8 minute read
More than a century of life, faith and fun
Virgina Corn and the Serendipity Nuns
“I lived with my grandmother for three of my high school years,” she recalled. “I loved her stories, and I could go to school activities because she lived in town. I graduated in 1936.”
She recalled the “Dirty Thirties,” western Kansas’ Dust Bowl years, when blowing dust darkened days to night. She told of a Palm Sunday choir practice when the choir girls saw a dust storm rolling in and were advised to hurry home. Esther, her sister and a cousin left, and “… stood in front of the church, holding hands … we couldn’t see each other or anything else. It was terrible! We felt our way to a fence and went home hand over hand.”
Esther married Louis Huslig in 1938 and raised three daughters — Joyce, Ellie and Sylvia. They celebrated 53 years before Louis died in 1991. Esther moved to Lee’s Summit around 2001.
Virginia Corn was born on a farm near Holden, Missouri. The family moved to Kingsville when she was small. Her mother was an invalid, so Virginia kept house for her parents and brother. She cared for the cows, milked them and sold the milk to local producers. The family attended Mass at St. Patrick’s Church in Holden.
She attended country school through eighth grade, then quit to help her mother. “I never resented not going to high school,” Virginia said, “I learned a lot from my mother.” Ticking off her skills, she listed sewing, churning butter, cooking, canning, laundry, raising chickens and turkeys, harvesting and dressing them, slaughtering and brining hogs in “salt water strong enough to float an egg.” Apples dried on a shed’s roof. She learned to crochet and taught herself knitting. Virginia boasted a bit about her crocheted doilies, but she no longer knits or crochets.
In 1948, she married Raymond Corn, and they raised five sons and a daughter. 1957 saw the family move to Lee’s Summit, joining St. Mary’s Parish downtown. Raymond and Virginia loved to dance, attending tea dances in Blue Springs and Pleasant Hill regularly.
Their oldest son started school at St. Mary’s, and all six graduated from Our Lady of the Presentation after the parish church moved from downtown and changed its name. They attended public high school, and the boys “went to the hammer right after graduation,” she said. They formed a carpentry company and two are “still at it.” Their daughter is an accountant living near Lone Jack.
Virginia and Raymond celebrated 66 years before he died in 2014.
What are the ladies doing now? Esther joined Presentation’s Widows Group and recalled dressing as a “flapper” for one party. She attends Mass several times a week, still sews and quilts at John Knox Village twice weekly. She also plays pinochle weekly. When asked her secret to long life, Esther blithely replied, “Happy Hour!”
As the laughter faded, Virginia said her family is planning a big celebration for her birthday. She has “very good friends in the parish” and sees them often. About 15 years ago, she and some friends performed a “nun act” for a parish talent show. They purchased habits and pantomimed singing and dancing as in the movie “ Sister Act.” It was so popular she now plays a nun at “Talent and Tailgate” each June. She calls her “order” the Serendipity Nuns.
Virginia’s advice for a long life? “Age never meant anything special to me,” she said. “Just live!”
Couple prayer:
an Invitation to Grow Together
My wife and I hope to celebrate the 25th anniversary of our wedding in January. In almost 25 years of marriage, we have had many circumstances, both mundane and extraordinary, that inspired us to call upon God’s name in prayer. Even so, for decades we found praying together as a couple on a regular basis an elusive ideal that we could just never seem to attain.
In the Order of Celebrating Matrimony, there is a prayer offered immediately before the questions of consent. This prayer includes the following:
“Christ abundantly blesses the love that binds you. Through a special Sacrament, he enriches and strengthens those he has already consecrated by Holy Baptism, that they may be faithful to each other forever and assume all the responsibilities of married life.”
This prayer implies much.
In speaking blessing upon the love of the couple, it highlights the binding nature of conjugal love. The whole of their lives will be bound up together through the loving union of the sacrament they are about to enter.
