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Sister Marcella Marie Dreikosen prays in the Perpetual Adoration Chapel at the St. Rose Convent La Crosse.
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It's 3 a.m. The streets are motionless, a soft glow shimmers from the lamps above. A lone bird offers a few chirps. A warm breeze twists through tree branches.
And Sister Marcella Marie Dreikosen shuffles to the chapel in her slippers to pray for La Crosse.
For 27 years, Sister Marcella Marie has been awake when the rest of the city sleeps to take the night shift of prayers in the Adoration Chapel of the Franciscan Sisters of Perpetual Adoration.
Today marks the 134th year the sisters have continuously prayed. At 11 a.m. Aug. 1, 1878, the congregation, then called the Sisters of St. Francis, began praying around the clock. A bell at St. Rose Convent will chime 134 times today to commemorate that. [The sisters themselves ceases to have perpetual adoration in the 1980(I think, I don't have the exact date in front of me). They have since had the laity fill voids where the sisters can no longer fill in the schedule. Yes, still praiseworthy but the FSPA themselves are no longer able because of the dwindling numbers to maintain this devotion themselves.]
"There are so many people with faith in this world," Sister Marcella Marie said. "They know that if the sisters pray, it will help." [... right but there is more to prayer than that right?]
It's that mindset that keeps the 69-year-old getting up every morning. That, and starting the day with God, seven days a week.
An alarm sounds 20 minutes before prayer time. Still in her nightwear and house coat, Sister Marcella Marie makes her way down to the cafeteria, where she grabs a cup of coffee and meditates[.... no comment]. She follows the still halls to the sanctuary, running her eyes through a book listing past sisters who have died this day in years past. At the front of the church, a door creaks open, leading the sister to a muggy hall. She pauses a moment before opening the door to the Adoration Chapel.
Four lit candles sit on a white altar inside. Red, pink and orange flowers in bouquets are at the base. Four angel statues look down at the sisters as they kneel in prayer. Golden pillars tower above the women, leading up to a light blue ceiling. A book of prayer requests and a rosary are kept at each chair. Some ask for employment. Others, health. A few on this night concern the country's debt ceiling. [Beautiful]
Two already praying sisters give a nod to Sister Marcella Marie and return to their thoughts. She dips her fingers in the holy water to the right of the door and makes the sign of the cross, taking her place before the altar. A clock chimes in as the hands hit 3 a.m. The sisters stand and recite a prayer.
"O, Sacrament most holy, O Sacrament divine,
All praise and all thanksgiving, be every moment Thine.
Eucharistic Heart of Jesus, furnace of divine love,
Grant peace to the world."
The two sisters leave as Sister Marcella Marie and another take over.
Praying together in the early hours of the day enhances friendship, said Sister Mary Myron Stork. She and Sister Marcella Marie have shared the 4 a.m. hour every Thursday and Saturday for the past five years.
"We get to meet every day in the Lord," Sister Mary Myron said.
Prayer requests come through email, phone calls and written notes. The sisters always pray for the city, government and religious leaders.
Sister Marcella Marie likes to recite the rosary or reflect on the day's church readings.
In eighth grade, the Marathon, Wis., native decided to dedicate her life to God. She attended high school at St. Rose with three classmates. Two of them still are at St. Rose.
After becoming a nun, she bounced between assignments in Wisconsin and Iowa until she got a call in 1984 to be the food service manager at St. Rose, a position she still holds.
"I was home," she said.
Sister Marcella Marie started with the 5 to 6 a.m. shift, and has since moved to 3 to 5 a.m. for half of the week and 4 to 5 a.m. the other days.
"It's a tremendous way to start the day," she said. "Who doesn't wake up and try to be thankful that they woke up?"
She doesn't mind the early hours. Actually, she prefers them. That way, she doesn't have the stress of the day weighing her down while in prayer.
"It's really the most precious time of the day," she said. "No matter what religion, everyone needs a little quiet." [.........]
New readers may be interested to read my story about how
the FSPA kicked me out and forbid me to be on their property. When you stop to think about what the FSPA could have been, it's quite tragic. I've talked about it before but the severe intellectual dissent within the order makes this devotion a shadow of it's previous form. I've several times had the discussion with others of how this order who is so very close to the Heart of Jesus in the Eucharist fall so far from the Truth. There's many factors that come in to play, such has not dealing with dissent when it first started and allowing it to spread throughout the order, or the fact
the faithful sisters within the FSPA left to form a new order leaving only a few left to fight for faithfulness. My thought is that too many of the sisters began to consider perpetual adoration to be a novelty, kind of like how they have a heritage day where a few dress up in (believe it or not) religious habits. It's not Facebook or Twitter that attracts the youth to religious life. And it's not Reiki. It's something that this order has lost somewhere along the way. It's not
a faith, it's
the Faith.