart.
Know that we are connected in ways that are terrifying and beautiful.
(You can hardly deny it now.)
Know that our lives are in one another’s hands.
(Surly that has come clear.)
Do not reach out with your hands. Reach out your heart. Reach out your words.
Reach out all the tendrils of compassion that move, invisibly,
where we cannot touch.

Promise this world your love – for better or worse,
in sickness and in health, so long as we all shall live.

Peace and Blessings,
Sister Mary and Sister Pat