Come to "Abide", A Retreat for Women

The 2nd Annual Diocesan Women's Retreat will be held at the Bosque Center, ABQ on Nov. 8-9. 

The Women’s Council is certain you'll find this to be a spiritual and stimulating experience. Based on John 15:1-11 the retreat will provide time to hear Jesus say “Abide in Me…Just as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me.” The retreat will empower us, as women, to explore our individual spiritual gifts and nourish our spirits through Bodily Prayer and other prayer learning expressions, conversation, worship and gathering together as part of, and nourished by, the True Vine.

The retreat starts on Friday, November 8 at 5:30PM with registration and light dinner. You are urged to stay at the Bosque Center. If it is easier, you can commute to the retreat. 

Everyone is encouraged to come for the entire retreat. However, the format will allow you to just come on Saturday! On Saturday, November 9 registration opens at 8AM. The retreat will end mid-afternoon.

Retreat cost is $75 if you stay at the Bosque Center (includes 3 meals and a room). $35 for commuters  (includes dinner & lunch) or Saturday only (includes lunch).

You are the Branches, a simultaneous track for children (3-12 yrs.) and youth helpers will be held in the conference room of the Bosque Center on Saturday to allow moms to attend the retreat. The young people will explore the same theme with crafts, games, and other activities enabling family discussion about the theme within the family later. There is no cost for the children’s camp. Children should bring a sack lunch.

 Registration forms (for either or both events) available from your parish, and here. Contact Cindy Davis if you have questions.  

Royal Priesthood

During the Prov. 7 Board meeting in Gruene, TX the first weekend of September, Chaplain Fr. Mike shared a powerful meditation based on 1 Peter 2: 9. "But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people,^* in order that you may proclaim the mighty acts of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light."
He asked us to share thoughts on 'who' priests are. In all religions, priests are the intermediaries between the Holy and the people. Each of us is called to bring Christ to the world and be the hands and feet of Christ wherever we are. Fr. Mike noted that by virtue of our baptisms we are all priests.
The question is, how can we live into this call? We can do this because of the promise from our Lord in John 17:22-23: "The glory that you have given me I have given them, so that they may be one, as we are one, ²³I in them and you in me, that they may become completely one, so that the world may know that you have sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me."
God is in Christ and Christ is within each of us. It is only by this grace that we can be any sort of ambassadors and intermediaries for God. However, we must be emptied of 'self' to be filled with Christ.
The setting for our board meeting was the perfect location to take time to be emptied of the day-to-day concerns and focus on God.

At the close of his meditation, Fr. Mike placed his own stole on each of our shoulders and prayed for us individually by name. It is a prayer that each Daughter should take to heart as part of her calling and rule of life. I commend it to you:
(Name), know that by your baptism into the life of our Lord Jesus Christ, you share in his priesthood. you are to work to restore all creation to its Creator and serve as a mediator between earth and heaven, all of this through Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Province 7 Board Meeting

Over the weekend of September 6-8, the Province 7 DOK Board met in Gruene, TX. It was a fun time for diocesan presidents and other provincial officers to get together, share news, learn new things, and celebrate being sisters in Christ.

All of us stayed at the delightful and lovely Gruene Mansion Inn, a B&B right on the Guadalupe River.

On Saturday afternoon, a trio of deer wandered through the trees right outside our rooms while some of us were relaxing on the porch! (No deer in this photo, sadly, but still a lovely view.)

There were 5 of us in this particular room. Two of us (me and Andrea from the Diocese of Arkansas) got to climb the winding staircase to our bedroom. It was like sleeping in an attic-a very nice attic! Next door, most of the executive board shared another suite and other presidents had equally lovely rooms nearby.

Breakfast was the luscious B&B banquet. We dined on delicious food in the Gristmill Restaurant next door (the building really used to be a mill). Some of us took a walking tour of Gruene, which has historic buildings still in use for shops and restaurants...and this delightful duck in front of one shop!

Our meeting time was at St. Francis on the Lake, a few miles from the Inn. We heard from Prov. Pres. Brenda Amos about the need for completing forms correctly for the National office. Did you know nearly any form needed can be found on the DOK website? We discussed the idea of a Going Deeper study for Daughters which will be developed by our Prov. Chaplain, Fr. Mike.
The Service chair, Marilyn, is collecting ideas of service projects that can be replicated. If you have a wonderful project, email the idea to her, along with a contact name and photo of the project. One idea shared at the meeting was to have each Daughter fill a purse with toiletries and beauty products which can be donated to a Woman's Shelter in your area! Simple, but very necessary because many of the women in domestic abuse shelters have had to leave all their cosmetics and other feminine necessities behind.
Joy, newly appointed Evangelism chair, reminded us that the basis of Evangelism is telling your story. Our Communication chair, Robin, continues to work hard to help us all be more tech-savvy--It's quite a task, but we appreciate her efforts. There will be a Jr. Daughters retreat at Camp Allen the first weekend in November at Camp Allen. Tory, JDOK chair hopes that Jr's from around the Province will be able to attend.
We were reminded that Daughters at Large are a very important part of the Order, even if they are not part of a Chapter. Anita, the DAL chair, pointed out that as Diocesan Presidents we should determine why women are 'at-large' and help them get into or form a chapter if they can.

Most of us went to St. Francis by the Lake for Sunday services before heading for the San Antonio airport. We all look forward to returning to San Antonio next April for Province 7 Assembly!

Dates for your Calendars
Prov. 7 Assembly: April 11-13, 2014 at St. Thomas, San Antonio, TX
In 2015, Provincial Assembly will be held in conjunction with DOK Triennial in UT. (at the Zermatt/Homestead Resort in Midway, UT). Start saving now so you can send a representative to the joint Provincial and Triennial Assembly! You only have to save for one trip in 2015!
Missy Denney, National Council Advisor, asked that photos of Daughters busy with activities be emailed to her between now and 2015 for the Triennial slide show.

Fr. Mike shared a moving meditation, which I'll post next time.

Assembly Sermon:Thoughts on Julian of Norwich

The preacher for Eucharist at Assembly was our chaplain, the Rev. Jeanne Lutz. Jeanne shared thoughts by Julian of Norwich on prayer. Julian said that “God wishes to be known and desires to be sought” and that “seeking God is as good as contemplating God”. She said we are partners with God in our will and our work. Julian had an intimate relationship with Christ that we can aspire to. In fact she stated that He is “Our Mother Christ”, an interesting new way of looking at the Lord.  

Julian taught that “Prayer is our work”. For Daughters of the King this should ring very true. Jeanne shared some of Julian’s advice for us to consider and put into practice:

1.      Prayer depends on facts not moods.

2.      We ought to have habitual prayer and prayer time.

3.      Prayer is not a plea from servant to master or child to parent, but from redeemed to Redeemer.

4.      Prayers are eternal, partakers of the ‘quality of heaven’, which is the “incorruptible treasure” Jesus refers to (“store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moths and vermin do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal.” Matthew 6:20)

5.      Prayer is not individualistic but is always a part of the Body of Christ. We are the Body of Christ. The Church and Christ are always fastened together.

6.      We should intercede for one another and contemplate the goodness of God of each person, knowing that we are each a part of the Body.

 

Julian noted that we ought to be satisfied with what God choses to reveal or to conceal. That should not stop us from being persistent in prayer.

Jeanne concluded her sermon by reminding us that Jesus encourages us to “ask, seek, knock” (Matthew 7:7). She noted that in the Lord’s Prayer Jesus addresses God as Father (or Abba, meaning Daddy). It is this relationship that God desires with us so that we can come to God with any and all concerns and needs.