Gratitude and Anticipation—The Center Celebrates 25th Anniversary

By Sister Amelia Stenger, OSU

    Mount Saint Joseph Conference and Retreat Center begins this new year with “thank you.” This simple prayer celebrates 25 years of service. Over the past years the Center has completed renovations, sponsored retreats, offered programs, and hosted numerous businesses and organizations for meetings. It has served thousands of people over the past 25 years. Each year for the past 10 years, almost 500 students have come for a tour of the farm to learn about good stewardship of God’s Earth. The years have been good ones. We are filled with gratitude.
    “Thank you” seems so simple when we come to a time like this in the history of an organization. In 1983, the Ursuline Sisters of Mount Saint Joseph made a difficult decision to close the Academy. Times were changing, and girls were no longer coming to the boarding school. The sisters knew it was time to do something different. They followed the advice of Saint Angela Merici to look at the signs of the times and see what new adventure lay on the horizon for the historic buildings. From their prayers, hard work, and thoughtful decisions, the Center came into being. And for that we are grateful.
    The Center has touched the lives of many who have come for a time away, a place to get closer to God, or to search for God. It has been a place of prayerful discovery of an inner peace and a place for discerning God’s will. It has been a place of music, literature, and learning; a place for creativity and art. For these many gifts, we are thankful.
    The Center has had four directors during its 25 years: Sisters Mary Matthias Ward, Marie Goretti Browning, Darlene Denton, and Amelia Stenger. Each has brought her talents and willingness to serve the community and the guests of the Center. Each one gave much to the strengthening of the mission and served well. Along with the directors, a dedicated staff has made every effort to meet the needs of the retreatants and guests. They deserve much gratitude.
    We thank God for the past and pray with anticipation for the years to come. The year of 2008 will be filled with many activities centered on the 25th anniversary. Each month will bring a special activity or retreat. January brings this newsletter and pictures of some of the activities that have taken place over the past months. In February, each of you will receive a special mailing that will contain a prayer for the Center and a letter about future activities. August will bring the big celebration in the memory garden. We hope many of you will be a part of these wonderful celebrations. Updates will be posted on the Web site www.msjcenter.org.
    So, if “thank you” is a prayer, there will be many prayers offered during the coming year because there is much for which we can be thankful. Author Melodie Beattie says, “Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos into order, confusion into clarity…. It turns problems into gifts, failures into success, the unexpected into perfect timing, and mistakes into important events. Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today and creates a vision for tomorrow.” With gratitude and thankfulness, everyone at the Center looks forward with anticipation to this anniversary and the next 25 years of service to God’s people.