It also grounds the unitive power of the Sacrament of Marriage in the grace of Baptism. For marriage to be a sacrament requires that both the man and woman are baptized. As individuals, baptized disciples are called to a life of prayer and service to others. Marriage is a sacrament that calls the spouses to serve one another and to pray together (as spouses and with children). Each of the spouses should have their own individual prayer commitment and should also pray as a family with their children (once given this blessing). Praying together, what might be called couple prayer, is an altogether different thing. It can take the to him in one another’s presence. We have found several fruits from this commitment. We have discovered the power of the words of Jesus “if two of you agree on earth about anything they ask, it shall be done for them by my Father in heaven.” (Mt 18:19) We help to hold one another accountable to this expression of prayer because we both know when it has taken place (or not). Each of us hears and learns what our spouse says in prayer and this has opened up a deeper level of empathy and understanding that goes beyond what good communication has ever provided. It has also increased our emotional intimacy; directly connecting our spiritual unity as children who daily speak to Our Father in heaven. A priest who wrote much on conjugal spirituality sums up the essence of couple prayer, “Jesus, through the Sacrament of Marriage, joins a man and a woman thus creating a sort of new sanctuary. Their relationship is this sanctuary in which/where Jesus Christ, a loving Son, desires to give His Father praise and atonement. This is the worship that He came to institute on earth.” (Father Henri Caffarel) form of praying the Rosary, traditional prayers If this simple method for praying together like the Our Father, the Liturgy of the Hours as a married couple sounds appealing, you and many other forms of vocal prayer given to can try it today. It doesn’t require any fancy us by the Church. technique. It only requires you to “step out”
My wife and I were given the gift of a clear in faith together and speak to God in your and simple introduction to a kind of prayer own words. This does require a certain level practiced together as a couple that we have of vulnerability, but it doesn’t require extensive found revolutionary. We were exposed to training. You can also seek out a retreat — this way of approaching couple prayer from like the Married Couples Retreat offered by a Catholic marriage apostolate (The Domestic the Domestic Church Movement or another Church Movement) that teaches this as part retreat that teaches this kind of prayer — for of the normal expression of what the Church guidance and a good retreat experience to begin calls conjugal spirituality. Put simply, this beautiful expression of married love conjugal spirituality (or married and prayer, shared from the heart. spirituality), offers the couple in Ultimately, the essential calling a Sacramental Marriage the possi- of marriage includes helping one’s bility of developing the kernel of spouse (and children) to attain spirituality given to them in the heaven through living their life as a Sacrament itself, to have a shared child of God. This is the essence of prayer life that builds upon their the call to holiness and is the effect individual prayer life. While of the grace of the Sacrament maintaining and developing of Matrimony. In this calling, their individual life of prayer, “prayer is a vital necessity ... spouses can commit to a dai- nothing is equal to prayer; for ly prayer in which they turn what is impossible it makes to God together to express possible, what is difficult, easy their love for Him; their ... For it is impossible, utterly gratitude, sufferings, desires, impossible, for the man (and disappointments and needs. woman) who prays eagerly This is done by speaking to and invokes God ceaselessly, God, out loud and listening ever to sin.” (CCC 2744)
Dino Durando is the Director of the Office of Domestic Church and Discipleship and the Office of Marriage and Family for the Diocese of Kansas CitySt. Joseph. He and his wife Cathy have been married (almost) 25 years and have 10 children and one grandchild.
Seminarians of the Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph studying at Conception Seminary College. As he was walking by the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon who is called Peter, and his brother Andrew, casting a net into the sea; they were fishermen. He said to them, “Come after me, and I will make you fishers of men.” At once, they left their nets and followed him.
Matthew 4:18-20
Conception Seminary College forms seminarians in the philosophical tradition of the Roman Catholic Church. Through academic, spiritual, pastoral, and human formation, we accompany men as they listen for God’s Voice, discern their priestly vocation, and become missionary disciples. Following the model of Jesus Christ, formation and conversion of heart are nurtured in the intimacy of community and deepened by the discipline of prayer in the Benedictine tradition. Join us in our mission of forming future priests. Pray for vocations | Make a gift Discuss priestly vocations in your parish
www.conception.edu
Virtual MCC Annual Assembly
New Podcast Series Available
The newest series from MCC from the Capitol is now available; topics include faithful citizenship, consistent life ethic, immigration, Catholic education, and biodiesel’s impact on the environment. Visit our website at mocatholic.orgor scan the QR code to listen to new (or old) podcast episodes!
