On a cold December evening, as Duluth dug out from an historic snowfall, the Benedictine Community welcomed a new member, Jayne Erickson of Cloquet, Minnesota. Jayne has lived with us as associate volunteer for nearly two years, and after long discernment she asked to enter the Community. On December 2, as Evening Prayer began, she stood at the threshold of the chapel with her sponsor Sister Barbara Higgins and her Postulant Director Sister Donna Schroeder, and asked to be received as postulant. (For more on the stages of becoming a Benedictine Sister, click here.)
We processed into the chapel where Jayne was given a Benedictine Cross, symbol of her life under the Rule, her Morning and Evening Prayer books, symbol of our life of prayer, and a hand-sewn apron, symbol of our life of work. From this day on she will live with us in the cloister and pray and work alongside us, as she learns more about the life and the Rule under which we live.
We sang Take My Life and Let It Be*, a song of abandonment to the will of the Lord. “Take my life and let it be consecrated, Lord, to thee. Take my moments…my days. Take my hands and let them move at the impulse of thy love…. Take my will and make it thine.”
* ©International Committee on English in the Liturgy, Inc.
