FIFTY YEARS OF A LIFE GIVEN

                                                      In her Czech crown of fresh flowers
                                                              made by 2 Shaw women

On the feast of Corpus Christi, our MOTHER DILECTA PLANANSKY celebrated her 50^th anniversary of vows.  Due to “lockdown” her family was not able to come from California to help us celebrate, but celebrate we did! She received a blessings from the Holy Father to start the week and Thursday was a special Mass and her favorite meal- Mexican. She received many cards and gifts from all her have known her throughout the years, including past interns.

On Saturday we had a “picnic” with several of our Oblates who have been quarantining on the island.

While Mother was raised in S. California, she was born in Wyoming, when her father was in the military during the war. Both parents were teachers and instilled in Mother a love of learning, which continues to this day.

Mother entered the Abbey of  Regina Laudis a few years after college, having graduated from the San Diego College for Women, which is now the University of San Diego, a private Roman Catholic university founded in July 1949.  She majored in English, which is shown to this day by her love of Scrabble. She is always looking for new words, and is noted for her  sensitive poetry.

With Bella in the Gator

Mother has been in charge of the vast vegetable gardens, as well as the herd of cattle and dairy cows.    
        .

Mother has also served us as sacristan and liturgist. Like all of us she wears many hats.  Here is one of her poems:

Sept. 11, 02  A Commemoration

waking very early

solidly dark here in the West

day dawning on the East coast

I find myself praying among the stars

darkness not a void but

a setting for the stars,

interplay of dark and light.

an owl murmurs,

murmuring a question

...we know now the answer

a stark 2,817 soul mates,

at least 2,817, the number unsure

as survivors of ground zero surface

having forgotten their own names

so brief the passing

of the shooting star

then across the sky

a pace  regular and magnetic

the passage of a plane silently

(for some the last sensing was

sound and firey, fuel-fury).

From the distance of today

a stark beauty and patterned

meaning emerges in the sky:

somehow imbedded in the vastness

"Yahweh, God our God is One

Allah is great

Bless be Jesus Christ,

Firstborn of all creation"

someday to be uttered as

effulgence not controversy.

later in the light of day

the vastness remains

with no points of brightness

or connected patterns

but the stars unseen

are always with us.