by Sister Brenda Lisenby on Sunday, November 17, 2024
The following is excerpted from Vision Magazine. The full article is available here.
Sister Brenda Lisenby, VHM
Sister Brenda Lisenby, VHM, has been a Sister at the Visitation Monastery of Minneapolis since 2018. The Visitation Sisters hosted eight students for their Senior Projects this year.
“The Sisters’ work is prayer. You can go pray with them!”
Sister Katherine (Mullin ’58) and I had an opportunity to visit our Sisters at the Visitation Monastery of Rome this spring. It was a delight although no one really spoke English, and we didn’t speak Italian. But pictures are worth a thousand words they say! We shared our brochure with them, and they were curious and full of questions:
“Which ones are the Sisters?” (They wear habits, and we do not, so they were naturally confused.)
“Who are these people?” (Those are our neighbors.)
“Who are these people, are you in a church?” (Those are our Visitation students who join us often for prayer in our Chapel.)
I shared about how the students were told, “The Sisters’ work is prayer. You can go pray with them!”
This work of prayer is a bridge to our Visitation Sisters around the world, and it is a bridge right here in Minnesota. Last year, as senior students at Visitation School began to explore service sites, they were told, “The Sisters’ work is prayer. If you want to help the Sisters, you can go pray with them!” The Class of 2024 took this invitation to serve with the Sisters seriously when it was presented to them. And we, the Sisters, have been blessed exceedingly by these weekly Visitations!
At first, it was one or two, once or twice a month. But as the year progressed, it was not uncommon to have at least one join us each weekend and on occasion as many as four or five. And then parents and grandparents! And not only on Saturday mornings. They began to join us for Sunday Evening Prayer and also daily Mass when they were on holiday from school.
We have been honored to pray with the seniors throughout this year and welcomed their voices in our humble choir. And we so enjoyed the time with them as they fulfilled their two-week service assignment with us here in north Minneapolis, an “urban immersion” experience – a time when the seniors immerse themselves on the northside, getting to know and serving our neighbors. They volunteered at Northside Child Development Center in the morning; had lunch and conversation with a community leader at noon; served our neighbors in various ways in the afternoon.
Visitation Senior Service Project
Seniors helping with shopping and outreach
As we prayed together this year, we got to know one another, and they have helped us in many ways. In addition to praying with us, other service opportunities have included companioning one Sister on her weekly grocery store run and helping with our various outreaches – Door Ministry, Halloween, Thanksgiving Baskets, Christmas Party, Easter Baskets – as well as the mundane day-to-day of putting out bird seed and bringing in water hoses for the winter.
In the end, our work is prayer…and prayer is our work. Whether we are sitting in our Chapel or answering the door or meeting a neighbor’s need or putting out birdseed, all is prayer. And we have been exceedingly blessed by the Visitation seniors who have volunteered to help us pray in our north Minneapolis neighborhood this year.
